The Collinwood Tragedy
The Story of the Worst School Fire in American History
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The Collinwood Tragedy
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Narrated by:
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Tom Lennon
About this listen
Children at Lakeview Elementary School were at work on their lessons when fifth-grader Emma Neibert noticed wisps of smoke, a discovery that led to a panicked stampede inside the school—the chaos of nine teachers trying to control and then save pupils in overcrowded classrooms. Outside, desperate parents and would-be rescuers fought to save as many children as possible, while Collinwood’s inadequate volunteer fire department—joined by members of the Cleveland fire department—fought a losing battle with the rapidly spreading blaze.
While some inside jumped from the building to safety, most were trapped. Ultimately, 172 children, two teachers, and one rescue worker were killed, and the Collinwood community was irrevocably changed.
The Collinwood Tragedy: The Story of the Worst School Fire in American History describes not only the events of that fateful day but also their lingering effects. James Jessen Badal’s extensive research reveals how the citizens of Collinwood were desperate to find someone to blame for the tragedy. Rumor and suspicion splintered the grieving community. And yet they also rose to the challenge of healing: officials reached out to immigrant families unsure of their rights; city charities, churches, and relief agencies responded immediately with medical help, comfort for the bereaved, and financial support; and fundraising efforts to assist families totaled more than $50,000—more than $1 million in today’s terms.
The book is published by The Kent State University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
“A meticulously researched, clearly rendered narrative...that will appeal to not only historical researchers and history buffs, but to general readers as well.” (Ron Rozelle, author of My Boys and Girls Are in There)
©2020 The Kent State University Press (P)2022 Redwood AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
Over the course of less than 24 hours in the spring of 1921, Tulsa’s infamous “Black Wall Street” was wiped off the map - and erased from the history books. Official records were disappeared, researchers were threatened, and the worst single incident of racial violence in American history was kept hidden for more than 50 years. But there were some secrets that would not die. A riveting and essential new book, The Ground Breaking not only tells the long-suppressed story of the notorious Tulsa race massacre.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book on the Tulsa Massacre
- By vivabooks on 08-15-21
By: Scott Ellsworth
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Chicago's Great Fire
- The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City
- By: Carl Smith
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
From an acclaimed historian, the full and authoritative story of one of the most iconic disasters in American history, told through the vivid memories of those who experienced it. Carl Smith’s compelling narrative at last gives this epic event its full and proper place in our national chronicle.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A good read
- By Lori on 11-23-24
By: Carl Smith
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Chicago Death Trap
- The Iroquois Theatre Fire of 1903
- By: Nat Brandt
- Narrated by: Gary Regal
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
On the afternoon of December 30, 1903, during a sold-out matinee performance, a fire broke out in Chicago's Iroquois Theatre. In the short span of twenty minutes, more than six hundred people were asphyxiated, burned, or trampled to death in a panicked mob's failed attempt to escape. In Chicago Death Trap: The Iroquois Theatre Fire of 1903, Nat Brandt provides a detailed chronicle of this horrific event to assess not only the titanic tragedy of the fire itself but also the municipal corruption and greed that kindled the flames beforehand and the political cover-ups hidden in the smoke and ash afterwards.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not just about the disaster
- By Emily on 06-03-14
By: Nat Brandt
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Triangle
- The Fire That Changed America
- By: David Von Drehle
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 229
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 203
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 202
On March 25, 1911, as workers were getting ready to leave for the day, a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village. Within minutes it spread to consume the building's upper three stories. Firemen who arrived at the scene were unable to rescue those trapped inside: their ladders simply weren't tall enough. People on the street watched in horror as desperate workers jumped to their deaths. It was the worst disaster in New York City history.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting but Loong
- By JAS on 04-21-18
By: David Von Drehle
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Ship Ablaze
- The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum
- By: Edward T. O'Donnell
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
There were few experienced swimmers among over 1,300 Lower East Side residents who boarded the General Slocum on June 15, 1904. It shouldn't have mattered since the steamship was only chartered for a languid excursion from Manhattan to Long Island Sound. But a fire erupted minutes into the trip, forcing hundreds of terrified passengers into the water. By the time the captain found a safe shore for landing, 1,021 had perished. It was New York's deadliest tragedy prior to September 11, 2001.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I love learning the “rest of the story”
- By Mark Mears on 07-17-18
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This Is Chance!
