Welcome back to "Flower in the River," where every episode is a journey through forgotten stories and hidden histories. In episode 48, I explore some unlikely and poignant connections to the Eastland Disaster.
The Eastland Disaster Unveiled: Learn about one of the most heart-wrenching tragedies in Chicago's history, where a crowded ship capsized in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915, claiming over 800 lives. I explore the disaster beyond the statistics, highlighting the affected community of working-class immigrants.
Personal Connection: I share a poignant family story, introducing you to my great aunt Martha Pfeiffer, a young victim of the Eastland Disaster. This personal angle provides a touching connection to the broader historical narrative.
A Curveball from History: The episode takes an unexpected turn with the story of Leslie Elliott Simmons, another victim whose family history challenges the narrative I expected. Examine the complexities of genealogy and the surprises it can hold (kind of like an exploding cigar!).
Challenging the Mayflower Myth: I recount a formative experience from my second-grade classroom, where the off-putting emphasis on Mayflower ancestry sparked my lifelong passion for uncovering true and inclusive family histories.
Leslie Elliott Simmons - A Mayflower Descendant on the Eastland: Explore the fascinating story of Leslie Simmons, from his ancestry to his tragic death on the Eastland. My research uncovers layers of American history through Simmons' story, challenging perceptions and highlighting the diversity of the past.
Bob Satterfield - Eyewitness through Art: Discover the role of political cartoonist Bob Satterfield, who captured the Eastland Disaster's horror through his powerful illustration AND article. Satterfield's work provides a unique perspective on the tragedy, emphasizing the impact of visual storytelling in history.
Final Reflections: I close with reflections on remembering and telling these stories, ensuring they remain part of our collective memory.
Join me in exploring history, personal connections, and the stories that bind us all. Remember to check our website for show notes, including links to resources and additional reading.
Welcome back to "Flower in the River," where every episode is a journey through forgotten stories and hidden histories. In episode 48, I explore some unlikely and poignant connections to the Eastland Disaster.
The Eastland Disaster Unveiled: Learn about one of the most heart-wrenching tragedies in Chicago's history, where a crowded ship capsized in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915, claiming over 800 lives. I explore the disaster beyond the statistics, highlighting the affected community of working-class immigrants.
Personal Connection: I share a poignant family story, introducing you to my great aunt Martha Pfeiffer, a young victim of the Eastland Disaster. This personal angle provides a touching connection to the broader historical narrative.
A Curveball from History: The episode takes an unexpected turn with the story of Leslie Elliott Simmons, another victim whose family history challenges the narrative I expected. Examine the complexities of genealogy and the surprises it can hold (kind of like an exploding cigar!).
Challenging the Mayflower Myth: I recount a formative experience from my second-grade classroom, where the off-putting emphasis on Mayflower ancestry sparked my lifelong passion for uncovering true and inclusive family histories.
Leslie Elliott Simmons - A Mayflower Descendant on the Eastland: Explore the fascinating story of Leslie Simmons, from his ancestry to his tragic death on the Eastland. My research uncovers layers of American history through Simmons' story, challenging perceptions and highlighting the diversity of the past.
Bob Satterfield - Eyewitness through Art: Discover the role of political cartoonist Bob Satterfield, who captured the Eastland Disaster's horror through his powerful illustration AND article. Satterfield's work provides a unique perspective on the tragedy, emphasizing the impact of visual storytelling in history.
Final Reflections: I close with reflections on remembering and telling these stories, ensuring they remain part of our collective memory.
Join me in exploring history, personal connections, and the stories that bind us all. Remember to check our website for show notes, including links to resources and additional reading.
Hello, I'm Natalie Zett and welcome to Flower in the River. This podcast, inspired by my book of the same name, explores the 1915 Eastland disaster in Chicago and its enduring impact, particularly on my family's history. I'll explore the intertwining narratives of others impacted by this tragedy as well, and will dive into writing and genealogy and uncover the surprising supernatural elements that surface in family history research. Come along with me on this journey of discovery. Welcome back to Flower in the River podcast. This is Episode 48. I'm Natalie, and this is a place where each petal tells a story and every current uncovers a piece of history long forgotten. How's that? For an intro, today I have two stories from the Eastland disaster. The first one was not what I expected not at all. So if you are new to this podcast, here's a bit about the Eastland disaster. It was a ship chartered by Western Electric for its annual company picnic, and it was a very crowded vessel and unstable vessel, and it capsized right in the Chicago River, right downtown, on July 24, 1915, claiming over 800 lives that day and probably a lot more than we realize. One of those lives was that of my great aunt. She was 19 years old at the time and her name was Martha Pfeiffer and she is the subject of my book. Flower in the River. The Eastland tragedy primarily claimed the lives of Western Electric workers, along with their loved ones, encompassing a community of working class immigrants, and their first generation American-born children. Oh, but this week history threw me a curveball in the form of another victim, a young man. But I want to take a step back just for a couple of seconds here.
