I have always been intrigued by the Titanic, but my interest has grown with the recent development of how the side of the ship was damaged. I was amazed that instead of causing an open 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 cracks no larger than a single hand (http://www.titanic.cc/sonar.htm). This research amazed me by 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 senior project. At our first meeting (May 29, 1997), Mrs. Ferguson said I should try to incorporate my creative writing skills into the project. Together, we came up with the idea of ​​writing fictional diary entries for real passengers. My intent was to bring the people of the doomed liner to life through their thoughts during the voyage. I chose which passenger diaries I would write and then did extensive research on each of these people. The Titanic movie craze made it difficult to get information, but I managed to gather the facts I needed from the Internet, as well as from books and documents from the library. After researching the people, I adapted their characters and attempted to write a facsimile that came close to what I believe their diaries would look like. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayRMS Titanic was the last great dream of the Golden Age. It was designed to be the greatest achievement of an era of prosperity, trust and fairness. Old assumptions about class, morality, and gender roles were being destroyed. If the concept of the Titanic represented the pinnacle of the age, then perhaps its sinking was the curtain call that marked the end of the old drama and the beginning of a new one. The intensely competitive transatlantic steamship industry had seen recent 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 CEO J. Bruce Ismay and Harland & Wolff partner Lord James Pirrie conceived the vision of three magnificent steamships that would set a new standard of comfort, elegance and safety. 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 immense projects while the White Star dock in New York had to be lengthened to accommodate the ships dock. During the two years it took to complete the Titanic's hull, the press was filled with publicity about the ship's magnificence, making the Titanic practically 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 numerous structures and systems, its elaborate woodwork and fine decorations. As the date of its maiden voyage approached, the completed Olympic suffered a collision andrequired extensive repairs, increasing the workload of Harland & Wolff, which was already struggling to complete Titanic on schedule. The Titanic's maiden voyage was delayed from March 20 to April 10. The Titanic was 883 feet (1/6 of a mile) long, 92 feet wide and weighed 46,328 tons. She was 104 feet tall from keel to deck, of which nearly 35 feet were below the waterline. There were three real chimneys; a "dummy" fourth stack was added largely to heighten the impression of her gigantic size and power to vent smoke from her numerous galleys and galleys. It was the largest moving object ever made by man. It was designed to be a marvel of modern security technology. She had a double hull of inch-thick steel plates and a much-publicized system of sixteen watertight compartments, sealed by enormous doors that could be activated instantly by a single electrical switch on the deck or even activated automatically by electric water. sensors. The press called her "unsinkable" (Spignesi, Stephen). Its accommodations were the most modern and luxurious anywhere on the ocean and included electric lights and heat in every room, electric elevators, a swimming pool, a squash court, a steam room, a gym with mechanical horse and mechanical camel to keep you in train riders, cabins and world-class facilities to rival the best hotels on the continent (Spignesi, Stephen). First class passengers descended a grand six-story glass-domed staircase to enjoy haute cuisine in the sumptuous first-class dining salon that filled the width of the ship on Deck D. For those who wanted a more intimate atmosphere , the Titanic also offered a stately à la carte restaurant, the elegant Palm Court and Verandah restaurant and the festive Café Parisian. It offered two bands of the Atlantic's finest musicians, many of them drawn from rival liners. There were two libraries, first and second class. Third-class cabins were also more luxurious than first-class cabins on some smaller steamships and boasted amenities that some immigrant passengers on the Titanic had not enjoyed in their homes (Spignesi, Stephen). The original plan called for 32 lifeboats. However, White Star management felt that the pontoon deck would appear cluttered 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 over 3,500. people (passengers and crew). The maiden voyage attracted the "best people: British nobility, American industrialists, the 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 noon. At dusk, the Titanic stopped in Cherbourg, France, to pick up more passengers. That evening it sailed for Queenstown, Ireland, and on Thursday at 1.30 pm, April 11, it departed for the Atlantic it was nice and clear and the water temperature was about 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The winter of 1912 had been unusually mild and unprecedented amounts of ice had broken