Tinder Box: The Iroquois Theatre Disaster 1903
It is often said that history repeats itself as farce; events of this year have proven that it can also repeat itself as tragedy. One hundred years after fire in Chicago's Iroquois Theatre killed 602 people in a matter of minutes, we have seen massive loss of life at nightspots in Chicago and West Warwick, Rhode Island. The Iroquois, of course, remains the worst theater fire in American history. Hatch grew up in Chicago, and his father, a fire-insurance executive, owned a book published in 1904 to raise money for families of the victims. The pictures and testimonies in that book began Hatch's deep interest in the fire. His riveting and often infuriating narrative is an indictment of the hubris and negligence of the owners and city officials. Hatch, a former writer and reporter for CBS News, utilizes interviews and correspondence with survivors of the fire, which lends a special poignancy to the story. This is a painful but superbly written work about a wholly unnecessary tragedy.Jay FreemanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved