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The Titanic: From Sinking to Salvage
Key Lecture Points:
• On June 22, 2007 “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition” opens at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and will run until January 6, 2008. More than 300 Titanic artifacts salvaged from the ship's debris field will be on display, including a two-ton section of the hull. Other artifacts include china from the ship's dining rooms, jewelry, passengers' belongings, money and tools. The show, which to date has been seen by 18 million people worldwide, tells the ship's story from its construction in Belfast, Ireland, to its ill-fated maiden voyage in 1912, when it was sunk by an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Visitors will be issued tickets that are replicas of those issued to actual passengers. Each visitor will be given a passenger's name, and by exhibit's end will learn a few facts about that person - including his or her fate.
• The allegedly “unsinkable” Titanic, hailed as the largest and most luxurious oceanliner of its time, hit an iceberg at 11:40pm on April 14, 1912. Within three hours the great ship had sunk to the bottom of the North Atlantic, taking the lives of 1517 of the 2228 passengers aboard. The passengers came from high society, as well from poor European backgrounds, and everywhere in between—the different decks of the ship reflected these different socio-economic backgrounds. Not surprisingly, the poorer passengers were the ones more likely to perish in the tragedy.
• “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, one of 705 survivors of the Titanic, was a long-time resident of Leadville, CO before she moved to Denver in 1894. Her husband, J.J. Brown, was a mining engineer who presided over a huge gold discovery in Leadville in 1893. The family, with its newfound wealth, moved into the “House of Lions”, a grand Victorian house on Pennsylvania Street in Capitol Hill, Denver. Molly toured the world, and was a travel writer for the Denver Times. She was also active in the Colorado women’s suffrage movement.
• In 1985, seventy-three years after the Titanic sunk, oceanographer and marine biologist Dr. Robert Ballard located the remains of the ship 2.5 miles below the ocean’s surface. Advances in satellite, sonar and deep-dive technologies made possible the discovery of the Titanic’s remains, some of which will be on display in Denver. Debris falling out of the ship was strewn across the sea floor. The bow and the stern were found nearly 2000ft. apart, proving that, contrary to earlier conclusions, the ship broke into two pieces just before it sank.
For More Information:
• On the Exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science: http://www.dmns.org/main/en/General/Exhibitions/UpcomingExhibitions/titanic.htm
• On the Exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science: http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_5548355
• General Information on the Titanic and Salvage Operations: http://www.gma.org/space1/titanic.html
Books For Further Reading:
• Brandt, Anthony. The Tragic History of the Sea: Shipwrecks from the Bible to Titanic. National Geographic Society, 2006. 329 pages.
Description: This book chronicles millennia of shipwrecks, cataloguing both the legendary and the real. The stories of the wrecks are complemented by Brandt’s own annotations that put the stories in their proper technical, historical and maritime contexts.
Click here to order.
• Mowbray, Jay Henry. Sinking of the Titanic: Eyewitness Accounts. Dover Publications, 1998. 320 pages.
Description: Gripping first-hand testimony by survivors, rescuers, and others brings the great maritime disaster into focus in this 1912 "memorial edition," first published shortly after the tragedy. Eyewitnesses recount heart-breaking tales of parting with loved ones, watching the great ship sink, and floating helplessly for long hours on icy seas. Numerous rare photographs are also included.
Click here to order.
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