Bittersweet Infamy - #120 - The Sinking of the RMS Titanic

Episode Date: April 6, 2025

To launch our Titanic April series, Josie tells Taylor about the most infamous maritime disaster in history: the sinking of the largest ocean liner in the world, the RMS Titanic, after hitting an iceberg on its 1912 maiden voyage.

Welcome to bittersweet infamy, Titanic April. New stories about the Titanic every week in April. From the maiden voyage where the unsinkable did the unthinkable. To the echoes of infamy that ripple across history's surface in its wake. All aboard. Welcome to Titanic April. Titanic, April, April, April, April, April, April, April. Is that you screaming it off the bow of the Titanic?

Yeah, yeah. And you're way down on the bow of the Titanic? Yeah, yeah. And you're way down on the docks as it's about to depart this massive ship. Yeah, I'm fine with that. That's how you hear it. I'm fine with being down on the dock. You have a good trip, Josie, okay? No, dog, you're getting on here. You like hop on.

Last minute. I won a ticket in a poker game. Yes, exactly. Oh, perfect. Well, I genuinely have been very much in suspense to see not only what Titanic April would feel like now that we're here, it feels Titanic. Yeah. And then more specifically, the way that the chips fell in terms of the order that we'd

be going in meant that you were at first, which basically defacto gives you the story of the fucking Titanic. I'm excited to see your treatment of it. What approach did you even bring to a subject this massive, so massive that we could do four episodes about it and things tangential, a Titanic subject? Every person, every facet of that ship has a full story, beginning, middle, end. It is wild.

JAY As stages go, you couldn't… outside of like an Agatha Christie kind of location period piece, it's the biggest ship in the world. There's music playing even when it's sinking. Like it's ridiculous. Yeah. All this turmoil of like when it happens too, it's 1912. We're like on the cusp of World War I and they like this entire part of the world is going to change so much. Like these two continents will be so irrevocably changed after this that it's just like, holy fuck. It's so insane. I'm also conscious too that there are many like common villains in this story. And I'm, as always, I'm interested in the story through that lens of like, were the people who vilified here quote unquote actually deserving of being vilified, right? Oh, and it's that's that whole thing is fascinating.

I think you'll hear in my telling that like a lot of the stuff that I learned, I guess, was more of like once they were rescued, you know, once Rose is underneath the fucking Statue of Liberty, then I'm just like, check that out. I get this Titanic story, whatever. But now all this research, I'm like, that's just the beginning, because then it's the total bittersweet infamy one, two punch where it's like, that's what maybe happened. This is what also maybe happened. This is what the movie said happened. This is what the radio drama said happened.

This is what the newsreels said happened. Exactly. This is what episode one of Downton Abbey said happened. Everyone gets their wick and now there's going to be, this is what bittersweet infamy said happened. Yeah. But before we get into all of that, a couple of housekeeping notes. Bittersweet Film Club this April is of course going to be James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic. Though now that I've researched things more, is it of course?

There are so many Titanic movies. Yeah, but there's only one that people give a shit about now, isn't there? Yeah, that's true. I'm excited to kind of chat history because my research has led me into studying the history of Titanic films. I'm excited to chat about that, both of you on the film club, both of you being Josie and special guest host, Mitchell Collins. Mitchell Collins will actually be a special guest host next week and we'll be chatting films next week on the main show.

I've got an update, Josie. Oh, yes. It's so perfectly cosmically timed that I almost can't believe I'm bringing it to you as part of Titanic April. Another one of the great ships has capsized and much like Titanic, it's a ship that was thought by many to be unsinkable.

Are you talking about a friendship? This is my way of dumping you. No. No. Right before we start, I made you research the Titanic for no reason. Oh my God. Like this big promise, big ship, everything,

and then boom, boom. I have maybe an even more devastating piece of everything, and then boom! Boom. I have maybe an even more devastating piece of news, genuinely. Okay, okay. Brace for heartbreak. Back in episode 38, I told you about the McBarge. The McBarge sank? This is Vancouver's abandoned floating McDonald's restaurant. It shone at the height of its beauty during Expo 86 and since then it's sort of

trundled around the Fraser River. Josie, cue up that Mitchell Collins Melodica cover of My Heart Will Go On because the McBarge has capsized. Capsized? It is on its side, partially submerged in the Fraser River. The owner, Howard Meakin, nowhere to be found at this time. Transport Canada dealing with it. Oh my god. in the Fraser River, the owner Howard Meakin, nowhere to be found at this time, Transport Canada dealing with it.

