Tinder Box

The Iroquois Theatre Disaster 1903

De: Anthony P. Hatch

Narrado por: Matthew Josdal

When the Iroquois Theater opened in Chicago on November 23, 1903, it was considered one of the grandest structures of its day, a monument to modern design and technology, as well as "absolutely fireproof." This was a theater that would rival any in New York or Paris. Instead it became the funeral pyre for hundreds of victims.

In Tinder Box, Tony Hatch, former CBS reporter and Emmy Award winner, tells the Iroquois story as it has never been told before. In a rush to open the theater on time, corners were cut, and the Iroquois lacked the most basic fire-fighting equipment: sprinklers, fire alarm boxes, backstage telephone, exit signs, and functioning asbestos curtain. Some exits, for aesthetic reasons, were hidden behind heavy draperies, doors opened inward, and exterior fire escapes were unfinished. But Chicago officials, the theater owners and managers, the contractor, stagehands - all looked the other way.

Then, on December 30, 1903, disaster struck. The theater was packed, overcrowded with a standing room-only audience, mostly women and children who had come to see the popular comedian Eddie Foy perform in the musical fantasy Mr. Bluebeard. A short circuit in a single backstage spotlight touched off a small fire that, in minutes, erupted into an uncontrollable blaze. More than 600 people died.

©2003 Anthony P. Hatch (P)2020 Tantor

A very detailed account

This book was a lot more detailed than expected, the author was able to pull a lot of eye witness accounts from this terrible tragedy. He also brings up a good point, are our theaters even much safer now than a century ago.

Great writing....not so great narration

Very good coverage of backstory and historical content. However, as others have noted, the reader has terrible placement of grammatical pauses, which is hard to follow and makes for distortion of facts.

Horrific tale

Great telling of the story of the Iroquois Theatre and the terrible fire that took around 600 lives, many of them children. The trials were delayed and even less than disappointing to lay blame on some. If the author is correct theatres may not be much safer today. Whether you read the book or not be sure the next time you go to the theatre you find the nearest exit before you rake your seat.

Poor narrator

Like has been said in the past, a narrator can either make or kill a story. Unfortunately, this narrator was really bad. Poor inflection use in almost every line, poor locations of pauses. If there was another narrator, this would be great. The information and layout of the book itself is actually pretty good, just very badly needs a different narrator.

the narrator destroyed it

the narrator seems to be unaware of where pauses belong, he places them in the middle of sentences, or between a word and the s that makes it a plural. i lost it after 15 minutes and had to stop

Mind-numbingly bad

Having listened to dozens of disaster books, this places among the worst. A plethora of pointless details (Do we REALLY need to know where the captain of station 13's bathroom was in the building???), and the narration is unpleasantly paced and kind of shrill. I gave this book a full two hours as this is a fascinating and heart breaking disaster that deserves to be told, but this book fails in every capacity. Will be returning it.