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Essay / The Size, Shape, and Design of the Titanic
I have always been intrigued by the Titanic, but my interest has exploded with recent developments in how the side of the ship was damaged. I was amazed that instead of causing a gaping wound, as previously believed, the iceberg struck by the Titanic simply caused a series of small tears in the side of the ship. Sonar was used to determine that the side of the ship had six small slits that were no larger than a single hand (http://www.titanic.cc/sonar.htm). This research amazed me because of the amount of water that passed through the small cracks in the hull. I have always been interested in ships, but the mystery surrounding the sinking of the Titanic made me choose it for my main project. At our first meeting (May 29, 1997), Ms. Ferguson mentioned that I should try to incorporate my creative writing skills into the project. Together, we imagined writing fictional diary entries for real passengers. My intention was to bring the passengers of the doomed liner to life through their thoughts throughout the voyage. I chose which passenger diaries I would write, then I did extensive research on each of these people. The hype surrounding the movie Titanic made it difficult to obtain information, but I was able to gather the information I needed from the Internet as well as books and materials from the library. After researching the people, I adapted their characters and attempted to write a close facsimile of what I think their diaries would have looked like. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay. RMS Titanic was the last great dream of the Golden Age. It was designed to be the greatest achievement of an age of prosperity, confidence and convenience. Old presumptions about class, morality, and gender roles were about to be shattered. If the concept of the Titanic was the pinnacle of the era, then perhaps its sinking was the curtain that marked the end of the old drama and the beginning of a new one. The extremely competitive transatlantic steamship sector has recently seen major advances in ship design, size and speed. White Star Line, one of the leaders, was determined to focus on size and elegance rather than pure speed. In 1907, White Star Line managing director J. Bruce Ismay and Lord James Pirrie, a partner at Harland & Wolff, conceived a vision of three magnificent steamships that would set a new standard for comfort, elegance and security. The first two were to be called Olympic and Titanic, the latter name chosen by Ismay to convey a sense of overwhelming size and strength. It took a year to design the two ships. Construction of the Olympic began in December 1908, followed by that of the Titanic in March 1909. The Harland & Wolff shipyards in Belfast had to be redesigned to accommodate the huge projects while the White Star pier in New York had to be lengthened to accommodate allow ships to dock. During the two years it took to complete the Titanic's hull, the press was laden with publicity about the ship's magnificence, making the Titanic virtually a legend before its launch. The steel “launch” completed in May 1911 was a highly publicized spectacle. Tickets were sold to benefit a local children's hospital. The Titanic was then taken for a "fit-out" which involved the construction of the ship's many facilities and systems, its elaborate woodwork and its fine decoration. As the date of its maiden voyage approached, the Olympic underwenta collision and required extensive repairs, increasing the workload at Harland & Wolff, which was already struggling to complete the Titanic on time. The Titanic's maiden voyage was delayed from March 20 to April 10. The Titanic was 883 feet long (1/6 mile), 92 feet wide, and weighed 46,328 tons. She measured 104 feet from keel to deck, almost 35 feet of which was below the waterline. There were three real fireplaces; a fourth "dummy" battery was added largely to increase the impression of its gargantuan size and power and to vent smoke from its many galleys and galleys. It was the largest moving object ever made by man. It was designed to be a marvel of modern safety technology. It had a double hull made of inch-thick steel plates and a much-publicized system of sixteen watertight compartments, sealed by massive doors that could be triggered instantly by a single electrical switch on deck or even automatically by electric water. sensors. The press described it as “unsinkable” (Spignesi, Stephen). Her accommodations were the most modern and luxurious in all the oceans and included electric light and heating in every room, electric elevators, a swimming pool, a squash court, a Turkish bath, a gymnasium with a mechanical horse and a mechanical camel to keep riders fit, and first-class cabins and facilities to rival the best hotels on the continent (Spignesi, Stephen). First class passengers would descend a grand six-story glass-domed staircase to enjoy haute cuisine in the sumptuous first class dining room which occupied the full width of the ship on D Deck. For those who wished a more intimate atmosphere, Titanic also offered a majestic à la carte restaurant, the chic Palm Court and Verandah restaurant and the festive Café Parisian. She proposed two musical ensembles composed of the Atlantic's finest musicians, many of whom were attracted by rival liners. There were two libraries, first and second class. Even third-class