Secrets of North Brother Island

The Secrets of North Brother Island is about the unsolveddisaster in 1904 of the burning and sinking of the pleasure boatGeneral Slocum, the worst nonmilitary disaster in Americanhistory before September 11, 2001. It is often called the forgottendisaster because of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and theoutbreak of World War I in 1914. However, nearly 1100 perishedon the Slocum, half of them children, in what was to have beena church picnic. The captain ran it aground on North BrotherIsland despite the fact that the fi re broke out beside Rikers Island,equipped with a full fi re-fi ghting brigade. Crane relates it to theCivil War forty years earlier and revenge against General Slocumby one man he caused to be imprisoned in Andersonville. Thesepyromaniacs are also related to the record-setting fi res between1900 and 1911, such as The Triangle Shirtwaist fi re.