Review by Mack Hassler
“then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
for the first heaven and the first heaven and
the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” Revelation 21:1
A key image, almost a character itself, in Schumacher’s powerful narrative Along Lake Michigan is the shape and the geographic description of the body of water itself. Second only to Lake Superior in size, Michigan is positioned North to South so that a North wind drives the whole massive body of water southward toward Chicago so that it might surge straight along Michigan Avenue in a modern emulation of Noah’s flood. In fact, the epigraph above expresses just how much the ancient Hebrews were terrified of large bodies of water. God, in fact used the Red Sea to dispose of the entire Egyptian army; Jonah was swallowed alive by a monster of the sea; and from Job to Jesus himself prophets and priests are telling the ocean waters to “be still.”
Very early, Schumacher makes this important point about his about his subject matter:
“I learned to love the lake and respect its power. But it was not until the first time that I flew over the lake that I appreciated its enormity.” (p. 1)
Lake Michigan is literally like one of our oceans itself as a body of water and its Configurstion at the far end of our Great Lakes. He goes on to enumerate that it holds more shipwrecks than the four other Great Lakes combined and it sheer size has a lot to do with it
The Lady Elgin
So his book has a very large story to tell, and Schumacher organizes it well. He devotes a chapter to each of fourteen major wrecks that date from 1847 untill 1940. In my reading of the set, none of which I had read about before, I especially like the sad stories set at the time when Chicago down at the bottom of the lake was beginning its rapid development commercially and politically to rival the East. The Union League Club was founded in 1860 to support the Union cause and to cheer on Lincoln’s debates with Douglas. The area a bit south of the Stockyards was beginning to be thought of as a destination point for the herds of hogs and cattle at the same moment a very large passenger boat steaming down the lake carrying hundreds to hear a Lincoln speech. The Lady Elgin was rammed broadside in a heavy thunderstorm by a much smaller cargo ship . The Lady Elgin was broken in half , and in the investigation afterward there was some question about a compartment that ought to have been sealed to keep her afloat being left open and flooded. 300 people drowned. Schumacher tells it well that wreck is dated
Another of my favorites is the chapter on The Eastland dated (1915). The President Is Woodow Wilson though Teddy Roosevelt is a member of the Union League Club The Stockyards in an area to the south called Parkington are thriving to feed the nation and, also, apparently to create a huge odor for the area. The Eastland is capsized this time by a big storm and this time Schumacher uses some great pictures of the interior of the capsized ship in the narrative. The Lady Elgin had to rely on artist’s renderings of the rescue efforts in high seas.
I have reviewed several hardcover volumes from University of Minnesota Press and they have always been beautiful books. This work by Schumacher is in the same design and mode . I am looking at Advanced Reading Copy of Along Lake Michigan, but I am sure the end product will be a beautiful book, and the narrative is both well-researched and exciting to read. If you like Lake Michigan and if you like Chicago at its base as a great American City you will want this book in your Library.
Along Lake Michigan: Shipwreck Stories of Life and Loss, by Michael Schumacher (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis MN, 2025) 200 pages, $24.95 Hardcover.
