Heroes of the Night: Titanic, Fact, and Fiction
The prevailing myth of heroism on the Titanic revolves around First Class men and the crew. The myth emphasized manly and gentlemanly conduct and associated heroism was associated with class and gender. Most of the accounts of the sinking depict First Class men as paragons of manly virtue who sacrificed their rightful places in lifeboats so that women from all classes could be saved. One of the main heroic qualities was manliness, which meant that a man should remain at his post until the end, keep strict control of his emotions, and have a willingness to sacrifice himself for others in chivalric selflessness. Second and Third Class men were largely excluded from the myth.
There was a claim that all men had died as equals. The claim was often made when people tried to suggest that the Titanic disaster broke down social class divisions. However, the general understanding was to be that only the upper-class men had made the noble sacrifice because they had given up their rightful places by staying behind (implying that they had more right to be saved than did men or women from Third Class). The press generally did not mourn the loss of Third Class passengers; they mourned the event as a whole and focused on First Class passengers, who received specific mourning attention. A good example of this, which Stephanie Barczewski calls attention to in Titanic: A Night Remembered, is an article that appeared in The Daily Mirror that took special care to point out that John Jacob Astor had “gone to his death just as though he were the poorest steerage passenger”. It is an attempt to illustrate that all men died as equals, yet the purpose of the article and the statement is to mourn Astor specifically, not the “poorest steerage passenger.”
The sinking transformed First Class men into heroes, even those who had been unpopular before. Again, we’ll look at John Jacob Astor as an example. Before the sinking, Astor had not been a popular man in social circles. His divorce and subsequent marriage to a woman more than twenty years his junior had created a social scandal and alienated him. After the sinking, though, opinions of him altered dramatically. This can be attributed to the stories that circulated recounting some of his final actions.
One survivor, Mrs. Ida S. Hippach, said that Astor had personally helped her into a lifeboat. “We saw Colonel Astor place Mrs. Astor in a boat and heard him assure her that he would follow later. He turned to us with a smile and said `Ladies, you are next.’ The officer in charge of the boat protested that the craft was full and the seamen started to lower it. Colonel Astor exclaimed ‘Hold that boat,’ in the voice of a man to be obeyed, and the men did as he ordered. The boat had been ordered past the upper deck, and the Colonel took us to the next deck below and put us in the boat, one after the other, through a porthole.”
Other accounts report that Astor helped a 10-year-old boy secure a spot in a lifeboat after an officer refused to let the boy enter because the officer thought the boy was old enough to be considered a man. “When Colonel Astor had assisted his tearful young wife and her maid into a life boat, he tried to put in a young boy, but sailors refused to let him in saying that the room was only for the children then,” George Harder told the Worcester Evening Gazette. “Colonel Astor then picked up a woman’s hat from the deck and placed it on the boy’s head and brought him back to the boat. He said ‘Here little girl, climb in’ and the officers of the ship let the boy through.” Still another rumor claimed that Astor had been the one to open all the cages in the ship’s kennel so that the dogs could get out.
Astor’s actions during the sinking redeemed him of his earlier actions and actually made him into a hero. This sentiment was reflected in the newspaper accounts of his behavior in addition to the heroic exploits of other First Class men. For example, when newspapers mentioned Astor after his death, they omitted the fact that his wife was younger than his son and that she was five months pregnant.
Ben Guggenheim was another example of the disaster’s redemptive effects upon the perception of First Class men. The widely spread account put forth by a steward detailed the heroic behavior of Guggenheim which resulted in his being regarded as one of the heroes of the night. He refused a seat offered to him in a lifeboat and said he wanted to “die like a gentleman.” After it became common knowledge that the ship would sink, Guggenheim went back to his stateroom, and changed into formal evening attire. This is the story that was recounted time and again in the newspapers. What the newspapers failed to mention was that the very married Guggenheim was traveling on the Titanic with his mistress, Madame Aubert of Paris (She survived.).
Not all First Class men were remembered as heroes, however. J. Bruce Ismay knew that all too well. Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line, survived the sinking by stepping into a lifeboat as it was being lowered. Almost from the instant it was discovered that Ismay had survived, he began to suffer the consequences of his survival. Unflattering accounts of his entry into a lifeboat began to make their way into newspapers.
Harry Senior, a Titanic fireman who jumped from the ship with a baby in his arms, claimed that Ismay entered the first boat lowered. “Then I saw the first boat lowered. Thirteen people were on board, eleven men and two women. Three were millionaires and one was Ismay.” Mrs. Lucien P. Smith expanded on Senior’s account, claiming that Ismay was aided more than the women who were being loaded into boats. “He was escorted and assisted by several seamen, while the women had to tumble in and take care of themselves.”