Speaker 1:
In the very first episode of my podcast, unveiled in March of last year, I kicked things off with this zany tale from my second grade days in an inner city classroom. After this, a vibrant mosaic of kids, a mix of black, eastern European, southern European and Eastern European Jewish backgrounds, all from the working class tapestry of Cleveland, ohio. Our teacher who, I would learn many, many years later, shared my Eastern European immigrant roots, told us that we had to make a family tree and trace our ancestors back to the May Flower. You heard that right. Or else she said, if we couldn't do that, that meant we didn't have a family tree. It was really bizarre, and it seems even more bizarre as the years pass. But it was as if she thought somehow we'd find buckled shoes in our family closets or something. The likelihood of that was almost nil.
Speaker 1:
I remember coming home and telling my mother about this project and the look on her face. Then she sputtered around for a bit until she became very exasperated and said we're not May Flower people. I can't interpret what she meant these many years later, but it was as if she was declaring war or something on the May Flower people. I'm not sure about that and I wish she was around to ask about that. So the next day I marched back to school, told the teacher that we weren't May Flower people, and she looked at me and said with a smirk, I might add, then you don't have a family history and you're not a real American. So I think this teacher helped make me, because I was by nature someone who questioned authority then and now. And when this teacher laid down the May Flower gauntlet, my inner spitfire thought oh yeah, just you wait, I'll have a family tree that will rival the family tree of any of those May Flower people. You'll see, however, what I didn't count on.
Speaker 1:
This exchange left some really deep scars on my psyche, even though I didn't realize it. My folks, for one thing, had to do overtime constantly reassuring me that, yes, being born on this side of the Atlantic did indeed make me a bona fide American. No May Flower stamp needed. But even after this experience, there was, at least for my time growing up, this persistent smudge of May Flower elitism, and it clung to me like old chewing gum on the bottom of a shoe. Did those with the lineage dating back to Plymouth Rock truly think their genealogy was top shelf material? Well, honestly, it seemed as if at least some of them were curating their heritage around like it was a pair of exclusive, limited edition sneakers. And the rest of us? Well, we sported the more humble steerage, special edition. These types of experiences, even though I try to distance myself and brush them off. Sometimes, regardless of all of my protests, they seem to lie dormant or lie in wait for just the right situation to come up and bring it all back.
Speaker 1:
Well, I could rest assured that at least with the Eastland, there were no May Flower people aboard, or were there? Well, that's what I thought until this week. And then I got a new piece of information while I was researching. Here's Leslie Elliott Simmons. I just met him this week when I learned that he died on the Eastland, and I found his obit in one of the smaller papers, as I customarily do. I was creating a family tree for him to get an idea of who he was. Let's just say, without too much effort I was able to trace his family back to the 1500s and that was just the family in the United States. Yep, I was beyond shocked. I didn't expect that. While it's true, and it still is true, that most on the Eastland were working class Eastern and Central European or Southern European, not all were and I wondered how did this guy get on the Eastland? The greater question is whether it's doing this type of history or a family genealogical project.
Speaker 1:
What happens when you find a piece of information that disrupts your narrative? For a lot of us, our narrative can be very precious and we feel it defines who we are. The answer is easy. I didn't say it was painless, but it really is easy. You get over the shock, you tell the truth about what you've found and you make room for that new piece of information. And besides, I've done genealogic work long enough to know that you often have to do course correction. Even with your best intentions, you make mistakes because you get information from various places. Sometimes the information can seem legitimate and for the time it might have been, but then something new is uncovered. And that's what happens a lot of the time. But if you're so wedded to a particular narrative that you're dug in, it makes it difficult to tell the truth. So enough of that.
Speaker 1:
I want to formally introduce you to Leslie Elliott Simmons and his very large extended family. This is his obituary from a publication called the Forest Leaves in Forest Lake, illinois. It was published on July 30, 1915. Leslie Simmons, victim of the Eastland, is the headline. The death of Leslie Elliott Simmons in the Eastland Disaster takes from Oak Park. And that is Oak Park, illinois, one of its most accomplished young men. The funeral services were at the residence of his parents, mr and Mrs E Elliott Simmons, at 722 North Kenilworth on Monday morning and the burial was near Utica, new York, on Wednesday, at the former home of his parents. Dr Denman of the Baptist Church conducted the service.
