Observing the Titanic

The Titanic on trial run, 1912.

Over 300 people aboard the Titanic were travelling first class, which granted them spacious private suites such as the ones shown here, and access to other elegant amenities, including a special dining area, promenade, Turkish bath, and gymnasium. Well known passengers included real estate tycoon John Jacob Astor IV and his new wife Madeleine; Isidor Straus, the owner of Macy’s, and his wife Ida; Benjamin Guggenheim, heir to a mining fortune; the influential English journalist William Thomas Stead; and Dorothy Gibson, an American singer and silent film actress. The Titanic carried an inadequate number of lifeboats (20 instead of the planned 64), so as the disaster unfolded, its policy of saving “women and children first” meant that almost all the well-to-do wives and their sons and daughters were rescued. Among the men in first class, two-thirds died, including Astor, Straus, Guggenheim, and Stead.

The Titanic’s Atlantic crossing was planned to take between six and seven days. (On the night it went down, the ocean liner was an estimated two days from its New York destination.) To feed the 2,223 passengers and crewmembers for a week, the ship carried large amounts of fresh and canned provisions, drinking water, milk, and bottled drinks, including 1,500 wine bottles and 20,000 bottles of beer. The price of meals was included in each passenger’s ticket. Predictably, those travelling first-class were offered an elegant, varied menu, prepared by a well-paid chef. But travelers of all classes reported food on board the Titanic to be good and plentiful and meal times to be pleasantly sociable occasions. In addition to vast food supplies, the ship was equipped with a large number of pots, pans, dishes, cups, glasses, and cutlery. A pre-departure inventory noted that the ship carried 127,000 pieces of tableware. Somehow, stacks of white bowls survived the tumult of the wreck and the crushing water pressure at that depth (6,000 pounds per square inch), though the wooden shelves rotted away.

Captain Edward J. Smith (right) and another of the ship’s officers, purser Hugh Walter McElroy, stand on the deck of the Titanic near the beginning of its voyage. Captain Smith was an experienced and well-respected sea commander who had presided over many successful Atlantic crossings. Eyewitnesses and historians have debated his level of responsibility for the collision, his effectiveness in supervising the sinking ship’s evacuation, and his last words. He died when the ship went down, and his body was never found. He had been in charge of a giant ship weighing more than 46,000 tons that had taken 10,000 men almost four years to build, at nearly immeasurable cost. To its wealthy investors and owners, the Titanic had been a proud symbol of the future and of the new 20th century’s confidence — in the power of developing technology, the might of industry, and human ingenuity. In the end, it became something else. And the tragedy led directly to the passing of strict new safety measures and regulations governing lifeboats, evacuation drills, searchlights, lookout schedules, routes, and radio contact.

Questions to Start You Thinking

1. The Titanic was known in its day as a magnificent floating palace, filled with gracious, extravagant touches. Observe and compare the two photos of private luxury suites, from 1912 and the present. What has stayed the same about the Titanic since it sank? What has changed about it? What effects have the 100 years under water had?
2. Why would the Titanic have had so many luxurious touches, like the marble fireplaces, spacious bedrooms, fine dishes, and Parisian-style cafes, but not enough lifeboats for all the passengers?
3. Survival rates varied by class and category. (Exact counts differ among sources and accounts): Among crewmembers, 693 died, and 213 were saved. Among third-class passengers, 532 died, and 181 were saved. Among second-class passengers, 166 died, and 118 were saved; and among first-class passengers, 197 were saved, and 123 died.
   

   When the Titanic sank in 1912, why do you think that newspaper accounts at the time paid much attention to the prominent men who had lost their lives and less attention to the many European immigrants and average working-class and middle-class passengers? What do you think of the “women and children first” policy in place at the time?

   Writing Strategies

4. What is the effect of including captions that tell stories about life on board the Titanic? Did you find these captions helpful in understanding the photos? Why or why not?
5. Does the photo essay showing images of the Titanic make you want to go on an ocean cruise or not? Make your case one way or the other using details from the photos.
6. Contemporary Irish writer Jack Wilson Foster has commented, “We are all passengers on the Titanic.” What do you think he means by this statement? Do you agree? Why or why not?