Oh my god. The McBarge might be McToast, so let's see. Oh no. Holy shit. It's in shallow enough water that it's partially submerged. Which is very McBarge of it, right? To just kind of have this last hand clawing out being like, I'm not dead yet, but like this, we're going to drag it out and drain it. This thing's got

to be done now. Surely. Drag it out, make it a reef. Do it, do it somewhere far off the coast. Oh, Taylor, are you okay? A lot of my belief in people has been shaken, I would say I don't know why it kind of has nothing to do with this I think that's just in general in life a lot of my belief in people have been shaken and now they're McBarges underwater So our IP to a Vancouver icon. We should rest in peace Damn, but we're not here to look to the past. We're here to focus on the future and Josie The future is unsinkable.

Would you not agree? If we look at the past, I think we have to say yes. And it all starts in a shipyard in Belfast, which we should note as our Irish editor, Alex McCarthy pointed out to us, Ireland in 1912 was still under that pesky British rule. So while Belfast is now in Northern Ireland, at the time of the Titanic, Ireland wasn't yet divided into the Republic of

Ireland and Northern Ireland. At the time that she was built, she how do you how do you feel? she was built. How do you how do you feel? Stop! How do you feel about like that? She the ships are our girls. How do you feel about that? I can't get used to it.

I know it's like a convention as old as fucking the sea itself. I guess I kind of dig it in a way. I'm kind of into it. It took me a little bit. Do you like that the ships are like big ladies that we all live inside? Because that's kind of fun. It's kind of hot. I'm into that. Do you like that the ships are like big ladies that we all live inside? Cause that's kind of fun. It's kind of hot. I'm into that. I'm into that.

Like wide hip ladies. Especially when we're talking about like the biggest lady in the ocean. Like that's kind of nice. The most skookum gal in the world. If you will. They switched to Unsinkable shortly into the marketing, but it was briefly billed as the most skookum gal

in the world. Yeah. That's something I found. Yeah. A ship so skookum gal in the world. That's something I found. A ship so skookum you'll shit your gonch. That's the way they sold those first class tickets. I think in doing more research and reading more accounts and watching dramatizations of accounts with these very stalwart Englishmen saying, oh, she, she went down, she was going 22 knots per hour, you know, like all of this. I kind of just like, all right, let's go.

I found a way to get used to it. And then I was like, I guess I kinda like it. And then you're like, maybe I'm a ship. Yeah. Maybe I'm a big sexy ship full of rivets. Who knows? Stoke the boilers, you know. That's true. A big old ship on her maiden voyage.

At the time she was built, Titanic wasn't just the largest ship in the world. She was the largest moving object built by man. Wow. Yeah, dog. Wow. Ooh, really chills. Yeah, dog. Wow. Ooh, yeah, chills. Yeah, it's pretty big. And we also know the Titanic.

She was large and in charge, but she was also luxurious. Decadent. Decadent. Just like what a setting. No skim milk on that boat. It was all cream, not even a whole, just cream, cream, cream. The company that built her, the shipbuilding company, was named Harland and Wolf, and they had designed and built many a ship, including her sister ship, the Olympic. Right. It's interesting

that the Olympic is just like the teensiest bit smaller. They were built at the same time, virtually on the same timeline, but some of the designs and modifications made to Titanic after Olympics completion made it so that she was that much bigger. And she did get out of the boat yards faster. She was built for speed. Well, neither of them really were because they were the biggest ships

in the goddamn fucking world. It was never about like, oh, can she do it in two days or whatever? It was like, you want to get in that swimming pool. You want to like hang out in the Turkish baths. You don't want to get there so fast that you can't do that. They had a swimming pool? Yeah, salt water.

Wow. Yeah. I didn't even do that. They had a swimming pool? Yeah, salt water. Wow! Yeah. I didn't even know that. The Titanic was RMS Titanic, meaning Royal Mail Service, as opposed to HMS, which is His Majesty or Her Majesty's ship. So that did mean that even though the Titanic was so luxurious, she was meant to be a mail carrier as well. That was part of her task of crossing the oceans was to share communiques, share mail, share information across these expanses of ocean. Wow. Another important part of the kind of bigger metaphorical picture. Yeah, her construction began March 31st, 1909. Her construction lasted two full years, employing 3,000 workers. In order to accommodate the massive tonnage

of both the Titanic and the Olympic, Harland and Wolff had to construct a specially built shipyard to accommodate how big these boats were. Nowhere else in the world could do it. Right, wow. Titanic was built from 2000 one-inch thick steel plates held together by more than three million rivets. The weight of the hole, so without like the innards, just the hole was 26,000 tons. Wow. She heavy.

Yeah, she's thick with it, for sure. Her length nearly rivaled the Empire State Building. Oof. And if it helps you to maybe see more horizontally rather than vertically, that's practically the distance of four city blocks. So it's far. Compared to modern ships, modern cruise ships even, the Titanic and the Olympic were still quite small.

