Grossing over $1.8 billion, James Cameron’s 1997 movie Titanic had an enormous impact on
popular culture. With a script largely comprised of non-historical figures,
Cameron’s Titanic was more fiction
than fact. Through his lead characters’ love story, Cameron did manage to spark
a passionate popular interest in the Ship and her demise.
As ubiquitous as Cameron’s Titanic
is, other cinematic versions of Titanic
are less known, but compelling nonetheless.
The first Titanic film was a
German silent feature called In Nacht und Eis ("In
Night and Ice"). Filming started on In
Nacht und Eis the summer after the springtime shipwreck. The movie premiered
in the winter of 1912.
Historically, this first Titanic
film is incredible to watch, as the clothing and style are not based on
reproductions, but are completely authentic of the period.
Thirty-one years later, Herbert Selpin and Werner Von Klingler
directed the first movie named after the Ship. Selphin and von Klingler’s 1943 Titanic was a Nazi propaganda film made
during World War II in Berlin. The
film painted the British and Americans on board as seedy capitalists, and
lionized German men as brave, valiant, and trustworthy.
While directing the Nazi version, co-director Selphin ran into massive
political trouble. He was overheard insulting some of the German Kriegsmarine
officers hired as on-set maritime consultants. The Kriegsmarine officers were frequently
harassing actresses working on the film, and Selphin found this behavior
inappropriate. Selphin was reported to the Gestapo for his remarks about the
officers, arrested, questioned by Joseph Goebbels (who controlled German media
at the time), and put in jail. Selphin was found hanging in his jail cell. His
death was ruled a suicide.
Von Klinger finished as a stand-in director, but the film never made
it with the German public: Goebbels banned Titanic
during the Allied raids for inciting panic during war time.
Next in Titanic’s cinematic history is 1958’s A Night To Remember, a docu-drama lauded for its historical
accuracy. Filmed in the United Kingdom A
Night To Remember won the 1959 Samuel Goldwyn International Award at the
Golden Globes. The set was based on blueprints from the RMS Titanic, and, although some of the
details weren’t correct, it is still often regarded as the most historically
accurate telling of Titanic’s
sinking.
Read more on our Stories from the Titanic blog...
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
The Last Titanic Survivor
Millvana Dean was the last survivor of the RMS Titanic when she died in May of 2009. In 1912, Her family decided to emigrate to Kansas from the United Kingdom in the hope of opening a tobacco shop in Witchata. The Deans were originally scheduled to travel on a different ocean liner, but were transferred to the RMS Titanic when their ship’s schedule was complicated because of a coal strike. This minor scheduling change, which her parents probably thought of as fortunate luck at the time, would change Millvana’s life forever. Her ship would sink, her father would drown, and her mother’s world would unravel.
Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
Millvana, her mother Ettie, and her two-year-old brother were sleeping in their cabin when her father felt the ship strike the iceberg. Bertram Frank Dean was a 25 year old farmer, and he was a cautious man. After leaving his room to investigate the alarming sound of the collision, he returned and instructed his wife to go on deck and try to find a lifeboat. Ettie woke her babies and dressed them. Bertram walked his family to the deck of the enormous ocean liner where they were sent to Lifeboat 10. Once in the lifeboat, Ettie called out for her husband to pass her son over the railing, but Betram had walked away with the toddler, and Ettie was forced to leave with out them. Ettie assumed that her husband and son would be rescued together. In the frantic attempt to load women and children first, the toddler was saved on another lifeboat. Millvana and her mother were among the first of the third-class passengers to escape the doomed ship.
Before she left him, Bertram told his wife he would follow them on another lifeboat. His body, if it was found, was never identified.
With two young children, Millvana’s mother couldn’t stay in America after losing her husband. She returned to England on theRMS Adriatic and lived with her parents there. Ettie didn’t tell her daughter that she had been aboard the RMS Titanic until Millvana was eight years old and her mother decided to remarry.
Millvana died in 2009.
