Bohemian National Cemetery

This guide to Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago centers on the steamer Eastland, moored on the Chicago River on a July morning in 1915 to carry Western Electric workers to a company picnic, overloaded with families from Cicero and Pilsen. It traces the ship's reputation for being fast but unstable, and the new safety law passed after the Titanic that forced extra lifeboats onto her deck without anyone fixing her balance first. Look for the bronze ship's wheel, sunk into a slab of granite in section sixteen, where more than a hundred of the dead are buried.