The day after the Carpathia docked, Ismay testified at the first session of the American inquiry into the disaster, convened by the United States Senate. Senator William Alden Smith, the chair of the inquiry, hurled a barrage of questions at Ismay, placing the blame for the sinking squarely on him. Ismay’s appearance at the inquiry led to the rise of his status as a scapegoat for the disaster, the public face of blame.
Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon was another first-class man who faced criticism for his behavior. Duff Gordon and his wife were in a lifeboat that only had twelve people in it. He offered the crewmen in his boat five pounds each, he claims, because they had lost all their possessions when the Titanic had gone down. However, one of the sailors manning a lifeboat (not the Duff Gordons’ boat), Robert Hopkins, told a different story, which had been told to him by fellow crewmembers. Hopkins said that Duff Gordon “offered to do handsomely by the crew in boat Number 2 if they put right away from the Titanic, although there was plenty of room for others. The crew reportedly did as requested by the millionaire, and after they had boarded the Carpathia the millionaire gave each of the Titanic’s crew who had handled his boat a check for five pounds.”
Another crack in the veneer of male First Class heroism is the “women and children first” law of the sea myth. This unofficial code was proven to be true if only the passengers who survived are taken into consideration without regard to the crew. Out of the 800 survivors, only 79 were male passengers. The percentage of men who survived increases, however, if the number of male crew who survived is taken into account. Out of the 207 surviving crewmembers, 189 were male. Therefore, the myth of women and children first is upheld only as far as the passengers are concerned. The myth falls apart when considering the surviving crew because more men survived than women in that group.
One of the most controversial bits of information surrounding the Titanic is that Titanic crewmembers attempted to keep Third Class passengers from reaching the boat deck. There were very few accounts from Third Class survivors, but many of those recall that actual efforts were taken to keep Third Class passengers below decks. In some instances, crew members had actually been instructed to keep Third Class passengers below due to regulations of the era. Class segregation on immigrant ships was mandatory for compliance with United States immigration laws, and the Titanic was officially classified as an immigrant ship. Thus, these crew members were attempting to follow the law of the time.
Frank Kurun, a Third Class passenger traveling with his five-year-old daughter, escaped from the Titanic with his daughter. His story appeared in the Galesburg Evening Mail on April 23rd. Kurun recalled that officers and crew, at some point, tried to keep Third Class passengers from reaching the upper decks of the ship. “He took his little girl in his arms and together with the other passengers crowded about the hatchways trying to get up on the upper decks,” the article reads. “The officers and crew kept ordering the passengers back and drew some revolvers. Again and again the panic stricken crowd was driven back.”
When the Third Class gates were closed and locked during the sinking, many Third Class passengers were not alarmed at first because they saw it as falling within the social order of the time, with Third Class coming last. They were accustomed to receiving and obeying orders. However, there was a limit to how long Third Class passengers would blindly stand by and obey orders. Eugene Daly, a Third Class passenger, recalled that two passengers in his class were shot, and others were beaten by crewmen. The crowd he was in stampeded so that they could pass through the gates.
Kathy Gilnagh and two friends, all Third Class passengers, tried to pass through a gate that led to Second Class, but the gate was closed and guarded. Jim Farrell, another Third Class passenger, persuaded the guard to open the gate long enough for Gilnagh and her friends to slip through. In another Third Class area, Daniel Buckley joined a group that was trying to force its way up a ladder leading to First Class. The gate at the top of the ladder was closed, guarded, and locked. The leader of Buckley’s group stormed up the ladder and smashed the gate open. In yet another part of Third Class, Olaus Abelseth and four friends waited for an officer to open the barrier from Third Class to Second Class. An officer opened the gate to allow women and children to the boat deck. The officer later allowed everyone to go up. Abelseth and his four friends emerged from below deck to find that there were no more lifeboats.
Thomas Andrews, the Titanic’s designer, was one of the few people reported to have given any thought to the welfare of the Third Class passengers. Shortly after midnight, Andrews went to the bow section of Third Class and found the corridor crowded with passengers. He instructed that everyone must immediately evacuate to the upper decks. The evacuation process was begun but was never completed. One group of passengers was led from the area to the upper decks and were able to make their way to the boat deck. However, crewmembers led many of those left in the bow section up to E deck and locked them in.
