We recently received a donation of four album pages containing a total of sixteen photos.  These photos were taken by Chicago Evening Post photographer, Jun Fujita.  Fujita, who was the Post's only photographer, was at work early for no reason at all, heard the report about the Eastland rolling over, snatched up his equipment, and took off without hesitating.  For hours his city editor, phoning his home in vain, didn't know where he was.  Shooting right and left, Fujita climbed on the overturned vessel and was confronted by a fireman coming out of the hull with a dead child held tenderly in his arms and a look of sheer horror on his face.  That picture was one of the sixteen included with the donation. Donations of artifacts are very important to our efforts to record the history of the Eastland Disaster and to share it with the public for years to come.  Artifacts help us in the area of research and in putting together timelines of when things happened and where things were during the aftermath of the tragedy.  Artifacts give us a way to let the public "see" and experience the Eastland Disaster, rather than being limited to only reading about it.  Artifacts also help us to share information (such as personal quotes and photos) with the hundreds of families whose ancestors were involved, bringing their ancestors' involvement in the Eastland Disaster to life.

Please direct questions and comments to the Eastland Disaster Historical Society at info@eastlanddisaster.org.

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