Community Partners for Eastland include:

The Eastland Disaster Historical Society
Friends of the Chicago River
The American Red Cross of Greater Chicago
The Old Town School of Folk Music
The Raven Foundation

Season Community Partners include:

Chicago Architectural Foundation
Chicago History Museum
WBEZ Chicago Public Radio

Community Engagement Programs

Free Panel Discussions -- Sundays at 4:30 pm

July 1, 2012

“Everything We’d Never Seen”: America and Chicago in the New Century
It’s 1915, the Titanic and Lusitania rest on the ocean floor, the world is at war, ragtime is changing American music, and Houdini mesmerizes millions with his escapes. A new current buzzes across the continent as electronic goods, from toasters to telephones, take up residence in almost every home in America, and Chicago’s Western Electric company is at the hub, employing the workers who make it all. On July 24, the Eastland, with 2500 employees aboard for a company picnic and day of leisure, is about to cast off…
Panelists include:
- Bill Savage, Professor of American History at Northwestern University
- Russell Lewis, Chicago History Museum

Lookingglass Theatre, 821 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago

Panel discussions are free and open to the public. Seating is subject to availability.

July 8, 2012

“Only The River Remains”: The Past, Present and Future of Chicago’s Great Artery
Once canoed by the Pottawotomie Indians, the Chicago River has been a bustling port, a path to the West, an open sewer, an inspiration to poets, an engineering experiment, a St. Patrick’s Day destination, and finally, more recently, the site one of the most ambitious environmental clean-up and preservation projects in history. What lies in the past and in the future of one of America’s most important historic waterways?
Panelists include:
- Geoffrey Baer, WTTW
- John Quail, Director of Watershed Planning, Friends of the Chicago River

Lookingglass Theatre, 821 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago

Panel discussions are free and open to the public. Seating is subject to availability.

July 15, 2012

“It’s Complicated”: Causes of the Eastland Disaster, and What Happened After
The Eastland disaster killed more Americans than any other single non-natural event until 9/11. Was it avoidable? What were the forces that contributed to the disaster? And who, if anyone, was to blame? In the criminal and civil trials that followed, did the families of those killed ever receive justice?
Panelists include:
- Alberta Adamson, Wheaton Center for History
- Rebecca Streifler, American Red Cross

Lookingglass Theatre, 821 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago

Panel discussions are free and open to the public. Seating is subject to availability.

July 22, 2012

“How Do we Make A Mark?” History, Memory, and Impermanence
There are movies, plays, and countless books about the S.S. Titanic…why so little about the S.S. Eastland, and what distinguished the two events? Every Chicagoan knows about The Great Fire…why have so few even heard of this disaster in the Chicago river that killed more than three times as many? What factors – other events and headlines? class? a human desire to “move on”? – shape which events linger in our memory and which become lost to history?
Panelists include:
- Ted Wachholz, Executive Director, Eastland Disaster Historical Society
- Jay Bonansinga, author of The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy
- Dr. Harvey Young, Northwestern University

Lookingglass Theatre, 821 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago

Panel discussions are free and open to the public. Seating is subject to availability.

July 29, 2012

“And Oh Yes, There Was Music…”: The Music of Eastland and 1915
The musical influences at play in Eastland are eclectic and varied, from contemporary folk to contemporaneous 1915 ragtime. How does the music of Eastland reflect the history of 1915 America? How does it differ from more traditional musicals? What other musical styles and influences were at play in the creation of this new American musical?
Panelists include:
- Michael Smith, from the cast of Eastland
- Andre Pluess and Ben Sussman, co-composers of Eastland
- Chris Walz, Old Town School of Folk Music, Program Manager, Blue Grass, Old Time, and Americana

Lookingglass Theatre, 821 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago

Panel discussions are free and open to the public. Seating is subject to availability.