Total Titanic

Marc Shapiro

• Publisher: J. Boylston & Company, Publishers
• ISBN:
  9781596877153
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Marine Transportation
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 11.40pm on 14 April 1912. By 2.20am on 15 April, the last visible section of the Titanic sank below the waters. More than 1500 people lost their lives. This text attempts to separate fiction from fact, reporting on what actually happened.Answers many questions about the Titanic: Where and when was it constructed? Who booked passage on the maiden, and final voyage? Why did it actuallly sink? Who survived? Who rescued the survivors? Includes a complete listing of Titanic Internet web sites.

CHAPTER 1

THE MAKING OF THE TITANIC

In 1912, the world was poised on the precipice of change. Behind it lay the Victorian Age, an era of optimistic belief in the inevitability of progress and of unprecedented strides in science, technology, and industry. Before it lay the deadly and disillusioning no-man’s-land of World War I. By the time the war was over, the comfortable assumptions of prewar Europe had been shattered.

But all that lay in the future, and in the present there was money to be made and fun to be had. In 1912, what Mark Twin had dubbed the Gilded Age was still in full ostentatious swing. The growth of industry had spawned a new generation of wealth on both sides of the Atlantic: In 1861, there were only three millionaires in the United States; by 1900, there were 3,800 of them. Fortunes were made and lost and made again. Those who had money wanted to spend it: on bigger and more opulent homes, on clothes and furnishings and travel and yachts. Nothing was too grand, nothing too elaborate, for the new moneyed classes of Europe and the United States.

And right in the middle of it was the White Star Line, preparing to take the next big step.

The British-based White Star Line had gone through a number of changes since its formation in 1850. Initially a goods and services outfit, plying its trade in the Australian goldfields, the company had turned its attention to oceangoing passenger steamships when purchased by Thomas Henry Ismay in 1867. Ismay’s first ship, the Oceanic, completed by the Belfast shipbuilding firm of Harland and Wolff in 1871, introduced innovations, like promenade decks, that greatly increased passenger comfort and became the rule on subsequent liners.

When Thomas Henry Ismay died in 1899, his 38-year-old son, J. Bruce Ismay, took over the company. J. Bruce Ismay had a real sense of both business and style. He loved the good things in life and was willing to do whatever was necessary to make a profit. Together with Lord W. J. Pirrie, the chairman of Harland and Wolff, he considered a proposal by American financial wizard J. P. Morgan to buy White Star Line as part of a scheme to unite all Atlantic shipping lines in one trust. In 1902, Morgan purchased the White Star Line for his International Mercantile Marine and installed J. Bruce Ismay as the company’s president in 1904.

The White Star Line was a utopian concept under the Morgan banner. Although the company was essentially American, with controlling American interests, the ships of the White Star Line were very much a British operation in tone and execution. (It was agreed that in time of war, its ships could be appropriated by the British navy.) The White Star Line continued to prosper with its existing line of ships. But, as always, its owners were looking to the future and to bigger and better things.

History-making decisions were now only a few years away.

At a 1907 dinner party, J. Bruce Ismay proposed the construction of two luxury-class ocean liners, to be known as the Olympic class, to go head to head with the Cunard Line for the lucrative Atlantic passenger trade. A third ship was added to the proposal at a later date.

There was good reason to begin thinking of making economic war against Cunard. For years White Star and Cunard had competed for the booming passenger market, and both had seemed satisfied with their fair share. But new steamship companies from Europe had entered the race, and Cunard had decided that, to surpass the competition, they needed to upgrade their line. They built the Lusitania and the Mauretania—the biggest, fastest ships on the North Atlantic route. That they could carry more passengers than anything currently under the White Star banner was almost beside the point. The real problem was that Cunard would now be the premier steamship company in the world—and that White Star would be in second place.

In July 1908, Ismay and Morgan signed a contract with Harland and Wolff for the construction of the three luxury liners. The early specs indicate ships 50 percent larger than the Lusitania’s 30,000 gross tons and an estimated 100 feet longer than its 790 feet. These liners would be the true gods of the sea. They would be named Olympic, Titanic, and Britannic.

• J. Bruce Ismay and designer Thomas Andrews’s plan for the Titanic was as follows:

Passenger and crew capacity: 3,547.

Weight: 46,328 tons.

Length: 882 feet, 9 inches.

Width: 94 feet.

Height: 100 feet at bridge level.

Water displacement: 66,000 tons.

Watertight doors: 42 (12 of which can be opened and closed from the bridge).