Oh, that's kind of disappointing. I guess the ones that you see now look like fucking like floating compounds though. The ones that you see now are like small cities effectively. Yes, yes, essentially. I've been down to Galveston and Galveston is like a cruise port for a lot of different companies

and Galveston is very flat, right? And you can be on one side of the island and you look over and you just see like, even though it's like two miles away you see this huge ship and you don't see the water you just see it kind of like floating next to the island like above it's so it's very disorientating it's it's weird yeah they've got like amusement park rides and shit on them. It's- Yeah, yeah. It's very American.

Yes. I don't mean that as a knock, it's just very American. Well, I'll take it, I'll take it. Sure, okay, okay. But I imagine that that sense of being kind of overwhelmed by how big this ship is was exactly how people in 1912 felt too. Those people who were down there at the harbor waving their hankies that you were talking

about? Exactly. Yes. Yes. Because again, the largest man-made object in the world. Extremely overwhelming. That must have been so fucked up that that thing sank the first time out. The first time!

People must have been really fucked up about things sank the first time out. The first time! People must have been really fucked up about that, of course, of course. So the propulsion system that moved Titanic was a steam engine, or rather a intricate series of steam engines that was constructed of 29 boilers. So the idea is that these boilers, they were stoked with coal. There'd be workers down there in the boiler rooms shoveling coal in there, and the coal would burn and create a steam. And these boilers, where all the coal was burning

and making water into steam, 25 of them were dedicated for the propulsion of the ship and they were double-ended boilers, meaning workers were shoveling coal into both sides of them. So they're just like these behemoth pieces of metal and heat and fire. Not an enviable task to be one of the workers tasked with continuously stoking those things. No, not at all. Very warm, warm room.

So there was 25 dedicated to moving the ship and four boilers were dedicated just for on-board electricity. So that was another kind of fancy thing about the Titanic. Not unique, but a fancy thing is that it had kind of this seemingly unlimited supply of electricity that it created on its own. All these boilers were stored below the water line of the boat. So deep in the belly of the boat. And they were separated into six different boiler rooms. And each separation had this huge storage room of coal, otherwise called a coal hopper. Coal was exceedingly important for these steamers, such that when there was issues with extracting and finding enough coal to get these huge steam liners to cross the Atlantic, schedules kind of changed,

things moved around. There's actually quite a few passengers on the Titanic who they had to buy tickets to the Titanic because other ships weren't able to find enough coal to make the crossing. But White Star Line and Titanic was like this big flashy thing so they were able to secure enough coal. Do you think that they considered in sort of as a means of obtaining coal that if they just act naughty all year Santa will bring it to them. It wouldn't have been enough.

That's how much coal this thing took. That's crazy. That's crazy. Think about that. I can't believe you laughed. We were so close. So when you see pictures of the Titanic, you'll recognize its very distinctive funnels, which you might also kind of think of like smokestacks.

Yeah, four big chimneys. Yeah, chimneys. And these funnels were connected to the boiler system because they released excess coal, like the coal smoke, but also any excess steam. Though there wasn't a lot of excess steam. The way that it was all built was that they would be able to recycle the steam, build it up again, have it work to propel, and then do it like that. But the smokestacks were mainly to relieve any unwanted pressure of steam or the coal smoke itself. But, and I think I mentioned this to you before,

the fourth smoke stack, the one mounted at the rearmost part of the boat, was not connected to a boiler room. It was... Facade. The Lusitania, which was another one of these huge cross Atlantic oceanic liners, had four of these funnels.

And so the White Star Line and Harland and Wolf were not gonna... They can't have more funnels than us. The biggest ship in the world has less funnels than the Lusitania. That's like saying we have fewer dicks. No. But interestingly enough, it wasn't completely aesthetic. It wasn't just like, okay, whatever, not connected to anything. It was connected to some venting for the rest of the ship.

Did it need to be that huge? No, but it matched, it had a certain symmetry to it, so keep it that way. It's a fucking great looking ship, the Titanic. Let's not fuck around here. Let's be clear with Shannon Doherty. This is a pretty ship. Yeah. The interior of this funnel though had a ladder in which shipmates who worked below deck could climb up this ladder and peek out over and see the whole expanse of the ocean though.

Because many of them didn't have direct access to the decks in order to get out and get fresh air so this was a way that they could climb to the very top of the ship and look out. That's sad. I know it is pretty sad. As much of this will go on to be. Yes. And you mentioned that this was a pretty ship. It was an insanely gorgeous ship. The best ship in the world designed as such.