cabins were more luxurious than the first-class cabins of some lesser steamships and offered amenities that some of the Titanic's immigrant passengers had not enjoyed in their own homes (Spignesi, Stephen). The original design called for 32 lifeboats. However, White Star management felt that the boat's deck would look crowded and reduced the number to 20, for a total lifeboat capacity of 1,178. This actually exceeded regulations at the time, even though the Titanic was capable of carrying more than 3,500 people. people (passengers and crew). The maiden voyage attracted "the best people: British nobility, American industrialists, the very cream of New York and Philadelphia society." It also attracted many poor immigrants, hoping to start a new life in America or Canada. The voyage began in Southampton on Wednesday, April 10, 1912, at midday, as the sun set, the Titanic had stopped in Cherbourg, France, to take on additional passengers. That evening she sailed to Queenstown, Ireland, and on Thursday at 1:30 p.m. On April 11, she headed for the Atlantic. The weather was nice and clear, and the water temperature was around 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The winter of 1912 had been exceptionally mild and unprecedented amounts of ice had broken off from the Arctic regions. Titanic was equipped with Marconi's new wireless telegraph system and its two Marconi operators operated wireless room 24On Sunday, April 14, the fifth day at sea, the Titanic received five different ice warnings, but the captain was not too concerned. The ship was moving at a speed of 22 knots, and the line's general manager, J. Bruce Ismay, relished the idea of arriving in New York a day earlier than expected. On the night of April 14, wireless operator Phillips was busy sending chatty messages to passengers at Cape Race, Newfoundland. He received a sixth ice warning that night, but did not realize how close the Titanic was to the warning's position, and he put this message under a clipboard at his elbow. He never reached Captain Smith or the officer on the bridge. The sea was unusually calm and flat, “like glass,” many survivors said. The lack of waves made it even more difficult to spot the icebergs, since there was no telltale white water breaking over the edges of the icebergs. At 11:40 a.m., a lookout in the crow's nest spotted an iceberg just ahead. He notified the bridge and First Officer Murdoch ordered the ship to turn fully to port. He signaled the engine room to reverse, all the way back. The ship turned slightly, but it was too big, moving too fast, and the iceberg was too close. Thirty-seven seconds later, the greatest maritime disaster in history began. During this night of heroism, terror and tragedy, 705 lives were saved, 1,502 lives were lost and many legends were born (Spignesi, Stephen). Late on April 14, 1912, in the frigid Atlantic, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank. , resulting in the loss of more than fifteen hundred lives. The RMS Titanic had been deemed unsinkable by newspapers, and many said that God himself could not sink the Titanic. As if doomed from the start, she was aptly named Titanic. The titans dared to challenge the gods, and for their arrogance they were cast into hell. Just like the titans, Harland and Wolff, the builders, dared to defy Mother Nature. After the tragic loss of more than a thousand lives, all ships plying the seas were forced to carry enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew on board. However, it was too late for the majority of the Titanic's passengers. Executive positions, also known as third class, made up the largest percentage of passengers and were on the lower decks, furthest from the lifeboats. They made up the majority of victims, but every life aboard the RMS Titanic was forever changed the moment the majestic liner slipped past an iceberg. Most of the passengers did not live long enough to recount what they experienced in the days at sea preceding the collision, the atmosphere of panic that surrounded the ship when it was learned that the Titanic would sink, or the sensation of a thousand bodies hitting icy water at two in the morning. Circumstances allowed Joseph Groves Boxhall, Margaret “Molly” Tobin Brown, Lawrence Beesley, and Anna McGowan to survive the shipwreck and exposure to the cold (Hyslop et al.). Joseph Groves Boxhall was born in Hull, Yorkshire, in 1884 and had been at sea for thirteen years before joining the Titanic, five of which were with the White Star Line (http://www.execpc.com/~reva/tioff .htm#Boxhall). Boxhall was the fourth officer of the Titanic and one of his duties on board was to plot the ship's position (Kuntz 129). He was on duty at the time of the iceberg collision and Captain Smith ordered him to inspect the ship for damage. Boxhall went as low as possible into the passenger sections and found no damage.However, when he found the carpenter, he was informed that the ship was taking on water and the mailroom was flooded. After inspecting the rest of the ship with Captain Smith, Mr Andrews, the architect from Harland & Wolff and Officer Wilde, Boxhall recalculated the ship's position. The position he calculated was based on views and estimated speed. The Titanic's position was 41 degrees 46 north and 50 degrees 14 west. Boxhall then waited impatiently for Quartermaster Rowe to come with rockets so they could begin firing them from the bridge as a signal (Lynch). He and Rowe began removing the signals from the sockets and the mortars from which they were fired. Just before 1 a.m., he sent the final distress signal 600 feet in the air. He commented that upon reaching the peak of its trajectory, it exploded and a dozen white stars drifted downward (Garrison 162). It was Boxhall who spotted the mysterious ship, also known as the California, in the distance. He saw a boat about five to ten miles away and tried to contact it with Morse code, but got no response. During the U.S. Senate investigation into the Titanic tragedy, Boxhall said he did not feel much reluctance to go into the lifeboats or anxiety aboard the ship. He was put in charge of Lifeboat Two, one of the last lifeboats to leave the doomed ship. While still aboard the Titanic, Boxhall spoke to Bruce Ismay, who asked him why he didn't just put people on the boats and leave. Boxhall responded that the boat's crew was ready and could go into the water but would have to wait for orders from the captain. Lifeboat No. 2 was quite full and, due to their late departure, they were only about half a mile from the Titanic when it sank. Boxhall testified that there was a little suction but that he had not seen the Titanic sink. After the sinking, he moved to the rear of the ship because he thought he could carry three more people, but he found no one in the water. During the hours between the sinking and the arrival of the Carpithia, it was Boxhall's duty to keep lighting a green pyrothetic light so that the lifeboats could stay together and the rescue ship could find them (Kuntz). Once the Carpithia arrived, Lifeboat Two was the first to be picked up. Once aboard the Carpithia, Boxhall was taken to the bridge and, when asked if the ship had sunk, he replied to Rostron, the captain of the Carpithia: "Yes... She sank around 2 p.m. 30. He quickly began detailing what had happened until Rostron interrupted: Were there many people left on board when it sank? Hundreds and hundreds! Maybe a thousand! Maybe more! Boxhall burst into emotion. My God, sir, they went down with her. They couldn't live in this freezing water? (Lynch 150).After arriving in New York, Boxhall joined the Royal Navy and retired from the sea in 1940. In 1958, he acted as technical advisor on A Night to Remember, a film adaptation of Walter Lord's book about the sinking of the Titanic. Boxhall died in 1967, after which his ashes were spread in the area where the Titanic sank (Lynch 222). Margaret Tobin was born July 18, 1867 in Hannibal, Missouri. She was the daughter of a poor Irish immigrant, John Tobin, who immigrated to America in 1823 and eventually settled in Hannibal, Missouri. She met her future husband, JJ, in 1886 and, after a brief courtship, they were married on September 1, 1886. Molly was nineteen, twelve years her junior. They lived in Leadville in a small two-room log cabin and the yearNext, Molly gave birth to her first child, Lawrence Palmer Brown. Two years after this birth, Molly gave birth to her second and final child, Catherine Ellen. A few years later, JJ Brown began mining to search for more silver deposits. After a year of mining, JJ made a lot of money. In 1894, they moved to Denver and purchased a $30,000 mansion in Denver's wealthy Capitol Hill neighborhood. Brown was 27 years old and she felt unfulfilled just by being Mrs. JJ Brown, a mother of two. She wanted to be a woman of world stature. Molly wore the most expensive clothes in Denver. Most were designed for her in Paris. Molly and JJ had their own dressing room at the opera, and when the Browns arrived at the theater, the entire audience looked up at their dressing room. They were also known for the lavish parties they threw at their home and their extensive trips to Europe. JJ was tired of all this social climbing, but Molly continued to climb the social ladder without him. This is how their separation began, which continued until JJ's death. In 1912, Brown was on one of her many European tours when she learned that her grandson was ill. She immediately made plans to return to America after receiving the bad news. She booked passage on the first ship to America, which turned out to be the Titanic (http://www.mollybrown.com/). She boarded in Cherbourg, France and considered herself lucky and was placed in a cabin on Deck B for $130. By Thursday evening, Brown was well acquainted with Colonel Archibald Gracie, who would later unknowingly throw her into a lifeboat. The night of the collision, Brown had stayed up to finish reading a book because she was an avid reader. When the Titanic hit the iceberg, he was thrown to the ground and went to see what was happening (Garrison 137, 141). Once she realized the lifeboats were being loaded, she used her knowledge of other languages to try to get passengers who did not speak English onto the boats. At one point, she persuaded a Belgian woman to get into a lifeboat instead of going down to collect her valuables. As she moved away to see what was happening elsewhere, she was picked up and dropped four feet into lifeboat six. However, there were not enough sailors in the boat, Major Arthur Peuchen joined them. At 1:30 a.m., lifeboat six began to move away from the doomed Titanic with ten empty seats (Lynch 110). There were four men in boat six: Major Arthur Peuchen, Passenger Third Class Philip Zenni, Lookout Frederick Fleet, who spotted the iceberg. , and Quartermaster Robert Hitchens, who