“A harrowing and laborious occupation”: preservation in the 1904 General Slocum disaster identifications

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the summer of 1904, the passenger ship General Slocum caught fire on New York City’s East River, resulting in the deaths of approximately 1,021 people. This article examines the city’s formal response to these deaths, specifically investigating the technologies deployed by city officials and employees to help overcome the natural limits of the corpse to increase the likelihood for identification. I argue that these technologies of preservation – corporeal, visual, and written – were motivated not only by the desire to assist the victim’s families but also by a new culture of urban bureaucracy that tasked municipalities with containing urban chaos. As such, this event foreshadowed an emerging modern disaster victim identification paradigm as a state-managed, bureaucratic process that both aided and alienated victims’ families.