September 1, 1985: The Navy, Robert Ballard, and Titanic
In 1985, Robert Ballard was a Marine archaeologist on a search for the RMS Titanic. A former Navy commander involved in the development of unmanned submersibles, Ballard spent years exploring the ocean before he set his mind to finding lost vessels. Ballard and his team were the first human beings to discover the deep-sea vents: a finding that lead to the discovery of boundless new species capable of thriving in the extreme pressures and temperatures of the ocean’s deep black waters.
Ballard first used side scan sonar (or SAR) to search for the Titanic wreckage on the French ship Le Suroît. When the French research mission ended, Ballard transferred to the Research Vessel Knorr.
What the public didn’t realize at the time was that Ballard was not actually just on a mission to discover the lost Titanic. Ballard’sTitanic mission was being funded by the US Navy, who had previously told Ballard that they couldn’t justify searching for the lost ship. To the Navy, however, Ballard’s intimate knowledge of underwater robots was of extreme value. During the Cold War, the US lost two nuclear submarines, the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher, near the Titanic wreck site. It was critical for the Navy to find these lost vessels. Ballard negotiated with the Navy — the search for Titanic would be a cover story for finding the lost nuclear submarines. The government was interested in determining the state of their nuclear reactors, but didn’t want the public to know. If Ballard successfully completed the submarine mission, he would then be allowed to use the Navy’s resources to hunt for Titanic.
Ballard found the submarines in a matter of weeks.
On September 1, 1985, Ballard and his team found the RMS Titanic after following a trail of debris. Since Titanic’s discovery, Ballard has discovered the Bismark, the RMS Lusitania, the USS Yorktown, John F. Kennedy’s PT-109, as well as many ancient ship wrecks in the Black Sea.
Today, Ballard spends his life advocating ocean exploration, and makes the case that 72% of the planet has not been adequately explored.
Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
The Aftermath, Part II
When the British Inquiry was questioning the parties involved the night of the sinking of Titanic, management and regulators did everything they could to rationalize their way out of any blame the press was throwing at them. At the investigation, Charles Lightroller had been the senior surviving officer aboard the Ship. Lightroller was taken to task for not filling the Number 6 Lifeboat to capacity. He stated that he believed the mechanisms designed to lower the lifeboats into the ocean were not strong enough to hold the boats had they been filled completely. Lifeboat Number 6 was designed to carry 65 people, but left with just 40.
It’s chilling to think of the panic and the pressure Lightroller could have been under knowing that the Ship was about to go down. In his testimony, Lightroller claimed that he noticed the Ship lilting for the first time while he was loading Lifeboat Number 6. He didn’t count the passengers as he filled the boats, and no one will ever really understand exactly why. It might have been panic, or it might have been negligence. During his testimony, Lightroller insisted that he filled Number 6 to what he believed was a safe capacity as he felt the Ship sinking under him.
Titanic's Lifeboats
Titanic’s lifeboat capacity was governed by the British Board of Trade’s rules, which were drafted in 1894. By Titanic’s maiden voyage in 1912, these lifeboat regulations were badly out of date. Titanic was four times larger than the largest legal classification considered under the British Board of Trade’s rules. By law, Titanic was not required to carry more than sixteen lifeboats, regardless of the actual number of people onboard.
In this age, it’s difficult to grasp why a magnificent vessel like the RMS Titanic ever had a shortage of lifeboats. At that time, society had a much more casual attitude about what was safe. Child labor laws were new and not terribly strict. Upton Sinclair had recently written The Jungle, a novel detailing the miserable conditions of the American meat packing industry, which came out just six years before Titanic sailed. People weren’t concerned with warnings, seatbelts, or helmets. Britain’s regulatory bodies were, for the most part, more established than America’s were, but both countries were industrializing. Technology was too young to govern because people didn’t understand the problems that would arise.
With Titanic, the world would learn a difficult lesson.
