It was the summer that broke America's heart. In 1915, Chicago commuters were horrified to see the SS Eastland, a massive LakeMichigan steamship, flip over while tied to its dock. More than eight hundred poorfactory workers and their children drowned. Twenty-two whole families perished. Thenation cried out for justice. Drawing on previously unpublished evidence from theNational Archives, Ashes Under Water is the untold story of a mysterious industrialatrocity and how the prosperous, guilty Eastland owners tried to shift the blame to thewhistleblower and one true hero on the ship, Engineer Joseph Erickson, a workingclass immigrant. Against all odds, an attorney down on his luck at the time thenstepped in to save him: Clarence Darrow, the future legal star. A national tragedy, Chicago politics, corrupt businessmen, a courtroom drama all woven into one spellbinding narrative. Author Michael McCarthy takes us back one hundred years to one of the most shocking accidents in American history. But the aftermath and the cover-up just may have been worse."