The Sinking & the Finding of the RMS TITANIC
Today, one hundred thirteen years ago the RMS Titanic clashed with an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. A mere 2 ½ hours later at 2:20 a.m. on the 15th, the Titanic disappeared beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
Photo Credit: The Bettmann Archive
Weighing 46,000 tons and measuring 4 city blocks in length with ten decks, the ship was truly titanic. It took approximately 15,000 people just over 2 years to build, and in a matter of hours, it was gone.
I have a pretty vivid imagination, but I can’t envision what it was like to be one of the ship’s passengers. The chaos on board must have been overwhelming as passengers and crew scrambled to evacuate the ship. The passengers had been on the water for 4 days and had yet to practice an evacuation drill.
And the cruel irony is that a lifeboat drill that was scheduled for the morning of the 14th had been canceled. For all its “modern” technology, the Titanic had not been equipped with a public address system to make announcements, so no one knew where to go or what to do. The crew had not been trained in loading and lowering lifeboats and because there was no plan for an orderly evacuation, many of the crew did not know which lifeboats they were assigned to. Saddest of all, the order to evacuate women and children first was sometimes interpreted as "women and children only," which meant that some lifeboats were not filled to capacity. The water temperature in the North Atlantic at that time of year is approximately 28°F (-2°C) — just below the freezing point of seawater. Those who ended up in the ocean died within 15 to 40 minutes from rapid and extreme hypothermia.
Margaret Tobin Brown, a co-star of my new picture book THE MOLLYS B., was one of the 706 lucky survivors. 1500 passengers did not survive. Sadly, only a little over 300 bodies were retrieved from the water.
Photo Credit: unknown
In the years prior to the sinking of the Titanic, Margaret was already well known in her hometown of Denver, CO, where she had gained a reputation as a humanitarian, always looking for ways she could help make people’s lives better. So it’s not surprising that once all the passengers had been rescued and brought aboard the RMS Carpathia, Margaret immediately began helping them. Most were immigrants and didn’t speak English. They were frightened and very unsure of their futures. Because Margaret spoke three languages, she was able to communicate with many of them and offer them comfort. In the four days it took for the Carpathia to reach New York, Margaret had gathered donations for the survivors and had organized assistance for them when they reached land.
But this was Margaret’s personality. She was a natural leader and not afraid to speak out. (I like to think if she had lived during the1960s and 70s, she would have been burning her bras with all the other feminists.) During her lifetime, she lobbied for better working conditions for miners, fought for the promotion of improved education and literacy for children, and raised funds for the creation of programs to help indigent families step out of poverty. And in the years following the sinking of the Titanic, Margaret continued her philanthropic works. She assisted the American Red Cross during World War I, was an out-spoken suffragette, and even fought for animal rights.
You would think experiencing a sinking ship and nearly drowning would put one off of traveling – by ship, at least. But not Margaret, who lived another full and vibrant twenty years and traveled across the ocean several more times.
I wonder what she would have thought when 73 years later, in 1985, the Titanic was located in two pieces on the bottom of the ocean. And were any of her belongings among the recovered artifacts spread across a debris field measuring 5 x 3 miles? All the organic fabrics and furs deteriorated long ago, but what about her personal items like jewelry, hair combs, and perfume bottles – those things impervious to the rusticles that are now devouring the ship and making it look more ghostly than ever? In addition to her own possessions, Margaret was escorting some ancient clay models that were to be added to the Denver Museum’s collection of exhibits. If they were artifacts dug up from an archeological site having been lost to history once, they were now lost a second time. And never to be recovered - being of clay, they, too, perished years ago.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
From what I’ve learned about Margaret in all the reading I’ve done about her life, I suspect she didn’t bemoan the loss of any of those things. I’ve gathered she was a woman who lived in the moment – expressing her purpose in the world as generous, helpful, and kind. She was an exemplary role-model in her own lifetime and continues to be for us now one hundred years later.
For an interesting look at the aftermath of the sinking, here is a fascinating article in The Smithsonian Magazine.