Industry insiders understood that the lifeboat regulations would change because of the major advances in shipbuilding at the turn of the century. In fact, Titanic was designed to hold enough lifeboats to carry each passenger on board. The White Star Line, however, felt like holding off on the implementation in policy change until the law actually went through. Deck space was at a premium, especially on the first- and second-class decks where the boats were to be housed. On top of that, the lifeboats themselves were expensive and bulky.
The shipbuilders were also concerned with public perception: if they had built a ship that was practically unsinkable, what would people think if they saw her lined with lifeboats?
ELLEN BIRD AND THE STRAUS FAMILY
Ida Straus was a wealthy wife and mother in 1912. She and her husband Isidor Straus co-owned Macy’s department store, and Isidor worked as a U.S. Representative for the state of New York. The couple was traveling in Europe when they hired Ellen Bird to sail as their personal maid on the RMS Titanic.
On the night of the disaster, Isidor, Ida and their maid Ellen were standing near Lifeboat 8. When pressured by the crew to board the Lifeboat, Mr. Straus refused to leave Titanic with other women still on board. Ida gave up her spot to Ellen in order to stay with her husband.
When Ellen was boarding the boat, Ida handed over her fur coat to the girl and told her she wouldn’t be needing it.
The couple did not survive the disaster, but Ellen lived to tell their story.
Ida’s bravery in the face of death, her husband Isidor’s chivalry, and their loyalty to each other became legendary.
Later in life, Ellen Bird worked as a maid for the Spedden family, who were also Titanic survivors.
Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
Titanic and the SS Californian
At 7 p.m., the SS Californian’s wireless operator, Cyril Evans, called RMS Titanic to warn them of three potentially dangerous icebergs to Titanic’s slight north. Being nervous about the icy conditions, Captain Stanley Lord ordered the SS Californian to stop for the night. His Ship was small, more than ten years old, and, in Lord’s mind, no match for the ice field around her.
Later that night, Captain Lord retired to the deck below, but noticed Titanic out of the porthole window. He had members of his crew wire Titanic to warn them again of the icy conditions. He kept an eye on her bright decks glowing in the dark.
When Titanic received Cyril Evans’ warning, her wireless operator was overwhelmed with other work. While Californian was transmitting, Titanic wireless operator Jack Phillips was furiously trying to hear another signal for routine work on the Ship. Frustrated by the bleeding, unintelligible signals, Phillips demanded that Evans “shut up.”
Evans went to bed, and ten minutes later, RMS Titanic crashed into an iceberg.
Thirty-five minutes after that, Titanic sent out her first wireless distress call, but no one was awake to hear.
Down below, Captain Lord was still considering Titanic, and his crew tried to signal her via Morse lamp to no avail. The crew of Californian watched Titanic fire off distress rockets, but only responded with Morse lamp and never checked the wireless. They discussed the peculiar angle of the Ship, the strange distress signals, and the lack of response they were getting. They never checked the wireless. At 2 o’clock in the morning, the crew of Californian thought they saw Titanic sail away.
The next morning, panic ensued. Evans checked the wireless and realized Titanic had gone under in the night. Fearing the repercussions, they passed the rescue ship Carpathia, and took a longer course to the wreck site. They didn’t want their position during the disaster known.
As RMS Titanic sent wireless transmissions, distress rockets, and begged for help, The SS Californian sat ten miles away, wondering.
Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
Titanic Crew
As Titanic sank, the lifeboats were naturally manned by seamen from the Deck Department, and as a result their survival rate was much better than other members of the crew at large. This was a matter of necessity — the seamen had practical knowledgeable of small boat handling and also had the force of authority to ensure order on board the lifeboats.
The Engineering Staff consisted of 30 supervising officers and hundreds of boiler and engine room crew, who moved coal from the bunkers to the boilers and tended to Titanic's hundreds of pieces of equipment. Very few of the engineering crew and none of the Engineering Officers survived the sinking.
Titanic's largest department, and one that saw very heavy casualties, was the “Victualling” department, which provided “Hotel Services” to the passengers. An army of cooks, scullions, butchers, bakers, dining room stewards, bed room stewards, and bar men ensured that passengers on board Titanic were well looked-after.