was in charge of the boat. Peuchen was really too old to be of any use; Hitchens was too cowardly to be useful; Zenni was half-frozen and spoke poor English, and Fleet was a lookout, not a rower. However, in the face of the appalling danger of the situation, this woman's [Brown] spirit soared? (Caplan 111). Under Brown's leadership, the women on the boat wrapped Zenni in a shawl and put him to an oar to warm him, took the oars themselves and began to sail away from the doomed "ship of dreams." Hitchens was scared and had started explaining to them all how the suction of the sinking ship was going to pull them back into the sea. He said that if they were lucky enough to survive, they would perish because they would have no food, no water, no maps, no compass. Brown told him frankly: “Keep it to yourself, if you feel that way.” For the sake of these women and children, be a man. We have acalm sea and a chance to fight. Be a man” (Caplan 112). Needless to say, Hitchens posed no further problems (Caplan 110-112). Brown and another of the women saw the Carpithia and forced Hitchens to row in it. Once on the Carpithia, Brown formed a committee to care for the destitute and thank the crew and members of the Carpithia for their heroic behavior (Caplan 133). Leaving the Carpithia in New York, Ms. Brown was surrounded by reporters and asked to what she attributed her survival. “Typical Brown luck,” she replied, “We’re unsinkable.” In Denver, her ex-husband, JJ Brown, was heard saying she was too mean to go under. The Titanic turned Molly into a crusader for survivors, and she asked the Denver Women's Club to petition Congress for maritime reform. The unwritten law of the sea, which prioritizes women and children, is tragically immoral, Molly said, pointing to the hundreds of destitute widows and children left behind by the Titanic's sinking. She emphasized that even if their husbands died virtually painlessly, they had to die alive. In 1914, Molly unsuccessfully attempted to run for the U.S. Senate. She became a member of the National Woman's Party and spoke to President Coolidge to gain his approval of the Equal Rights Amendment and was known as an ardent suffragist. On September 5, 1922, at his daughter's home in Hempstead, New York, JJ Brown died after a series of heart attacks. JJ and Molly hadn't been husband and wife for many years. Unfortunately, JJ died without a will and it took five years of wrangling between Molly and her two children to finally settle the estate. Due to their lavish spending, JJ left an estate of just $238,000. Molly received $20,000 in cash and securities, plus interest from a $100,000 trust fund established in her name. His children received the rest. From then until her death, Molly had no contact with her children. By 1930, Molly's health began to deteriorate. She became a single woman living in her past glories. On October 26, 1932, Molly suffered several strokes and died alone, in her less than sumptuous hotel room. She died almost penniless. After a small funeral, Molly was buried next to JJ on Long Island, New York, at Holy Rood Cemetery. She was 65 years old at the time of her death (http://www.mollybrown.com/).Lawrence Beesley was a thirty-four-year-old science professor at Dulwich College, London. He was on vacation and boarded the Titanic in Southampton. He said there wasn't much excitement on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but that didn't mean the days were filled with boredom (Garrison 45, 54). He said: “Each night the sun set straight before our eyes along the sea, creating a wavy, shimmering path, a golden trail traced on the surface of the ocean that our ship followed relentlessly until as the sun dipped below the edge of the horizon, and the path ran before us faster than we could navigate and slipped over the edge of the horizon. - as if the sun had been a ball of gold and had wound its golden thread too fast for us to follow. On Sunday evening, about a hundred people gathered in the second-class dining room for hymns and singing led by Rev. Carter. Ironically, many hymns dealt with the danger of the sea (Lynch 77). Beesley then went to his room to read and felt two jars around 11:15 p.m. He went back out but found that nothing seemed serious, so he returned to his room to continue reading. A little later he heard people outside andwent out again to see what was happening. He noticed a list going down from stern to bow and went to put on warmer clothes. He heard a call for all the men to stand down and for the ladies to go to B Deck so they could begin loading the boats. It was on the port side and there was a rumor among the men that the starboard side let men into the boats. Many of the men left and headed to starboard, but Beesley stayed where he was. Below him a sailor called out to other ladies and receiving no response told Beesley to jump into the boat. He jumped over the rail and got into lifeboat number 13. While they were going down there was a mix-up and lifeboat number fourteen almost crashed into them. Luckily one of the drivers managed to cut the ropes and around 1am Lifeboat 13 flew away while Lifeboat 14 landed where it had been ten seconds earlier. From the open sea, they watched the Titanic sink deeper into the ocean and eventually be swallowed up by the icy waters (Caplan 175-183). It was not until 8:30 the next morning that the last survivors were brought on board. Carpitia. Once aboard the