• The Titanic design included 29 boilers, 159 furnaces, and funnels which were situated 73 feet above the boat deck. The Titanic’s estimated speed included 46,000 horsepower capacity and is estimated to be capable of 24 knots at full speed.
• Total cost: 1,500,000 pounds ($7,500,000 US).
• Each of the ship’s funnels was large enough to drive two trains through.
• The Titanic contained a total of nine decks.
• The ship was as tall as an 11-story building.
• The Titanic’s three anchors weighed a total of 31 tons. Each link in the anchor chain weighed 175 pounds.
• The ship’s rudder weighed 20,250 pounds. The Titanic had three propellers; the middle one was 16 feet across, the outer two were 23 feet across.
• The Titanic’s boilers weighed 100 tons each.
• The ship contained a total of four elevators, three in first class and one in second class. The Titanic was the first boat to have an elevator in second class.
• The Titanic design called for 20 lifeboats, 16 wooden and 4 collapsible. This was 10 percent more than was required by the British Board of Trade regulations, which only required lifeboats for 962 people. The designer of the lifeboat davits, Alexander Carlisle, suggested davits capable of carrying more boats. His suggestion was ignored.
• The construction of specially designed slips, capable of holding the Titanic and her monster sisters, began on July 31, 1908, on both sides of the Atlantic. A new gantry for the building of the luxury liners also began construction on that date.
• 14,000 workers were hired in preparation for beginning construction on the Titanic. They were paid a total of 2 pounds for a 49-hour work week.
• The Titanic’s keel was laid down in the Harland and Wolff shipyards on March 31, 1909. The Titanic was issued its official number, 401, by the shipbuilders. Its official Board of Trade number was 131,428. External construction on the Titanic began that day.
• The Titanic’s hull contained three million rivets. Thomas Andrews claimed that together weighed an estimated 1,200 tons.
• The Titanic’s hull was successfully launched on May 31, 1911, in front of more than 100,000 people from slip #3 of the Harland and Wolff shipyards. Three tons of soft soap, 15 tons of tallow, and 5 tons of tallow mixed with train oil were used to grease the slipway for the Titanic hull.
• The pressure on the hull that day was three tons per square inch.
• Three sets of flags were flying on the day the Titanic slid into the ocean for the first time. They were the British Red Ensign, the Stars and Stripes, and a series of navy signal flags that spelled out the message “Good Luck” to mark the occasion.
• The official launch time for Titanic’s ceremonial first contact with water was 12:15:02 P.M. The hull was immediately towed to a fitting-out area in another section of the shipyards, where internal construction on the Titanic began.

CHAPTER 2

THE ULTIMATE LUXURY LINER

The White Star Line made no bones about who they wanted walking the decks of their proud, new vessel. They wanted the Astors, Guggenheims, and Morgans of the world. They wanted people with money who would spend it freely, have the experience of a lifetime, and most importantly, tell their friends to come along with them on the next voyage.

The Titanic’s sister ship, the Olympic, was actually the first of the new liners to put to sea, making her maiden voyage on the same day that the Titanic was launched, May 3, 1911. His observations of the Olympic led J. Bruce Ismay to make numerous changes on the Titanic that led to its being truly larger and more luxurious than the Olympic; the Titanic could even accommodate 163 more passengers. As a result, when it was completed the Titanic was the biggest ship in the world, a floating palace.

The Titanic was intended to be something remarkable, and remarkable she was. During the ten months it took to outfit the ship, a good bit of attention was paid to the trappings of finery-with some spectacular results.

Ismay, who regularly had J. P. Morgan’s ear, would constantly talk up the idea of elegance. Why not gold ornamentation? he would ask. Why not exquisite statuary? Anybody could lay down just any old rug in the grand saloon. Ismay, with his American partner’s blessing and deep pockets, would lay down an oriental rug that was so rich and fine it would make passengers feel as if they were sinking up to their knees in plush.

One of White Star Line’s master strokes was the reconfiguring of first-class accommodations on B Deck. With a minimal amount of restructuring, a series of 28 lavish staterooms was installed. Rather than being fitted with traditional portholes, these rooms featured full-sized windows that gave the occupant a seaside view. Each of the rooms reflected one of the many popular architectural styles of the day; passengers could cross the Atlantic in bedrooms decorated in Elizabethan, Louis XVI, Early Dutch, or Regency period furnishings.

When she was finished, the Titanic was a glittering reflection of the class-conscious nature of society in 1912. As expected, first-class passengers had the most fabulous accommodations ever seen on board ship. But those traveling second and third class on the Titanic’s maiden voyage were treated to a real surprise. Second-class voyagers had living and dining areas that were the equivalent of first-class conditions on other ships. And third-class passengers, usually emigrants and traditionally given little consideration on their voyage to a new world, found commodious space and ample and wholesome food.

You see, Ismay had a theory that second- and third-class passengers might, someday, be first-class passengers. So he wanted them to have some pleasant memories to draw them back.

• The Titanic was the first ocean liner to have a swimming pool and a gymnasium. The swimming pool was situated on F Deck and was open to first-class passengers only. The gymnasium, situated on the starboard side of the ship, featured high arched windows and top-of-the-line exercise equipment, including rowing machines and exercycles.
• The ship contained both Turkish and electric baths, a fully outfitted darkroom for photographers, and a kennel for first-class dogs.
• First-class accommodations included four parlor suites, approximately 50 feet in length and adorned with ornate gold decorations and finely woven rugs. Each contained two bedrooms, a sitting room, and a private bath and lavatory. Two of the four parlor suites had their own private promenade decks.
• The extravagant first-class passenger level also contained a smoking room and a trio of fine dining establishments. The A la Carte Restaurant offered luxury dining and architecture that featured modern leaded windows and very trendy Jacobean-style alcoves. The Veranda Café, also known as the Palm Court, consisted of two dining rooms located on either...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. The Making ofthe Titanic
• 2. The Ultimate Luxury Liner
• 3. The Sailing ofthe Titanic
• 4. Prelude to Disaster
• 5. The Sinking ofthe Titanic
• 6. In the Water
• 7. Carpathia to the Rescue
• 8. The Californian Mystery
• 9. The Music ofthe Night
• 10. Titanic: The Aftermath
• 11. Life After Titanic
• 12. In Search of Titanic
• 13. Titanic Headlines
• 14. Titanic Movies
• 15. Keeping the Memory Alive
• 16. The Passenger List
• 17. The Crew List
• 18. The Titanic’s Cargo Manifest
• Suggested Reading
• Suggested Viewing
• Suggested Websites
• Acknowledgments