- The Shaking of an All-American City, a Voice That Held It Together
- By: Jon Mooallem
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 175
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 146
In the spring of 1964, Anchorage, Alaska, was a modern-day frontier town yearning to be a metropolis - the largest, proudest city in a state that was still brand-new. But just before sundown on Good Friday, the community was jolted by the most powerful earthquake in American history, a catastrophic 9.2 on the Richter Scale. This Is Chance! is the thrilling, cinematic story of a community shattered by disaster - and the extraordinary woman who helped pull it back together.
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4 out of 5 stars
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amazing story
- By Dani L on 02-07-21
By: Jon Mooallem
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Washed Away
- How the Great Flood of 1913, America’s Most Widespread Natural Disaster, Terrorized a Nation and Changed It Forever
- By: Geoff Williams
- Narrated by: Jim Vann
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4 out of 5 stars 46
The incredible story of a flood of near-Biblical proportions - its destruction, its heroes and victims, and how it shaped America’s natural-disaster policies for the next century. The storm began March 23, 1913, with a series of tornadoes that killed 150 people and injured 400. Then the freezing rains started and the flooding began. It was the nation’s most widespread flood ever - more than 700 people died, hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings were destroyed, and millions were left homeless.
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3 out of 5 stars
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I love these historical narratives
- By Kim Hamacher on 07-28-15
By: Geoff Williams
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The Burning
- Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921
- By: Tim Madigan
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 312
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 264
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Story5 out of 5 stars 263
On the morning of June 1, 1921, a white mob numbering in the thousands marched across the railroad tracks dividing black from white in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and obliterated a black community then celebrated as one of America's most prosperous. The Burning will recreate the town of Greenwood at the height of its prosperity, explore the currents of hatred, racism, and mistrust between its black residents and neighboring Tulsa's white population, narrate events leading up to and including Greenwood's annihilation, and document the subsequent silence that surrounded the tragedy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hard to listen to, but a must read.
- By Amazon Customer on 06-17-20
By: Tim Madigan
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The White Devil's Daughters
- The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown
- By: Julia Flynn Siler
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
During the first hundred years of Chinese immigration - from 1848 to 1943 - San Francisco was home to a shockingly extensive underground slave trade in Asian women, who were exploited as prostitutes and indentured servants. In this gripping, necessary book, best-selling author Julia Flynn Siler shines a light on this little-known chapter in our history - and gives us a vivid portrait of the safe house to which enslaved women escaped.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Well researched
- By Qats reads on 08-05-19
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Ghosts of the Tsunami
- Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone
- By: Richard Lloyd Parry
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 536
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 471
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 474
On March 11, 2011, a powerful earthquake sent a 120-foot-high tsunami smashing into the coast of northeast Japan. By the time the sea retreated, more than eighteen thousand people had been crushed, burned to death, or drowned. It was Japan’s greatest single loss of life since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It set off a national crisis and the meltdown of a nuclear power plant. And even after the immediate emergency had abated, the trauma of the disaster continued to express itself in bizarre and mysterious ways.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Riveting True Story You Didn't Hear On The News
- By Kathy in CA on 07-05-18
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Panic
- Bloodlands collection
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Steven Weber
- Length: 1 hr and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 986
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 858
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Story4 out of 5 stars 857
During the Depression, economic anxieties found an outlet in a series of child murders that triggered an irrational nationwide hysteria: pedophiliac psychopaths were overrunning the country. As America was brought to rage and fury by the press and the FBI, lynch mobs took to the streets, reason gave way to doomsday scenarios, and one father was even driven to murder his three daughters to “save them” from a degenerate crime wave. A terrifying cautionary essay, Panic explores the combustible mix of unfounded fears, moral crusades, and the dangers of collective thinking.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Too sensational
- By Texaspaz on 10-14-20
By: Harold Schechter
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Tinderbox
- The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation
- By: Robert W. Fieseler
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
Buried for decades, the Up Stairs Lounge tragedy has only recently emerged as a catalyzing event of the gay liberation movement. In revelatory detail, Robert W. Fieseler chronicles the tragic event that claimed the lives of 31 men and one woman on June 24, 1973, at a New Orleans bar, the largest mass murder of gays until 2016. Relying on unprecedented access to survivors and archives, Fieseler creates an indelible portrait of a closeted, blue-collar gay world that flourished before an arsonist ignited an inferno that destroyed an entire community.