off from the Arctic regions. The Titanic was equipped with the new wireless telegraph system of Marconi and his two Marconi operators kept the wireless room running 24 hours a day. On Sunday, April 14, the fifth day at sea, the Titanic received five separate ice warnings, but the captain was not overly concerned. The ship was making 22 knots, and company CEO J. Bruce Ismay liked the idea of ​​arriving in New York a day ahead of schedule. The night of the 14thApril, wireless operator Phillips was very busy texting chatty passengers in Cape Town. Race, Newfoundland. That night he received a sixth ice warning, but did not realize how close the Titanic was to the location of the warning, and placed that message under a paperweight 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, as there was no clear white water breaking on the edges of the icebergs. At 11:40, a lookout in the crow's nest spotted an iceberg directly ahead of them. He alerted the bridge and First Officer Murdoch ordered the ship to turn sharply to port. He signaled the engine room to reverse direction, full aft. 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 that night of heroism, terror and tragedy, 705 lives were saved, 1502 lives lost and many legends were born (Spignesi, Stephen). Late April 14, 1912, in the freezing Atlantic, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and sank. , resulting in the loss of over fifteen hundred human lives. The RMS Titanic had been deemed unsinkable by newspapers and many said that God himself could not have sunk the Titanic. As if doomed from the start, it was aptly named Titanic. The titans dared to challenge the gods and, due to their arrogance, were thrown into hell. Just like the titans, Harland and Wolff, the builders, dared to challenge Mother Nature. After the tragic loss of over a thousand lives, all ships sailing the seas were forced to carry on board lifeboats sufficient for all passengers and crew. However, it was too late for most of the Titanic's passengers. The wheelhouse, also known as third class, accounted for the largest proportion of passengers and was located on the lower decks, furthest from the lifeboats. They were the majority of those lost, but every life aboard the RMS Titanic was permanently altered the moment the majestic liner slipped past an iceberg. Most passengers did not live to tell of what they experienced in the days at sea before the collision, the atmosphere of panic that surrounded the ship when they realized that the Titanic would sink, or the sensation of a thousand bodies hitting freezing water at two in the morning. Circumstances allowed Joseph Groves Boxhall, Margaret 'Molly' Tobin Brown, Lawrence Beesley and Anna McGowan to survive the sinking 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 had been 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 track the ship's position (Kuntz 129). He was on duty at the time of the collision with the iceberg and was ordered by Captain Smith to inspect the vessel for damage. Boxhall went as low as possible into the passenger sections and found no damage. However, when he found the carpenter, he was told that the ship was taking on water and that the post office was flooded. After inspecting the rest of the ship with Captain Smith, Mr. Andrews, the architect of Harland & Wolff, and Officer Wilde, Boxhall recalculated the ship's position. The calculated position was based on views and estimated speed. Titanic's position was 41 degrees 46 north, 50 degrees 14 west. Boxhall then waited impatiently for theQuartermaster Rowe arrived with the rockets so they could begin firing them from the bridge as a signal (Lynch). He and Rowe began pulling out the jack signs and mortars from where they had been fired. Just before 1 a.m. he sent his last distress signal 600 feet in the air. He commented that, once it reached the top 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 California, in the distance. He saw a boat about five or ten miles away and tried to contact it by Morse code but got no response. During the U.S. Senate investigation into the Titanic tragedy, Boxhall testified that he did not see much reluctance to get into 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 put people on the boats and leave. Boxhall replied that the boat's crew were ready and could enter the water but that they had to wait for the captain's orders. Lifeboat two 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 small suction but that he did not see the Titanic sink. After the sinking, he stopped towards the stern of the ship because he thought he could carry three more people but could not find anyone in the water. In the hours between the sinking and the arrival of the Carpithia it was Boxhall's job to continue to display a green pyrotechnic light so that the lifeboats could stay together and so that the rescue ship could find them (Kuntz). Once the Carpithia arrived, lifeboat two was the first to be recovered. Once aboard the Carpithia, Boxhall was taken to the bridge and, when asked if the ship had sunk, told Rostron, the captain of the Carpithia, "Yes.... She sank about 2.30." Rostron interrupted: were there many people left on board when it sank? Hundreds and hundreds! Maybe a thousand! Maybe more! Boxhall exploded emotionally. My God, sir, they went down