Chivalry at sea

It's been a busy week.  At 9:30, I finally got home and sat down with the paper to relax, knowing that I wanted to post on this blog, but feeling too tired to write!

But lo and behold!  Right there in the Science Times (my favorite NYT feature section) was an interesting article about the unwritten law of the sea, "women and children first."  Apparently, except for the Titanic, on sinking ships it's "every man for himself."

In fact, on most of the shipwrecks studied, the highest survival rate was among the crew!

One section was particularly damning for British ships:

Some have suggested that chivalry at sea is a defining characteristic of the British, and that behavior on British ships is guided by this tradition. But even counting the Titanic and the Lusitania, the survival rate for women on the eight British ships in the study was significantly lower than on ships flying other flags, and women died more often than men whether or not the “women and children first” order was given.

“The study suggests there isn’t a particular British tradition of women and children first,” said Lucy Delap, a lecturer in British history at Cambridge, who was not involved in the study. “No, actually women are less likely to survive on British ships, apart from the Titanic.”

(emphasis added)

Yikes. So the Brits are, generally, less likely to look after the weaker and smaller in case of danger . . .

You may know these statistics, but I'll share them anyway:  on the Titanic, 70% of women and 20% of men survived.

And that ship above?  It's the Lusitania (also a British ship) that was torpedoed and sank in 1915, and where the survival rate for women and men was approximately equal.

I wonder if there will be a big centenary for the Lusitania . . .

Not a Road Trip

This is where the Titanic sank:

I'm not going there.

For true Titaniacs with a desire to recreate the cruise without the crash, there was a 100th anniversary cruise to the site this spring, the "Titanic Memorial Cruise." The 12-night cruise (following the Titanic's route) included lectures, demonstrations, the chance to "pamper yourself and make the most of the ship's facilities," and a memorial service at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 2012.

You can find a close-up mapping of the undersea site on this page of the History Channel's website.  The article itself begins and ends promoting a show, but the slide show with captions is pretty cool.

Branson road trip?

In that list of Titanic museums, there was one that's here in the Midwest, far from any ocean.  It's Titanic Branson, just 443 miles (7 hours 58 minutes) away from our house.

Road trip time?

I took a look at the Titanic Branson website--it's pretty, um, impressive.  It includes this promotional video:


I can't tell whether this video makes me want to go, or to flee.

It's a bit over the top.   A Titanic-shaped building, complete with iceberg, "hosts" dressed up as the crew, sloping decks to "test your balance," a lifeboat to climb into . . . you can also rent the facility for a wedding!

And of course, the ubiquitous boarding pass.

This is what the "Education" page of the website says:
The Titanic Museum Attractions want to promote the awareness and knowledge of the world's diverse cultures by recreating actual rooms of the Titanic and by displaying actual objects that bring to life individuals and events that have had a significant impact on human history. It is our desire to present the Titanic story in a historically accurate and reverent manner and to inspire further study and research into this event.

"Promote awareness and knowledge of the world's diverse cultures"?  Really?

The site does have bios of passengers, and I'm sure the "crew" (staff) is probably pretty knowledgeable.  Still, I'm thinking that the main goal of this museum is to make money by appealing to people's fascination with the Titanic's story.

My friend Karen was in Branson last week with her family. She didn't go to the museum, but they drove past it on their way to shows.  She said the main street in Branson is just like the midway at a fair, except you're in a car.  Yeah.

But you know what?  I still want to go!

An awesome combination

The Titanic and the BeeGees--what a combination!

My sister alerted me to the fact that Robin Gibb (of BeeGee fame) wrote a requiem for the Titanic, which was performed before the singer/songwriter's death this spring.

Here it is, in its entirety, thanks to YouTube.  I'm listening to it now, and it seems good--always great to hear choral music, and the requiem service is always moving.

The pop song that came out of it, "Don't Cry Alone" is toward the end, and can also be found by itself on YouTube--a reviewer on Amazon says it "sucks sadness out of the gut."  I think I like the choral music better.

Titanic-reading by the numbers . . .

Subject search for "Titanic" on Cedar Rapids library site:  found 159 titles.


Subject search for "Titanic" on Coe College library site:  found 15 titles


Google search for "Titanic":  found 164,000,000 results

Google Scholar search for "Titanic": found 92,600 results


Netflix search for "Titanic" yielded: 26 movies about the Titanic


On Ask.com, there is no answer to the question "how many Titanic museums are there worldwide?"  


The Jetpacker says there are "over 200 Titanic museums worldwide" and lists some, such as:

• Titanic Artifact Museum (8 locations worldwide, including Atlanta)
• Titanic the Experience in Orlando
• The Titanic Museum in Indian Orchard, MA
• Titanic Museum in Belfast, Ireland
• Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax Nova Scotia
• Titanic Museum Attraction in Branson, MO

Awesome Titanic Book

My colleague Lisa asked me the other day for a Titanic book recommendation.