Also on board and operating almost as a separate entity, wasTitanic's female staff. Most numerous were the stewardesses, who helped dress and attend female passengers traveling alone or without personal servants. The Matron, who acted as chaperone to “unescorted” Third-Class female passengers to prevent “unwanted attentions” by single men. Cashiers, a masseuse, and a Turkish Bath Attendant rounded out their numbers. All in all, their lives were relatively comfortable on Titanic: they were provided cabins among the passengers they served, and were fitted with similar appointments. Stewards, on the other hand, slept in dormitories of twenty men a piece. Nearly all the female staff survived.
Not all the crew on board were employees of the White Star Line. The five members of the ship's band and her two Marconi (radio) operators were actually employees of other companies. These men were simply assigned positions on Titanic and received their pay from their employers, but they still received a nominal one shilling upon signing on board to put them lawfully under the orders of the Captain.
Two additional groups on board were not White Star Line employees. The à la carte Restaurant offered a deluxe dining establishment for First-Class passengers willing and able to pay superior prices for superior food. The staff consisted entirely of an elite assembly of Restaurant professionals working directly for the subcontractor in charge of this deluxe dining room.
The second and more famous, was the “Guarantee Group” put on board by the Titanic's builders Harland and Wolff, and headed by Thomas Andrews. It was Andrew's job to travel on board the ship he helped design, and to direct a small staff of workers to correct problems that had cropped up, and make suggestions for improvements to be incorporated in future ships.
Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
The Aftermath, Part I
The British government wanted to be certain that this kind of maritime disaster wouldn’t happen again: it was a national tragedy that personally traumatized citizens from 44 different countries, horrified the public, and embarrassed the White Star Line as well as everyone involved in maritime legislation.
As it turns out, the regulations for lifeboats required on passenger ships hadn’t been updated since 1896. Chalmers attempted to justify this policy massive failure by giving the following reasons:
Since the original policy’s implementation in 1896, advancements in shipbuilding made adding lifeboat requirements unnecessary.
The latest boats, like the RMS Titanic, were considered virtually impenetrable and watertight, making them unlikely to require lifeboats at all.
The sea routes used were well travelled, meaning that the likelihood of a collision was minimal.
The latest boats were fitted with wireless technology, which meant they could communicate with surrounding ships in an emergency.
Even if there were more lifeboats available, crew members might not have been able to load more than sixteen boats during a disaster.
The provision of lifeboats should be determined by the ship builders, not the Board of Trade.
Quick to defend himself and divorce himself from any blame, Chalmers came up with an even more preposterous explanation — he claimed that even fewer lifeboats would have saved lives. He reasoned that people would have panicked and rushed to the deck to try to find escape instead of waiting in their warm rooms for instructions.
Titanic's Third-Class
Despite the glaring differences between classes, the White Star Line offered their third-class travelers a luxurious ride relative to what people of the day were used to. The RMS Titanic's third-class experience intentionally rivaled a second-class experience on most ships of the day.
The RMS Titanic offered patrons of their third-class wash basins, electric lighting, and heated decks, none of which were standard at the time.
The White Star Line's press material boasted that "The accommodation for third class passengers in these steamers is also of a very superior character, the public rooms being large, airy apartments, suitably furnished, and in excellent positions, and the same applies to the third-class staterooms and berths.”
While this sounds like standard marketing material, here is where the story gets odd: the ship boasted five grand pianos, mechanical elevators, and an indoor pool filled with tepid sea water. Despite these opulent expenses, the third-class only held two bathtubs. There was one bathtub for men and another for women and children — that's two tubs for over 700 passengers. Strangely, The White Star Line didn't have a problem with the expense of extra tubs for the third-class: it was passengers who had the problem. The less-educated poor at the time didn't want to bathe because they believed frequent bathing caused lung disease. Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
Little Luxuries
The stoneware jars were 4” across, and were designed by John Gosnell & Co. out of London. The lid reads “Cherry Toothpaste Patronized by the Queen, Extra Moist,” and the brand claimed it should be used “For beautifying and preserving the teeth and gums.”
