From the Ipswich Tribune July 17, 1930 edition
July 4th Celebration
Takes Large Death Toll
The three days celebration of the nation’s birthday this year cost the lives of 404 persons and was responsible for the injury of many thousands more. It is said that two days of extra celebrating cost the lives of 226 persons.
Fireworks and toy pistols which have been legislated against by all lives of 29 people, which though a states and municipalities, cost the small percentage of the whole number is all the more amazing due to the many restrictions places around their use. Automobiles claimed the lives of 178 persons and 121 persons drowned. 76 deaths are accounted for in airplane accidents, heat, heart attacks caused by excitement and lightning.
In all of the larger cities emergency hospitals were called upon to treat thousands of people from burns caused by firecrackers and fireworks of different kinds.
Among the unusual deaths was one of a woman parachute jumper who was killed in Wisconsin when her parachute failed to open; that of an eight year old boy of Madison, Wis. when his head came in contact with a live wire on a pole from which he was watching a baseball game, and the death of an elderly man who dropped dead of excitement when a member of a “kid” baseball team hit a home run.
The Middle Atlantic States and Mid Western states suffered the largest number of deaths by accounting for 292 of the 404 total.
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