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4 out of 5 stars
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New Orleanians are Picky
- By Samantha Ruegge-Winn on 10-25-19
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Hiroshima
- By: John Hersey
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 988
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 855
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 859
A journalistic masterpiece. John Hersey transports us back to the streets of Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945 - the day the city was destroyed by the first atomic bomb. Told through the memories of six survivors, Hiroshima is a timeless, powerful classic that will awaken your heart and your compassion. In this new edition, Hersey returns to Hiroshima to find the survivors - and to tell their fates in an eloquent and moving final chapter.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hiroshima, the days and years that followed
- By Julia on 04-15-15
By: John Hersey
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The Great Halifax Explosion
- A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism
- By: John U. Bacon
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 358
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 320
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 319
From best-selling author John U. Bacon, a gripping narrative history of the largest manmade detonation prior to Hiroshima. On Monday, December 3, 1917, the French freighter SS Mont-Blanc set sail from Brooklyn carrying the largest cache of explosives ever loaded onto a ship, including 2,300 tons of picric acid, an unstable, poisonous chemical more powerful than TNT.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Too much hostility towards Americans
- By bigdaddyKT on 12-14-19
By: John U. Bacon
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Death in the Air
- The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City
- By: Kate Winkler Dawson
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 422
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 384
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 382
A real-life thriller in the vein of The Devil in the White City, Kate Winkler Dawson's debut, Death in the Air, is a gripping, historical narrative of a serial killer, an environmental disaster, and an iconic city struggling to regain its footing. In winter 1952, London automobiles and thousands of coal-burning hearths belched particulate matter into the air. But the smog that descended on December fifth of 1952 was different; it was a type that held the city hostage for five long days.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting
- By irene on 11-27-17
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The Tulsa Massacre of 1921
- The Controversial History and Legacy of America’s Worst Race Riot
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Stephen Platt
- Length: 1 hr and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
It all began on Memorial Day, May 31, 1921. Around or after 4:00 p.m. that day, a clerk at Renberg’s clothing store on the first floor of the Drexel Building in Tulsa heard a woman scream. Turning in the direction of the scream, he saw a young black man running from the building. Going to the elevator, the clerk found the white elevator operator, 17-year-old Sarah Page, crying and distraught. The clerk concluded that she had been assaulted by the black man he saw running a few moments earlier and called the police.
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5 out of 5 stars
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History's painful truth
- By C.Simons on 06-05-20
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Black Death at the Golden Gate
- The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague
- By: David K. Randall
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 109
For Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King, surviving in San Francisco meant a life in the shadows. His passing on March 6, 1900, would have been unremarkable if a city health officer hadn't noticed a swollen black lymph node on his groin - a sign of bubonic plague. Empowered by racist pseudoscience, officials rushed to quarantine Chinatown while doctors examined Wong's tissue for telltale bacteria. If the devastating disease was not contained, San Francisco would become the American epicenter of an outbreak that had already claimed 10 million lives worldwide.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Plague, Racism, Public Health..a toxic mix.
- By Steve Adams on 07-11-19
By: David K. Randall
What listeners say about The Collinwood Tragedy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- prblyshopping
- 07-31-23
The narrator is AWFUL
Man I’d love to listen to this book in full. I’ve listened to well over 100 books on historic disasters and this is an event I really wish to learn more about.
Sadly the narrator’s voice is so kind numbing oh droning that I can only get about 10 minutes in at a time before I’m bored, and dozing off. Such an incredible disservice to a book that might otherwise be very good.
Whoever the reader is, he should def retire immediately.
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