Speaker 1:
Mr Simmons was born in Indianapolis 29 years ago and came to Oak Park when very young. He graduated from the Oak Park High School in 1904 and received a diploma four years later at the Armor Institute. He had been employed by the Western Electric Company for six years and in that time had risen to the position of head inspector of a large section of the plant. His rapid promotion in a company employing nearly 20,000 people was very remarkable. Mr Simmons' hobby was amateur photography, and it was his position as official photographer of the Hawthorne Club, under whose auspices the excursion was held, that took him into the catastrophe. He was also gifted as a musician, and he would often sit at the piano and play hymn tunes and patriotic airs to the delight of his friends. He was devoted to his home and sought his pleasures in companionship with the family. His body was one of the first to be recovered from the boat and it is believed that his death would not have resulted had his skull not been fractured by a fall as the boat capsized. Mr Simmons is survived by his parents and one sister, miss Gertrude, who attends the Oak Park High School. That's the end of the obituary, and before we go forward I need to make some corrections. Leslie was born in 1886 in Richfield, new York, not Indianapolis. He was 29 years old when he died.
Speaker 1:
He attended the Armor Institute in Chicago, and if that name sounds familiar, it should, because the Armor Institute has a rich history that predates its evolution into the Illinois Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1890 by Philip Danworth Armour, a prominent Chicago meatpacking magnate. You've heard of Armour Hot Dogs, right? Please tell me you have? That's the same guy. And the Armor Institute was established as a manual training school to offer practical technical education, which was actually very innovative at the time, thank you. The Institute was part of a broader movement during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that sought to provide education in the practical arts and sciences, aiming to equip students with the skills needed for industrial and engineering professions. The Institute offered courses in engineering, chemistry, architecture and library science, among others, and it quickly became a vital part of Chicago's educational and industrial landscape. And I'm reading all of that to give you an idea of how innovative Chicago was in this respect in terms of education. Good news I did find Leslie's photo in the Armour Institute's. Either it's a yearbook or some kind of student book.
Speaker 1:
Here's the bio that his fellow students crafted for Leslie Music, leslie Elliott Simmons, electrical engineering, armour Branch, aiee Camera Club. Sim comes from the Empire State, having been born in Richfield, new York, on July 17th 1886. He has never confided how he wandered so far from his native town. Mr Simmons is reputed quite the traveler, as every morning he embarks on that scenic railway which leads from Oak Park to civilization. Every morning he appears about ten minutes late and we know that the Oak Park L has been delayed again. His chief fad is that of being a camera fiend Music. As you can see, there was a little bit of humor in that bio and it gives us a slice of his life when he was a student Leaving Oak Park, getting on the L, which is a train, heading to Chicago, and then always being late, I guess and then going back at night to do whatever he needed to do homework or additional work. But that was his ordinary life at that point. That's Leslie, and so we can deduce that the reason he was on the ship in the first place was that because he was the photographer for the Hawthorne Club, and that was the employees club.
Speaker 1:
Western Electric also had a news magazine that it put out, and this article is from the February 1913 issue of the Western Electric News. L E Simmons, inspector in charge of the insulating and braiding section, gave some of his friends a pleasant surprise. At the banquet, each of the ten who sat at table number 35 received a souvenir, a booklet and a vest, pocket Kodak pictures of himself and the others at the table. It was very neatly made up and greatly appreciated by the recipients. The fact that, as an inspector and as a manager type, that he went to this extra effort, that Leslie took the time to make these mementos for his staff he didn't have to do that, but he did that says a lot about him as a person.
Speaker 1:
Here's some more about Leslie's very fascinating background. Yes, he was a direct descendant from the pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower Hold on. But here's the other thing. In fact, many of Leslie's ancestors settled in what was called the New World before the Mayflower. That was 1620. The history of early immigration to Plymouth, massachusetts, sadly, is often overshadowed by the Mayflower story, as is often the case. This is not the complete story. It's just something that we've repeated over and over again and that incomplete narrative sucks up all the sunlight. But there were indeed other groups and individuals who made the journey to New England or the New World seeking new opportunities or religious freedom before the Mayflower. Needless to say, I did not expect to find that with someone who died on the Eastland, what about the rest of his family, his survivors? Wow, not even a month after the Eastland disaster.