Easy, I said. The Watch that Ends the Night.

Lisa has a daughter in upper elementary school who is an avid reader, and I think she'd like this book, too.
This is what I said to Lisa in an e-mail:

It's the best Titanic book I've read so far, a verse novel with poems--very free-verse, very readable--in the voices of people on the ship . . . plus the iceberg (!) and a rat!  The library has it.  It's officially a Young Adult book, but reviews say that younger folks like it, and I loved it (I don't usually like "YA" books).

Yes, this book includes poetry in the voice of a ship's rat!  I think that was one reason I decided to try it out (that, and I got a recommendation from my friend Jean, who is a children's/YA librarian, and whose taste I trust).

We owned pet rats for a while, and I do love them!

They are fun, intelligent, affectionate little creatures.  So when I saw that a ratty's voice began and ended this book, I had to read it.

The rat poems were, to me, a sign of how wonderful this book is. They show that Allan Wolf has done his research and written both intelligently and movingly. Just look at the first poem:

The Ship's Rat

               Follow the food

Follow the rats

                                             scuttle, scuttle
Follow the rats

                                         scuttle, scuttle

          Follow the food.

OK, I don't think I got the spacing quite right, but Allan Wolf DID get the rat right!  The acknowledgements say that he did spend some time with ratties.

The rest of the poems in this telling are in the voices of Titanic passengers and crew, from Bruce Ismay to John Jacob Astor to a stoker (coal-shoveler) to Fredrick Fleet, who was on lookout when the iceberg was spotted.

Some of the poems delve more deeply into characters' lives and thoughts.  These are the ones that tell the stories of Thomas Andrews, the ship builder; Frankie Goldsmith, a child on the ship; Harold Bride, one of the wireless operators; and Jamila Nicola-Yarrad, a refuge girl of 14. And there's more information about all these people--real Titanic people--in a fascinating appendix.

Interspersed through the novel is the story of the undertaker, John Snow, who goes out in the ship Mackay Bennett, to retrieve the bodies of those who were lost.  This is what he says when he sees the sight:

Those are no seagulls at all.  Those are bodies.

More bodies.  Each one waiting in a bright white vest.
My God.  My God.  My God.
Bodies scattered for miles in every direction.
Bodies as far as my indifferent eyes can see.

Wow.

But don't think that this book is a total downer, because it's not!  Lovely things happen--the teenage refugee Jamila finds her first love, the adventurous little boy Frankie discovers Dragon's Blood, and the baker Charles Joughin notices a very clever rat scuttling about. . . And it's all believable: Allan Wolf really did his research--on all the people whose stories he told, and on the Titanic and its sinking as well.

Still, this book's power comes from the insightful and moving way it makes this event come alive through the voices of those who were there.  It helps readers--young and old--understand the haunting story a bit better.  I think poetry is a fitting genre for the story of the Titanic.  

I hope you'll read it!

Titanic Exhibits everywhere!

My sister sent me a link to a cool Titanic exhibit that's going on in Atlanta.  It's called "Titanic:  The Artifact Exhibit."

It includes some cool things I'd love to check out, including a reconstructed first-class cabin!

There's an "iceberg wall" that visitors can touch to get a sense of how cold the water was. There are tales of people with Georgia or Atlanta connections who were on the ship.  And there are artifacts, stuff that's been brought up from the Titanic site--dishes, bits of trim from the ship, clothing that survived.

It would be cool to travel to various Titanic exhibits around the world.  But I barely need to.

Here in Cedar Rapids, there's not one but TWO Titanic exhibits!  There's the one at Brucemore, that I visited earlier.  And there's one at our History Center--I went there with my husband Bruce yesterday.

The exhibit's theme is "Cedar Rapids in 1912," and it is very small.  Along one wall are Titanic items, and along another, some photos and clothing items from Cedar Rapids at the turn of that century.

The Titanic items included
a model Titanic in a glass case:

Very pretty.  Near it was one of those plans of the ship that one can order online--looks kinda like this:

There were also some Titanic dishes--these were replicas. People seem obsessed with the dishes!

I liked the clothing from the time period that they had on display.

I could see myself wearing that dress--it was made for a smallish person, such as myself.  And Bruce would look fine in the tux.

Of course, when I saw the tux, I thought of the last glimpse Mahala Douglas had of her husband, standing on the deck of the ship in his formal suit, overcoat, and top hat, with a heavy blanket over his arm.

Maybe my sister should come to Cedar Rapids for some Titanic-ing.