And that was entirely the intention is we're going to make George's ship. The best ship in the world, designed as such. And that was entirely the intention, is we're going to make not only the biggest ship, but it is going to be the most stately, the most luxurious, the most like dripping and finery ship on these oceans. The upper decks, which were intended for first passengers, were made specifically to look like a luxury hotel. Every element of metalwork or piping or anything that you might kind of think the interior of a ship would look like were completely covered up with wood paneling or tapestries, fine carpeting. There was absolutely no indication that you were in a ship when

you were on those upper decks. And this was maybe not common at the time, but this had been done in other ships of this time. A ship called the Queen Mary was known for being kind of this decadent. In fact, there's a famous Canadian actress named Beatrice Lilly of the time, who notably quipped when she was on the Queen Mary, say, when does this place get to New York? There's like just a feeling when you got onto these ships that you were not on a ship. No, it's this place. You were this place. You were transformed into this luxury that could be floating in

the sky. It could be on the oceans. it could be in the middle of a continent. It's a beautiful thought. Yeah. It's a beautiful thought. It's a beautiful thought. Of course, like that vision of it ignores the difference between first class and steerage and, you know, these sorts of things. Right. And and we've talked about how the many issues that come into play in this and class tension, I feel like like is like extremely one of those.

Yes. But definitely this vision at its most idealistic and egalitarian, just the idea that like anyone can have a beautiful adventure at sea. Oh, doesn't that tingle the loins and warm the heart, right? Yeah. And these upper decks, the first class decks, they were decorated in all these different particular styles, like a Louis XIV style. Some of it was inspired by Italian Renaissance, a Queen Anne style, old Dutch style. There's a lot of influences that came through. A lot of old styles.

A lot of old styles, a lot of kind of gilded styles. It took 10 months alone to do the interior decor of the Titanic. Wow. Yeah, no, this is fabulous. And again, this is something that like go on YouTube and find footage of someone walking through a Titanic honor and glory model. It's like the most like realistic of the models of the internet Titanic's. Yeah. And it's very like easy to get swept up, I guess. Yes when you get to the first class digs that I certainly wouldn't have had access to. It's certainly an ambiance.

STACEY The Grand Staircase, which you see a lot in reenactments of the Titanic. JAY It's where Kate Winslet looks at Leonardo DiCaprio very longingly down the staircase. Yeah, it's paneled in oak and it includes this wrought iron and glass dome skylight that's above it to let in natural light into this area. And it's gorgeous, it's a gorgeous space. So this is the first class passengers like we mentioned. And they enjoyed a number of these amenities, including a gymnasium,

which was kind of unique at the time. That wasn't very common. In fact, a lot of people were like, what do you do in this room? I remember being quite surprised to see that there was a gym on the Titanic. For you to like get your 1920s strongman muscles and 1910s even earlier. Throw your medicine ball around and stand in some sort of weird machine that has like a band that whips back and forth and you know what I mean? Exactly, yeah. There was also a squash court.

For if you want to play fucking squash. Genius. You paid 50, 50, 50 cents and you could play. Fuck yeah. A saltwater swimming pool, which we already discussed. You would pay $0.25 to go for a swim. Which is sort of grim given how it all ends, the idea of a saltwater swimming pool, but we don't have to linger there.

Electric and Victorian style Turkish baths. There was a barber shop. There were kennels for the first class dogs. Wow, woof woof. There were elevators that were available for first class, and there were also open and enclosed promenades to walk down. A choice of promenades, perhaps it's rainy today. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

I bet Steers didn't get a choice of promenades. No, they did not. To be a first class passenger on the Titanic, it could cost you somewhere between maybe £30 to £870, which automatically is a huge disparity. Do you get first class VIP at that kind of top scale? At the top scale, you get a parlor suite with your own private promenade deck. Backstage passes at the Sierra concert and first access to the VR headset. Got it. Yeah. And to give you a sense too, these translated to current prices. 30 pounds is about 3,800

pounds. The top end price would cost you about like 109,000 pounds. Which is a lot. That's pricey. Let's talk about second class. Once you hear those prices. Yeah, let's fucking talk about second class. Yeah. What's next? So the average ticket price for an adult second class passenger

was about 13 pounds, which is equivalent to 1600 pounds today. A little bit cheaper, perhaps more affordable. As a second class passenger, you had access to your own library, like a library for the second class passengers and a private smoking room for the gentlemen. Okay, this is fine. No, I would totally take it. You had access to open air decks and promenades.

The children of second class passengers had their own kind of decks and play rooms to play on. Okay, little candles for the babies. Yeah, so it wasn't decadent, but it was very nice. That sounds fine. Let's do second class. Josie, let's do second class. That sounds like a good tier for us.