Speaker 1:
Leslie's father also made the news. This is from the Oak Park Leaves newspaper date August 15, 1915. Headline E E Simmons shot Oak Park man attacked while paying off help. Robbers' bullet passes through right leg is recovering. A bullet wound in the right leg from which E E Simmons of 722 North Kenilworth is suffering as a result of a conflict with two robbers in his office last Saturday is not proving as serious as was first feared and the attending physicians at West Suburban Hospital, where Mr Simmons is confined, believe that his recovery will be rapid unless blood poisoning sets in.
Speaker 1:
Mr Simmons, as cashier of the American Posting Service, was paying off the force at the office 757 West Jackson, chicago. Saturday afternoon. Having just completed the task, he turned from locking the inner door of the safe to look into the leveled revolvers of two highwaymen at the cashier's wicket. Without regard for his own safety, simmons leaped into the swinging gate to prevent one of the intruders from entering the enclosure. A hand-to-hand combat ensued. Mr Simmons seized one of the robbers' hands, which grasped a gun, and pointed the weapon toward the ceiling. An instant later, the other of the pair of attacking men fired a shot from behind Mr Simmons which passed through his leg just below his hip. The wounded man fell to the floor and later fainted During the combat, immanuel Stelhin, who was the last man to receive his, having been assaulted by the other two men, accomplices of those who shot Simmons. The cries of Mr Simmons and Mr Stelhin summoned other men from the other parts of the building. Seeing themselves outnumbered, the robbers fled to the street where they jumped into a Ford, the engine of which was running, and made away before anyone could stop them. They have not been apprehended.
Speaker 1:
Mr Simmons is making a rapid recovery due, in the mind of the physicians, to his temperate habits and excellent physical condition. With the other members of the family, he recently underwent severe strain at the time of the death of his son, leslie Simmons, in the Eastland disaster. That's one of the few articles that I've read so far where they've referenced somebody who lost somebody in the Eastland disaster, at least from that time period, and I appreciate it that they did not try to gloss over the seriousness of this, but instead they referenced the severe strain that the family had gone through because they lost their son. And then, just two years later, in 1917, leslie's mother passed away. Here's the obit Mrs Sarah Jane Dygert Simmons, wife of E Eliot Simmons, died on Tuesday at her residence, 722 North Kenilworth.
Speaker 1:
Mrs Simmons was born at Shuler Lake, new York, in 1859 and had lived in Oak Park for the last 20 years. Her son, leslie Simmons, was one of the victims of the Eastland disaster. She was a member of the First Baptist Church and of the DAR. Funeral services were held at her late home on Thursday morning and she too was buried in New York. Okay, so the obituary mentioned the DAR. The DAR, or Daughters of the American Revolution, is a US-based heritage organization for women who can trace their ancestry back to individuals involved in the United States independence. It's dedicated to promoting patriotism, preserving American history and securing America's future through better education for children. Since its founding in 1890, the DAR has been involved in various community service projects, including historical preservation, education, scholarships and patriotic endeavors. Now, in 1927, elliot E Simmons, who was Leslie's father, passed away.
Speaker 1:
Death of Elliot E Simmons. Elliot E Simmons of A22 North Kennellworth died last Saturday evening after a few days illness in a hospital. Mr Simmons had always been active and only two weeks ago celebrated his 69th birthday anniversary with a card party at his home. At the time of his death he held the office of secretary to the general outdoor advertising company and in addition, was accountant for the Carol Ice Cream Company. Coming from New York, as a young man he attended Northwestern University and received his degrees there. For nearly thirty years he made his home in Oak Park. He has survived by a daughter, gertrude, and a brother, henry Simmons, who lived with them. Also a brother, charles A Simmons of Amory, wisconsin. Mr Denman conducted a short service on Tuesday, after which the body was taken to Paris Hill, new York, where are buried Mrs Simmons and a son, leslie, who was a victim of the Eastland disaster.
Speaker 1:
His sister was the only one left from that immediate family. Just twelve years after she became for a while a school teacher and then she eventually bought and then ran a retail stationary store for a number of years and the store was called Simmons, and she was very involved in the community. Gertrude traveled all over the place, she did presentations and she sold her store in 1958 and moved to California where she was very involved as an officer in the DAR. Gertrude Simmons died in 1985. She was living in Los Angeles and she was 88 years old.
