<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Her life preservers weighted with scrap-iron, her lifeboats mere decoration, the excursion steamer General Slocum left New York’s Third Street pier at 9:30 on the morning of June 15,1904, with thirteen-hundred picknickers bound for a Long Island beach. Less than an hour later, she was afire.</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Once you’ve discovered fire, you have to keep it from burning you. This is how it was managed before the safety match.</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck">The story of Chicago in the 19th century is the story of the making of America, the historian Donald L. Miller explains. A new PBS documentary based on a book he wrote shows why.</span></p>