Yeah, I think so. I feel very second class, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now the third class or the steerage. Right. And this is what I found really interesting that compared to other cross Atlantic boats,

Titanic for steerage for third class, which is the same thing, was still pretty lux. Okay. So you're coming out as a Titanic steerage apologist. This steerage experience on Titanic has been unfairly blind. I may have been like, you know what? Maybe I'll just do the third class steerage. It's like staying in a hostel. Yeah. Yeah. Usually in third class, Steerage. It's like staying in a hostel. Yeah, yeah. Usually in third class cross-Atlantic trips, you had to provide your own food. And these trips could be up to five,

seven days. How the fuck am I bringing seven days worth of food with me on a boat? That's crazy. Titanic third class, though, there was a kitchen and there was a chef and you could eat at a table with a chair instead of a bench. It was considered maybe not like the height of luxury, but compared to other third class experiences, it was pretty nice. What am I paying for that third class experience? It would cost you about seven pounds, which is equivalent to a little over a thousand dollars today, or sorry, thousand pounds, a thousand pounds today. Madre de Dios, inflation is a bitch. Yeah, yeah, it truly is. Holy cow.

Another nice thing about the steerage was that it wasn't all dormitory style they did have cabins now they were like tight cabins and families couldn't all stay in one so sometimes they got split no we're doing second class we're doing second class fuck this but unlike some other cross-atlantic steamers, the Titanic third class, those cabins had heat, they had mattresses and blankets and sheets, electric lights, wash basins and running water.

Okay, okay. There were only two bathtubs, one for men and one for women for all of third class. What constitutes a bathtub? From what I understand, something you could fully immerse your body in to get clean. Why not put in more tubs? That makes that's fucking stupidity. Yes, yes, it truly was. Yes. Let's do second class.

Yeah. So interestingly enough, all of these cross Atlantic oceanic steamers, they made their money not from first class and not from second class. They made their money from the third class passengers. That's where the big bucks came in because there were so many people who were willing to pay and so many people who wanted to get across these oceans. The sheer amount of numbers, the migration numbers were so high that if you could charge seven pounds for say 700 people, you're going to cash out. That's where your money is made, especially when you don't have to supply them with a

whole bunch of the finery. Like two tubs. Yeah, exactly. You only given them two tubs. So we found places to trim the budget. Yeah. So even though the first class passengers were paying a huge amount of money to travel this way, there was also a huge amount of money put into their accommodations to make it more competitive for these first-class passengers to choose them. Third class, it wasn't so much, oh is it nice? It was, is it going now? I need to go now. Or is it going in the next month? I need to get over there in the next month. Or is it leaving in five minutes? Fabrizio, we've got to hurry. Exactly. Fabrizio, I love him. So it's the third class passengers and the interest in crossing the Atlantic from third class passengers that propels the shipbuilding competition of who makes the bigger boats. And it's also giving the financial backers more and more reason to put money into these oceanic ship

lines. One such backer, you may know this guy, I don't know, JP Morgan. Does that ring a bell? I've heard of him. Very famous banking name, as in like the company JP Morgan. Yeah. Yeah. And he, funnily enough, was meant to go on the Titanic. He was meant to get to New York on

the Titanic, but he fell ill and couldn't make the trip. So this is interesting because I didn't realize this either. The White Star Line and all of her ships, including Titanic and Olympic, her sister ship, were considered British ships. They were crewed and captained by British people. They flew the Union Jack. The boats, including the Titanic, were registered to Liverpool, which was at the time considered one of the greatest shipbuilding cities in the world. And the very styling and manner of the Titanic and the White Star Line's identity was British. It was meant to be this like very fine, very stoic,

very, you know, we get the job done, carry on, blah, blah, blah. It would end up being incredibly British in the way that it all went down, but like not in the ways that they intended. Yes. In my watching of James Cameron's Titanic, it was during the scene where the first officer

has a gun out and is shooting various passengers. I wrote down, being British is a mental illness. And I think that that is my thesis for some components of this story. Yeah, that fits really well in this component of the story too, because the White Star Line and Titanic in particular was deemed British. That was the brand. Iconically so. Iconically so.

However, all the money, all the capital was American. Also it was built in Northern Ireland. You know, we're kind of fudging things a bit here, lads. But how British to be like, oh no, no, that's us. Oh no, no, that's British, don't worry. We directed the labor, old boy. Exactly. So the considered owner of the Titanic was a man named J. Bruce Ismay, and he was on

board on this maiden voyage. And to me, like maybe the most interesting of the characters, infamy-wise, I think. Yes, indeed. So he was the son of self-made millionaire and then some TH Ismay who built the White Star Line from the ground up. I tell you there's no better way to make money than for your parents to make money. Mm-hmm. That's true. Foolproof. Ask anyone. Ask Elon. Ask anyone. Yep. And that was J. Bruce to the max. His dad had more or less, you know, quote unquote, pulled himself up from his bootstraps. But J. Bruce's may, you know, had kind of traveled

the world, had done a little bit of this, went to a fancy private school, did a little bit of that, thought a little bit about, oh, maybe I'll go into shipbuilding and went into shipbuilding. Ah, to whimsically go into shipbuilding. Yes. Yeah. But he went in at a time when the financial fortunes of Britain and the U.S. were shifting. There was a lot more money coming out of post-Civil War U.S. The railroad tycoons, the monopolies that were happening in the US were producing incredible amounts of wealth.