Speaker 1:
I can say that, after immersing myself in the history of the Simmons family. I left with an entirely different impression of the Mayflower people here. They lost someone on the Eastland, as did I, as did so many other people, anybody who lost anybody in that event. Well, we're all one big family and they are part of our family. I'm so sorry that their years on this side of the veil were so painful, filled with so much loss and so much grief. But who knows, perhaps Gertrude was strengthened by her own ancestors as well and that maybe gave her the strength to go on and continue being involved in contributing and helping where she could during her years on Earth. Now I am going to switch gears, really switch gears.
Speaker 1:
There's another person who kept popping up on my research radar and I thought I've got to include him as well. His name is Bob Satterfield. Robert Satterfield, he was a political cartoonist and he happened to be in Chicago and down by the docks on the day of the Eastland disaster. He shouldn't have been there, but there he was For someone as prominent as he once was as a cartoonist. There's not that much information available about him, but from what I could ascertain, bob Satterfield was one of those sharp-witted political cartoonists whose pen was definitely mightier than the sword, often leaving a mark on public opinion through his incisive and humorous illustrations.
Speaker 1:
Satterfield's career spanned a significant period of the 20th century, a time that was rife with change and turbulence, and it provided ample fodder for his creative genius. His cartoons were not just drawings, they were powerful statements on justice, democracy and the human condition, making him a respected figure. And I'm guessing too, because he had that kind of influence, he was probably feared too, particularly by politicians. The interesting thing, if you think about the population of this time period many people they were literate in their native languages, the places that they came from, but learning English was often difficult, and that inability to understand English might have kept them isolated at first. However, it's a good reminder of the power of graphic images in that they often are a universal language. Everyone more or less can understand them, no matter where they're from, no matter what language they speak, and some of the cartoonists, satterfield included, were just extraordinary in terms of their abilities to communicate On and off.
Speaker 1:
Throughout the years I've seen the cartoon that Satterfield did about the Eastland disaster, but, to be honest, I never sat down and examined it until this week. But he also wrote something, and I'm really sorry that I could not locate any of his other writings. I hope they exist someplace, because he knows how to also illustrate with words as easily as he could with his pen. This is from the Cairo Bulletin, and Cairo is in Illinois. Monday, july 26, 1915, and the Eastland disaster took place on the 24th of July. So this was just a couple of days later, and that's how fast Bob Satterfield worked. The title of the article is River Grew Black with People Like Flies on Sugar when Boat Toppled. Okay, before you listen to this article that Bob Satterfield wrote, please know that it is very graphic. He does not spare any detail about what he saw when the Eastland capsized. So if you think that's going to be difficult to listen to, just join me next week for a different type of episode. But just take care of yourself, okay? Editors note cartoonist Robert W Satterfield was crossing the river on an elevated train when the Eastland disaster occurred. He saw the whole disaster and watched the frantic struggles in the water from a distance of only 100 yards. He made the above picture of the catastrophe while the terrors and horrors of it were still fresh in his mind. His story follows by Robert Satterfield, the famous cartoonist who was an eyewitness of the sinking of the SS Eastland, chicago, july 24th.
Speaker 1:
I was just crossing the Clark Street Bridge when I noticed the steamship Eastland, crowded with people and with flags and penance waving. They were just beginning to haul her away from the pier. I noticed the crowds that blackened the deck, then looked away, for it was 740 and I was hurrying to the office. As I did so, I heard a woman shriek, just one piercing scream that rose high above the din and bustle of the early morning traffic. I looked toward the Eastland again and the big excursion boat was tipping over and turning over on her side toward the middle of the river, tumbling its holiday deck load of passengers into the swirling water. The people, in order to see the tugboat start pulling the Eastland into the river, had rushed to the port railing. The weight of thousands was too much and the top heavy boat rolled over, practically turning turtle. The air was filled with the shrieks of men and women and the thinner shrillers, screams of hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of little children. Or, as I learned later, it was the annual picnic excursion of the thousands of employees of the Western Electric Company.
Speaker 1:
As I ran toward the end of the bridge to reach the pier, I could see the tumbling thousands of pleasure seekers fighting and scrambling as they were swept into the water. Women and children and babies, with a sprinkling of men, were brushed into the river as some giant hand would sweep crumbs from a huge table. For an instant the part of the deck that still showed the railing and the slimy moss grown now upturned bottom of the vessel were cleared. The next instant it was blackened with human beings, as flies swarming on a lump of sugar blacken it Only, instead of flies it was half-crazed picnickers crawling and fighting their way out from inside the boat. Hundreds of the hundreds that, screaming and scrambling, managed to crawl through the portholes and hatchways and reach and cling to the side and railing on the starboard side of the boat that now protruded from the water. Still more hundreds were trapped below.
