Wreck Ashore: The United States Life-Saving Service on the Great Lakes (Paperback)

by Frederick Stonehouse (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
From stormy shipwrecks to catastrophic disasters, the lifesavers were always there, risking their lives to save others. From the mid-1780s until it transformed into the U.S. Coast Guard in 1915, the U.S. Life-Saving Service was responsible for safety on the seas. This historic look into our earliest heroes on the Great Lakes is now back in print. Illustrated with historic b/w pictures. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 213 pages
• Publisher: Lake Superior Port Cities (May 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0942235223
• ISBN-13: 978-0942235227
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,587,163 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting, February 8, 1999

By	Chris Serb (Chicago) - See all my reviews

There are a few other good books on the old life-saving service, but this is the first one to focus on the Great Lakes. I bought it to discover my roots, since I've been a longtime lifeguard at a converted life-saving service station. While my station (Rogers Park) is only mentioned in passing, the great information and detail of other stations, keepers, and rescues kept me engaged. The writing's a little uneven but Stonehouse is a great researcher and obviously has a deep passion for the subject. The pictures & illustrations are top-notch.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Meticulous, but missing something., April 26, 1999

By A Customer

This is an exhaustively researched book, with interesting photos and all sorts of detail. But it was a little short of the one thing I thought it would be filled with, given the title: Life saving. There's very little in the way of actual tales of rescue, and almost none until the last quarter of the book. I would have preferred a little less day to day minutae and a little more adventure.