Carpithia, those rescued were given blankets and warm food (Garrison 179). There wasn't much extra room on board, so the first few nights Beesley had to sleep on towels and was eventually moved to a real bed. Meanwhile, rumors were rife about ice warnings. Beesley asked one of the officers if the Titanic had received any ice warnings. When the officer told him it was true, Beesley said he felt "an immense sense of helplessness upon learning that the collision had been avoided" (Lynch 163). After his rescue, Beesley wrote a best-selling book about his experience, The Loss of the Titanic. He died on 14 February 1967, aged 89 (http://www.rmplc.co.uk.eduweb/sites/phind/html/beesly_1.html). White Star Line officials have repeatedly stated that no distinction is made. between first, second and third class passengers when it came to loading the lifeboats. However, the class-conscious Anglo-Saxon racism that persisted in the society of the time had its own effect. Social concepts of wealth and privilege still existed in all levels of society. The Titanic was only a small part of what was happening in society. If one was blessed with wealth, it came with the “right to privilege.” The poor and lower classes were excluded from the benefits enjoyed by the rest of society (http://www.execpc.com/~reva/html3c5.htm). For this reason, there is not much information about Anna McGowan. She was fifteen years old, from County Mayo, Ireland. McGowan was traveling to Chicago with his aunt, Katherine McGowan, to meet Katherine's sister. They boarded at Queenstown as third class passengers. On board the ship, McGowan befriended Anna Kate Kelly, who had visited County Mayo and was also traveling to Chicago. McGowan and Kelley survived but Katherine was lost. When they reached New York, McGowan and Kelly spent several days at St. Vincent's Hospital. The two survivors then left in nightgowns, old shoes and second-hand coats for Chicago. Once in Chicago, the city helped raise funds to help them get back on their feet (http://www.rmplc.co.uk/eduweb/sites/phind/). The crew showed great incompetence regarding third class and how they were going to get onto the upper decks. Passengers who did not speakEnglish were left to their own devices as the ship began to sink. Another major problem for the third class was the lack, if not non-existence, of communication from the deck. The Titanic did not have a public address system or telephone throughout the ship. The third class crew had to handle whatever came their way on their own. No rescue drills had been given to them. Needless to say, confusion reigned. Some doors were open and others were not. Even if steerage made it to the next deck, they were not guaranteed to make it to the next crossing. Some passengers were returned by White Star employees to the last area they had just left. Some crew members only let women and children through, while in other areas no one was admitted. Some loyal members of the White Star's crew waited for instructions from the deck before allowing third-class passengers access to the upper decks. It never arrived. Orders, if they arrived, were sent to the lower decks after most of the lower capacity lifeboats had departed. At that time, the fate of these people was sealed. They were essentially left to their own devices. Some managed to escape, but most were content to find themselves helpless in their neighborhoods, ignored, neglected, forgotten. In his book, Colonel Archibald Gracie recalled his surprise and outrage when he saw dozens of women and children appear from below, just before kick-off. END. Until then, Gracie was sure the women and children were all gone – they were so hard to find when the last boats were loading. Neither the chance to be chivalrous nor the fruits of chivalry seemed to come with a move to third class. Towards the end, third class passengers were seen kneeling and praying while clutching their children in horror while in another third class area a lone woman sat. at the piano in the Steerage dining room, holding her two young children to her bosom, singing an Irish lullaby as the water began to swirl around them. The White Star Line offered many reasons why these statistics went against third class passengers. . One official claimed they just didn't want to leave the ship, and another said they stayed in their room and refused to come out. During the British investigation, crew members said one after another that there was no discrimination against third-class passengers. However, no third-class passengers were invited to testify. If the White Star Line was indifferent to steerage, so was everyone else. No one seemed to care about third class, not the press, not official inquiries, not even the third class passengers themselves. The US Congress heard only three witnesses, third class passengers. Two of these people testified that they were prevented from going onto the deck of the boats until most, if not all, of the lifeboats had left. However, no action has been taken regarding these claims. They fell on deaf ears. Again, the facts do not suggest any deliberate conspiracy against the third class passengers, just that no one was interested in what they had to say. Their comments, opinions and concerns had no value. Even the third class passengers themselves, accustomed to being treated as inferiors, were not bothered. They expected class distinction to be a part of life. So on the Titanic it seemed normal