with you. Couldn't they 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 worked as a technical advisor on A Night to Remember, a film adaptation of Walter Lord's book about the sinking of the ship. Titanic. Boxhall died in 1967, after which his ashes were scattered in the area where the Titanic sank (Lynch 222). Margaret Tobin was born on July 18, 1867 in Hannibal, Missouri. She was the daughter of a poor Irish immigrant, John Tobin, who emigrated to America in 1823, eventually settling in Hannibal, Missouri. She met her future husband, JJ, in 1886, and after a brief courtship, they married on September 1, 1886. Molly was nineteen, twelve years his junior. They lived in Leadville in a small two-room log cabin, and the following year Molly gave birth to her first son Lawrence Palmer Brown. Two years after that birth Molly gave birth to her second and last daughter, Catherine Ellen. A few years later, JJ Brown began mining to search for more silver deposits. After a year of mining, JJ has earned a large amount of money. In 1894 they moved to Denver and purchased a $30,000 mansion in the wealthy Capitol Hill neighborhood. Brown was 27 years old and felt dissatisfied with being Mrs. JJ Brown, a mother of two. She wanted to be a society woman of stature. Molly wore the most expensive clothes in Denver. Theremost were designed for her in Paris. Molly and JJ had their own box at the opera, and when the Browns arrived at the theater, the entire audience looked up at their box. They were also known for the lavish parties they threw at their homes and for their extensive travels in Europe. JJ grew tired of all this social climbing, but Molly continued to climb the social ladder without him. This began their estrangement which continued until JJ's death. In 1912, Brown was on one of his many European tours when he received news that his nephew was ill. He made immediate plans to return to America after receiving the bad news. He booked passage on the first ship to America, which was the Titanic (http://www.mollybrown.com/). She boarded in Cherbourg, France, counted herself lucky, and was placed in a cabin on B deck for $130. By Thursday evening Brown had already befriended Colonel Archibald Gracie, who would later unintentionally throw her into a lifeboat. On the night of the collision, Brown had stayed up finishing reading a book as she was an avid reader. When the Titanic hit the iceberg, he was thrown ashore and went to see what happened (Garrison 137, 141). Once he realized that lifeboats were being loaded, he used his knowledge of other languages ​​to try to get non-English speaking passengers onto the boats. At one point he persuaded a Belgian woman to get into a lifeboat instead of going down to get her valuables. As she walked away to see what was happening elsewhere, she was caught and dropped five feet into lifeboat six. However there were not enough sailors on the boat so Major Arthur Peuchen joined them. At 1.30am lifeboat six began rowing away from the doomed Titanic with ten empty seats (Lynch 110). There were four men in lifeboat six: Major Arthur Peuchen, third class passenger 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 broken English, and Fleet was a lookout, not an oarsman. However, despite the frightening danger of the situation, has this woman [Brown's] spirit risen? (Caplan 111). Under Brown's leadership, the women of the boat wrapped Zenni in a shawl and put him on an oar to warm him, took the oars themselves and began to row away from the doomed "ship of dreams". Hitchens was scared and had started telling everyone how the suction of the sinking ship would take them back to sea. He said if they were lucky enough to survive they would die because they had no food, water, maps or 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 a calm sea and a fighting chance. Be a man' (Caplan 112). Needless to say, Hitchens caused no more trouble (Caplan 110-112). Brown and another woman saw the Carpithia and forced Hitchens to row towards it. Once on the Carpithia, Brown formed a committee to care for the destitute and to thank the crew and members of the Carpithia for their heroic behavior (Caplan 133). After leaving Carpithia in New York, Ms. Brown was surrounded by reporters and asked what she attributed her survival to. “Typical brown luck,” he replied, “we are unsinkable.” In Denver, her ex-husband, JJ Brown, was heard commenting that she was too cruel to sink. The Titanic turned Molly into a crusade for survivors and asked the Denver Women's Club topetition Congress for maritime reform. The unwritten law of the sea, which declared women and children first, was tragically immoral, Molly said, referring to the hundreds of destitute widows and children left behind by the sinking of the Titanic. He pointed out that while their husbands went to a virtually painless death, they were left to suffer a living death. In 1914 Molly unsuccessfully attempted to run for the United States Senate. She became a member of the National Women's Party and spoke to President Coolidge seeking his approval of the Equal Rights Amendment and was known as an ardent suffragette. On September 5, 1922, at his daughter's home in Hempstead, New York, J. J. Brown died after suffering a series of heart attacks. JJ and Molly had not lived as husband and wife for many