These pots are delicate little pieces of stoneware, and while they may be less practical than the lumpy plastic tubes we use today, they are certainly more lovely.
Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
Titanic Egg Cup
Two and a half miles under the Atlantic, there is a large concentration of kitchenware, dishes, silver, and crockery that spilled en mass the night Titanic sank. Explorers have dubbed this stretch of Titanic’s wreck site “Hell’s Kitchen,” as the scene so vividly captures the humanity of the disaster.
This egg cup, recovered from the wreck site in 2000, is made of ceramic and stands slightly less than three inches high. Most likely, this particular version belonged to a passenger on board the Ship. It is decorated with a mother hen and three chicks, and does not match any of Titanic’s other dish patterns.
An egg cup, sometimes called egg server, is a container used for serving boiled eggs within their shells. The upwardly concave portion holds the egg, and often egg cups include a base (informally known as a "footie”) to raise the egg-retaining portion and give stability. Although egg cups were in vogue at the turn of the century, egg cup collecting remains a popular hobby.
The White Star Line provided egg cups in their china service for Titanic passengers. The cups were delicate and small.
This ceramic egg cup is based on an egg cup recovered from the RMS Titanic. The pattern, nicknamed “Wisteria,” was replicated from an original Titanic design.
The act of collecting egg cups is referred to as “pocillovy;” it comes from the Latin “pocillum” for small cup and “ovi” for eggs.
Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
Titanic Interior Design
The RMS Titanic’s delicate and pristine setting has etched itself into the public’s imagination. Visually, the Ship itself has become a background to its own emotional history and the devastating loss of life. The overwhelming beauty of the RMS Titanic has contributed to the public’s long-running fascination with the Ship.
The luxury liner was absolutely stunning in her day. Even the Third-Class cabins were lovely and well appointed. The Third-Class General Room, which was accessible to all third-class passengers, was paneled in pine and finished with white enamel. Although the design elements were minimal and a bit more utilitarian then the second- and first-classes, they were incredibly sleek and beautiful. From a modern perspective, the third-class china looks the most contemporary.
A reproduction of the Third-Class China
The Second-Class Library featured furniture made of mahogany and covered with tapestry. Furnishings specially designed for the library in a Colonial Adams style, these fixtures evoked a design trend popular about 100 years before Titanic was built.
A reproduction of the Second-Class China, which was designed to compliment the second-class furnishings.
The First-Class Reception Room was decorated in an adopted Jacobean English style and had white paneling carved in low relief. More ornate than the second-class motifs, the Jacobean English style was stylistically quite different. Drawing from an even older design phase, this motif was popular as far back as the early 1600s.
The First-Class China is the most ornate.
The First-Class Reading and Writing Room was located directly next to the First-Class Lounge. >The Lounge had a bow window along one side of the Ship that allowed passengers an uninterrupted view of the horizon.
It took ten months to fully outfit Titanic.
The luxury liner was absolutely stunning in her day. Even the Third-Class cabins were lovely and well appointed. The Third-Class General Room, which was accessible to all third-class passengers, was paneled in pine and finished with white enamel. Although the design elements were minimal and a bit more utilitarian then the second- and first-classes, they were incredibly sleek and beautiful. From a modern perspective, the third-class china looks the most contemporary.
A reproduction of the Third-Class China
The Second-Class Library featured furniture made of mahogany and covered with tapestry. Furnishings specially designed for the library in a Colonial Adams style, these fixtures evoked a design trend popular about 100 years before Titanic was built.
A reproduction of the Second-Class China, which was designed to compliment the second-class furnishings.
The First-Class China is the most ornate.
The First-Class Reading and Writing Room was located directly next to the First-Class Lounge. >The Lounge had a bow window along one side of the Ship that allowed passengers an uninterrupted view of the horizon.
It took ten months to fully outfit Titanic.
Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
Titanic's Violet Jessop
But statistics hardly tell the story of Titanic and the people who lived and died. As the coverage of Titanic grew, the personal stories of the Ship’s cast began to capture the world’s attention.
The first-class was made up of the moneyed elite, but they weren’t able to escape the horror of the sinking Ship. 100 years later, a modern public doesn’t have the same attachments to the once-famous, and the stories of the second and third-class travelers are just as poignant and gripping.
Violet Constance Jessop was an Argentinean-born Irish girl who survived a dangerous bout of tuberculosis when she was young. Her father died, as did three of her siblings. With a sick mother and five siblings to provide for, Violet left her home in Great Britain to work as a stewardess. Her job with the White Star Line required 17-hour workdays on the RMS Olympic. At first, Violet’s beauty kept employers from wanting to hire her as they feared romantic complications with passengers.
On September 20, 1911, Violet’s ship, Olympic, collided with the HMS Hawke off the Isle of Wight. Olympic made it back to port with just two compartments flooded, and Violet survived the accident.
Less than a year later, Violet boarded the RMS Titanic as a stewardess. She was one of the first to leave the Ship after an officer on board left a forgotten baby in her care.
Despite the two separate wrecks Violet Jessop survived, she served on HMS Britannic as a nurse for the British Red Cross. In 1916,Britannic struck a mine left by a German U-Boat in the Aegean Sea. She was sucked under water towards the sinking ship, and smashed her head on the ship’s keel before she was rescued by a near by lifeboat.
Violet Jessop retired at age 63 after having survived three shipwrecks and 42 years at sea.
Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
Titanic Survivor Helen Newsom Behr Mathey
When Titanic sank, Helen Newsom Behr Mathey escaped in Lifeboat No. 5 with her mother and the man who would be her first husband, tennis star Karl H. Behr. Helen had been friends with Karl’s sister before she made the trip on Titanic.Helen’s mother, Sallie Newsom, had booked a “Grand Tour” of Europe for 19-year-old Helen to distract her daughter from Helen's relationship with the 26-year-old suitor. When Karl heard the news that Helen was going to be traveling on the Ship, he quickly invented a business trip to Europe to pursue her. Karl boarded Titanic at Cherbourg and ended up spending time with Helen on board.
During the exodus from Titanic, Karl, Helen, Sallie, and several others were told by Bruce Ismay that they could all leave together in Lifeboat No. 5.
There were newspaper reports that Karl proposed to Helen on the Lifeboat. They were married a year later.
Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
Titanic Survivor Leila Saks
By twenty-eight, he was vice president of Braden Copper Company of NYC. The couple had a one-year old child when Leila received a message from America that her father had passed away.
Eager to attend the funeral, the couple booked a last-minute ticket on the RMSTitanic out of Cherbourg, France. During what must have been a tense time in Leila’s life, the couple traveled first-class.
When the ship began to sink, Edgar helped women and children onto the lifeboats. He begged Leila to get into the first available lifeboat, but she couldn’t be compelled to leave her husband. Edgar continued to load the other passengers while his wife stood by him. Edgar tried to maintain a calm and happy disposition while loading the boats, despite whatever nerves he must have been wrestling with. He reminded his wife of their baby waiting at home, and Leila finally agreed to leave the flooding Titanic. Edgar could have gone with her, but he refused to take the place of the other passengers.
Leila was rescued by Carpathia. The loss of both her father and husband must have been devastating; she never spoke publically about her brave twenty-eight year old husband who went down with Titanic.
Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
Titanic Necklace
Currently, the RMS Titanic is being excavated and explored, and the amazing science involved keeps fans enthralled day-in and day-out. And while the scientifically-minded seem the most likely audience for the exploration, the expedition team has brought back such stunning items from the ocean floor that the design-obsessed are just as captivated.
RMS Titanic, Inc. has re-created an elegant piece of jewelry recovered from the wreck site: a 15” Filigree Necklace that was originally made of platinum and diamonds. The design is organic, intricate, and closely related to the emerging art-deco style of the early 1900s.
Read more about Titanic on our Stories From The Titanic blog...
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