Baltic Avenue Park Place. That monocle. That monocle was expensive on the monopoly man. They all had to pay income tax to the community chest. It was crazy times. No, they didn't. Not yet. Income tax hadn't come around yet. Crazy. What the f- I mean. Yeah. Crazy. What the f- I mean. Yeah. Yeah. So JP Morgan is one of these monocle wearing guys and that's, you know, shorthand for the Monopoly man. He is wealthy beyond imagination at this time and he wants to buy the white star line. Now, what he is seen is that the British are taking too kindly to an American coming in and co-opting this very British identified brand.

So he says, that's fine. That's fine. J. Bruce Ismay, as the son of the shipbuilding empire, you can own it. I'll pat you on the head. Here you go. You are the owner of the shipbuilding empire, you can own it. I'll pat you on the head. Here you go. You are the owner of the Titanic and I'm just the money guy. Whatever. Yeah. Which is like, no, that means you're the owner. But it's like, no, no, no, no, no. The White Star Line is still British.

It's still British through and through white glove British. Right. But JP Morgan is just going to own the fuck out of it. It's all in the dance of it, isn't it? Yeah. Also, great thing to have been a little bit hands-off in the Titanic. In the long picture, huh? It gets him in some trouble, though, and we'll get to that. Okay.

Because essentially, White Star Line and J. Bruce Ismay, he becomes the de facto owner, and White Star Line becomes kind of the shell company, more or less. So they have to take all the responsibility, but they don't have any of the actual capital and say of what goes on. That's tough. It's a little tough, yeah. I mean, if you're a fucking millionaire ship know, millionaire shipbuilding empire kind of thing. Yeah, that's not tough.

That's not tough. That's fucking, that's quality problems is what that is. Yeah. And as we mentioned, the third class passengers, the intense demand for these tickets is what's kind of driving a lot of this. There's a lot of money to be made. And when JP Morgan takes over, one of the first things he does is enact this fair war such that he drops the price of a third class transatlantic passage

to two pounds. Wow. You better have lifeboats for all those people, man. It's not the Titanic. The Titanic costs more, but some of the cheaper boats will run you across the ocean for two pounds. Crazy. And this is meant so that they can compete with another British company called Canard. Note Canard.

Give it a little earmark there because it'll come back. Safety was of paramount importance to the Titanic. Okay, was it? In terms of what had been established and what was done, yes. Obviously 2020 reveals something very different. This is another spicy take. You're saying the Titanic was relatively safe. Well, before she sank, yeah.

Unsinkable, some have said. So the 10 years prior to the Titanic's sailing, White Star Line had over 2 million passengers who had transited in their ships. The loss of life in those 10 years and 2 million passengers was three people. Three people had died. That was it. So they're like, we run a tight ship over here. Don't worry about us.

What about those three people? What's that about? One of their ships, the Republic, collided with another boat, Florida. And there were some issues in 1902. So no, you don't have a flawless record. You drove a ship into another ship. But that's let's keep going, I guess. Yes. So Titanic had, in addition to all its luxury, some of the like most high-tech safety technology there was in the world on deck. Okay. So one of them was a very special wireless

installation that had three different power sources. So the idea is that if one went down from the boiler room, there was a backup battery and there was a backup to that. This special system was called the Marconi system invented by an Italian inventor. Googly Elmo. Googly Elmo. You know Googly Elmo. Googs, me and the Googs go way back. Chatting on the CV radio together.

Yeah, I bet you are. Send him Marconi grams to each other. Yeah, absolutely. You got it. You got it. So he developed a way of sending essentially a telegram without having to have a wire, a wireless communique, which was invaluable to boats. I'm still not over wireless technology.

That shit's a miracle, dude. Apparently they had to coin the word wireless to describe his invention. Crazy. Imagine being so base that you invent the wirelessness. That's crazy. Another new technology onboard the Titanic were these very specially developed davits. And a davit is a type of pulley system for lifeboats, if you can believe it. Something new every day. The davits could hold up to four lifeboats on top of each other and still be able to

lower one down at a time. So it was a very like space saving invention, but also deemed very safety oriented because it meant the ability to have more lifeboats and a smaller amount of space. Good. Oh, good. Well, I'm glad we've got more lifeboats. Well, what the Titanic did was say, hmm, it would sure be nice if there was a little bit more deck space so people could walk around and take in the fresh sea air. It would just look more balanced. It would look better. Ugly. That, see that right there. There are many small moments throughout this story

where it's just like human hubris rules the day in a really deadly way. That's one of them right there. It doesn't matter if this is safer as long as it looks prettier. But they were meeting the board of trade, which was the naval- Fuck the board of trade. Fuck the Board of Trade.