years. Unfortunately, JJ died intestate and it took five years of fighting between Molly and her two children to finally settle the estate. Due to their lavish spending, JJ left an estate of only $238,000. Molly received $20,000 in cash and securities and interest on a $100,000 trust established in her name. His children received the rest. From that time until her death, Molly had no contact with her children. By 1930 Molly's health had begun to fail. She has become a lonely woman living in her past glories. On October 26, 1932, Molly suffered a series of strokes and died, alone, in her less-than-lavish 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 teacher at Dulwich College, London. He was on holiday and boarded the Titanic in Southampton. He stated that 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 that: "Each night the sun set right before our eyes along the sea, forming a wavy and glittering path, a golden trail traced on the surface of the ocean which our ship tirelessly followed until the sun sank below the edge of the horizon, and the path ran before us faster than we could swim and slipped over the edge of the horizon - as if the sun had been a golden ball and had wound its golden thread too fast for us to follow him On Sunday evening about a hundred people gathered in the second-class dining room for hymns and songs led by Reverend Carter. Ironically, many of the hymns dealt with the peril of the sea (Lynch 77). to read and heard two jars at about 11.15pm. He emerged but found that there was nothing serious, so he returned to his room to continue reading. Shortly afterwards he heard people outside his room and went out of again to see what was going on. He noticed a heel from stern to bow and went to put on warmer clothes. He heard a call for all men to step back and for women to go to deck B so they could begin loading the boats. It was on the port side and the word went around among the men that the starboard side let men into the boats. Many of the men left and went to starboard, but Beesley remained where he was. Below him a sailor called out to other women and when he got no response told Beesley to jump into the boat. He jumped over the railing and onto Lifeboat 13. As they were being lowered, there was a misunderstanding and Lifeboat Fourteen almost fell on top of them. Fortunately, one of the stokers managed to cut the ropes and around 1 am the lifeboat13 floated away while lifeboat 14 landed where it had been ten seconds earlier. From the open sea they watched as the Titanic sank deeper and deeper into the ocean and was finally engulfed by the icy water (Caplan 175-183). It was only the next morning at 8.30am that the last survivors were brought aboard. the Carpitii. Once aboard the Carpithia, the rescued people were provided with blankets and warm food (Garrison 179). There wasn't much extra space on board, so the first few nights Beesley had to sleep on towels and was eventually moved to a real bed. Meanwhile there were rumors about the ice warning. Beesley asked one of the officers if the Titanic had received ice warnings. When the officer told him it was true, Beesley said he felt an “overwhelming sense of helplessness upon learning that the collision was avoidable” (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 repeatedly stated that no distinction was made between first, second and third class passengers when it came to loading lifeboats. However, the classist and Anglo-Saxon racism that persisted in the society of the time had its effects. Social concepts of wealth with privilege still existed in all strata of society. The Titanic represented a small part of what was happening in society. If one was honored with wealth, along with it came the "right of privilege." The poor and lower classes were excluded from the advantages 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 a fifteen-year-old originally 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. While aboard the ship, McGowan became friends with Anna Kate Kelly, who had visited County Mayo and was also going 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 for Chicago wearing nightgowns, old shoes and second-hand coats. Once in Chicago, the city helped raise money to help them get back on their feet (http://www.rmplc.co.uk/eduweb/sites/phind/). There was a lot of ineptitude on the part of the crew when it came to dealing with the third class and how they would get onto the upper decks. Non-English speaking passengers were left to fend for themselves when the ship began to sink. Another major problem for the third class was the lack, or non-existence, of communication from the Bridge. The Titanic did not have a public address system or telephones throughout the ship. The third class crew was expected to handle whatever happened on their own. They had not been given any lifeboat drills. Needless to say, confusion reigned. Some gates were open and some were not. Even if the wheelhouse had reached the next deck, they would not have been guaranteed to reach the next passage. Some passengers were sent back 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 allowed. Some loyal White Star crew members were waiting for directions from the bridge before allowing third class passengers access to the upper decks. It never arrived. Orders, if anything