Speaker 1:
It was an hour or more later before rescuers managed to reach these hundreds of drowned. Many more passengers were before decks than above. They had been herded and jammed into the big passageways on the lower deck just as the order to cast off was given. The big gates across the entrance hatches had been put in place and as the boat turned they were trapped like cattle in a pen. Hundreds were drowned without a chance. They could not reach the upper deck for the crowds and they could not try to leap for the pier because of the gates. Women near the gates tried to toss babies and children to the outstretched hands on the pier. Some were caught and others dropped into the water between the boats and the slimy piling and sucked under and drowned. Police from the nearby streets rushed to take charge. With their clubs they cleared the pier of the terrified hundreds, the overflow of picnickers who had been waiting to get on the boat but could not. I turned back and managed to climb down on a bulkhead under the bridge. There I could see the water filled with bobbing heads. Life preservers were rained into the river by the wagon, load Everyone that could grab something that would float through it to the struggling mass of victims Choking in the muddy water. The victims were drawn under and carried down the river by the river faster than they could be, pulled into the fleet of lifeboats and tugs that were arriving on the scene.
Speaker 1:
Now that's the end of the article and I have to say, not to make an unintentional pun that was one of the most graphic descriptions I have ever read of what happened when the Eastland capsized, and I will post Bob Satterfield's cartoon on my website, so make sure to take a look at it, and I will also include it in the graphic that I distribute when I publish the podcast. So take a look at that and see what kind of messages or what kind of images it evokes in you. I'll tell you briefly what struck me when I looked at it. His use of stark black and white contrasts adds a dramatic effect to the scene, emphasizing the chaos and urgency of the moment. Satterfield captures the panic. People are depicted clamoring for safety on the upper decks, while others are seen in the water, some clinging to overturned lifeboats Beyond. Lookers from the dock add a layer to the narrative, as their body language suggests shock and horror. At the unfolding scene, despite the stillness of the drawing, there's a palpable sense of motion and turmoil. The illustration serves not only as a historical record, but also as a poignant reminder of the vulnerability of life. It's a powerful piece that tells a story far beyond that which words could convey, truly showcasing his talent. And just 10 years before the Eastland disaster, bob Satterfield lost his first wife. I believe he was married two more times, but I need to do a little more researching on his life, but here's what I did find out about his background.
Speaker 1:
Robert William Satterfield, born October 18, 1875 in Sharon, pennsylvania, died on February 17, 1958, in Glendale, california. He was also known as Sat. He also created the comic strips the Family Next Door on Thunder and the Bicker Family. He drew this cute little tiny black bear that he would place in various locations in his comic strip or in his cartoon, usually on the bottom of the right or left, and it was called Sat's Bear. His career began in 1896 after studying art part-time in Pittsburgh. He then moved to Youngstown, ohio, for work and began sending unsolicited cartoons, most of which were based on the William Jennings-Briand presidential campaign, to the Cleveland Press. The Press's editor eventually bought one and hired Satterfield as a regular artist. In 1898, satterfield was transferred to the Kansas City world where he functioned as the entire art department for four years until 1902 when he was hired to be the full-time cartoonist for the Cleveland News. By 1917, editor and publisher said that his work had the largest circulation of any syndicated cartoons in the United States. Later he worked for the newspaper Enterprise Association. In 1928, he produced Picture Life of a Great American Pictorial Life of Herbert Hoover a prototype of a comic book in association with the Herbert Hoover presidential campaign.
Speaker 1:
So if you like cartoons, graphic novels or comic books, bob Satterfield is one of those people that you can thank for all of that. So if you are interested in looking at more of Bob Satterfield's cartoons, many of them are available on Wikimedia Commons and, yes, I'll put a link in the show notes for you. So that's it for this podcast and I hope you enjoyed meeting these two very different people who were part of the Eastland disaster. Take care and I'll talk to you next week. Hey, that's it for this episode and thanks for coming along for the ride. Please subscribe or follow so you can keep up with all the episodes and for more information, please go to my website that's wwwflowerintherevercom. I hope you'll consider buying my book available as audiobook, ebook, paperback and hardcover, because I still owe people money and that's my running joke. But the one thing I'm serious about is that this podcast and my book are dedicated to the memory of all who experienced the Eastland disaster of 1915. Goodbye for now.