Fuck the Board of Trade. There weren't enough fucking lifeboats, and we all know it, and it's easy to say that looking back, but... Yeah. Exactly. It's easy to say that looking back. One of the wild things that came out in some of the later investigations of the sinking too was, like, why would the Board of Trade

ever think that to not have enough lifeboats? Like, that didn't make sense. There was enough life jackets for everybody. Why wouldn't you make room on lifeboats for that way? And the rationale was so backward to my, you know, 2025 brain. The ship was deemed so safe, it itself was considered a lifeboat. No, that's the fakest shit. I know.

That's crazy. That logic just kind of like, what? But that's the logic of like how safe they thought this boat was. It had a double bottomed hole that was seven feet high. Every boiler room had its own separate pumping system to pump out any water. The structure featured

extra strength plating and connections that no other ship made had ever had. And there was watertight bulkheads all throughout the bottom of the ship, 15 in total. It still didn't matter. They ran it into something and it sank. Yeah. Hindsight? Hindsight, and maybe a massive naivete toward what goes into this sort of like engineering of the type that clearly went into this ship. Yeah. Which I'm sure was like an enormous amount of troubleshooting and hard work, et cetera.

Two thousand examinations and trials were made. Did they ever drive it into something? No, they never did. So that's the problem, right? What happens if it hits something? No, they never did. So that's the problem, right? What happens if it hits something? The part of me that dislikes what I see in humanity in this story is really repulsed by that sort of hubris. I get it, yeah.

And it's something that comes up again later on in the history of the Titanic when we look at the implosion of the Titan submersible, which is something that we'll talk about in a later episode. We're not going to get into that in this one, but we will touch on it later. It sort of ends up being the same thing again of just sort of like, I guess like human vanity that we architected this thing into within inch of its life. So it'll just like, whatever we haven't accounted for, we deal with that with hopes and dreams, right? Yeah.

We deal with that with like positive manifestation and whipping up good PR for this boat and just good energy and making money. That's how we deal with that. The advertising note, I think is important too, because that term unsinkable first appeared in like a shipbuilding journal, which was, you know, a pretty solemn piece of writing. But in one of the descriptions of all these watertight bulkheads, the writer, the reporter shared a statement akin to if a collision happens in this very particular way, then the Titanic is practically unsinkable. But there were all these conditions around the word.

But as advertising took hold of that, all of a sudden, those conditionals just melted away. And it's so easy to believe when people keep saying it's unsinkable, why would they keep saying it's unsinkable if it was sinkable? It's clearly not sinkable. So big and it's so beautiful. It's just like- And Mr. Ismay is a smart man. JPMorgan wouldn't put his money behind something that- Why would he put all of his money in this to just have it dropped to the bottom of the

Atlantic? He wouldn't put his money in a sinkable boat. That makes no sense. Exactly. Hey, humanity. Humanity, humanity, humanity, humanity. So speaking of humanity, who was on the Titanic? I want to introduce a new Josie Mitchell segment, who the fuck was on the Titanic? Who the fuck was on the Titanic? Let's go. Let's go.

She was captain by E.J. Smith. He had started working on ships at the tender age of 16 years old. He was a British man. He was a commander with the Royal Navy Reserve during the Boer War. OK. So you can have a little like Nigel Thornberry vibe about him, you know. Agatha Christie and then there were none kind of energy. I got you.

Yeah. He had worked with White Star Line for 30 years and 26 of those were as a captain. Previous to being captain on the Titanic, he was the captain of her sister ship, Olympic. And that was his most previous other voyage that he had taken. This was old hat to him basically.

This was pretty old hat. This was like, oh, okay, here, but everything is like one 64th larger. Got it? Yeah. Just everything just a little, pa. Scale it up a bit in that, drag it up, drag the corners, you know, so it scales evenly. And like we were saying, these boats have a lot of fucking money in them.

So the white star line definitely trusted this guy. He was enlisted with their biggest deals, advertising and financial. So he's towards the end of his career. Actually, this trip of the Titanic was meant to be his last. He was going to retire after this. Oh, he's the grizzled partner in the buddy caught movie who this is his last case. And then he's gonna, I'm going to retire onto a boat with my wife. And then he just ends up just at the bottom of the Atlantic, yeah. Mm-hmm.

He was the highest paid man on board in terms of crew. Good for him. He was paid 1,250 pounds. Okay. And to give you a sense of what this might look like in the field of ship captaining, there was another ship that we'll talk about a little bit later that was close by in this ice field, a smaller passenger ship by the

name of the Californian and- GoPods. Exactly. Her captain was paid 240 pounds. Okay. So Titanic pays well. Titanic pays a shit well. Pays a pays well. Titanic pays a shit well. Pays a shit well. Yeah, that's a well. It stinks in this boat because they pay a shit well. He, having been a captain for so long, had a varied and very talented crew under him.

So he brought on Chief Officer Henry Wilde, who had also been with him on Olympic. And then right below Wilde was first officer W.M. Murdoch and second officer Charles Herbert Lighthaller. Each of these men under Captain Smith very easily could have been captain of any other ship. Like their credentials were just as clean, just as nice. It just wasn't 26 years of service. It was 15, 18, that kind of thing. So these men are extremely experienced at what they do. The entire crew totals 891 people. They mainly are from Southampton, England, which is notable

because Titanic was built in Belfast, but she was crewed nearly exclusively by people from Southampton. So when we talk about the ship going down and the effect of that loss of life, we're looking more to Southampton than we are to Ireland. There were 340 below deck crew who would work on machinery. So they stoked the boilers, they were engineers, they were working on the underbelly of the mechanics. And then there were 290 stewards who were responsible for working with and for the passengers of the Titanic. There were many different types of people.

Engineers, trimmers, electricians, boilermakers, greasers, firemen. There was a window cleaner, a linen cleaner, a stenographer, a fish cook, a masseuse, plate washers, a roast cook, several bakers, a night watchman, an assistant vegetable cook, Italian and French waiters in the a la carte restaurant. There was an ice man, which seems rough looking back. Yeah, that's tough. Yeah. The number of all around semen, so the people who really knew how to run a boat, was much less than the number of crew looking after the passengers. That we'll see as the ship goes down. The

way that the crew was kind of meant to be almost like hotel staff, more than they really were. Like safety personnel or operational. Exactly. Or really knew the way around, like how do you row a boat? How do you navigate a boat? How do you balance a boat? These very particular things for being crew at sea. Interesting.

Meanwhile, the bakers and... The assistant vegetable cook. Yeah, a fish cook. Like they're not really doing that. Yeah. The third class, or as we mentioned, the steerage, there were 709 of them on board. Many of them, as we already said, too, were largely immigrants. So they were looking to move from Europe to the new world. And again, those numbers of migration were huge at this time. There was a lot of people coming to US, Canada,

and they came from all over Europe. So even though the boat picked up in France, England, and Ireland, there were Armenians, Italians, Syrians, Chinese passengers, Russians, Scandinavians, Dutch, and plenty of Irish, of course, because they picked up in Ireland. Right. And many were women who were on their way to join their husbands.

Their husbands had traveled first in order to secure jobs and kind of lay the land. And so they were traveling with families to meet their husbands and menfolk. That's quite sad. Yeah. Second-class passengers, there were 284 of them, and many of them were English or of the British Isles. Right. One notable second-class passenger who we'll get to see again was a young seven-year-old girl named Eva Hart, and she was traveling with her mother and father from England to Canada. Her father had a friend who had moved to Canada and had done pretty well for himself and the friend

said you should get over here. There's money to be made. It's a good life. You should cross the Atlantic and join me here and I'll help you get started. And Eva Hart's father says, okay, let's do it. Her mother, on the other hand, is absolutely terrified. She does not want to go and not because she's scared of sailing, not because she doesn't necessarily want to leave England. She has a very strong premonition no, that something is not going to go right on this trip. A night, oh my God, she final destination. According to Eva Hart's testimony, her mom was not this type of person to be like,

ooh, you know, like click your heels twice before you head out the door, don't step on cracks. She just came hard and strong for whatever was gonna happen on this passage. She was like, I don't like it. I don't want to get on that boat. I don't think we should get on that boat. She refused. This is a horror movie to sleep during the night on the Titanic.

She's like, I'll sleep during the day when everybody else is awake and around, but you're not going to catch me unawares. That stresses me out. I know she was right. She was That stresses me out. I know. She was right. She was. She was right. She was.

And of course her husband and her seven year old daughter are like, what? We're going to go like play shuffleboard. We're going to like that. You're stressing us out, bitch. Let's go play shuffleboard. Yeah. Let's go to the fucking salt water. Let's go to the gym.

You know what I mean? Let's work that energy out. Yeah. So first class passengers, there were only 324 of them. Still, that's a good amount of people, especially when some of these people are names that we still recognize today. John Jacob Astor, the fourth, who was by far the wealthiest passenger on the Titanic. He was with his second wife, 18 year old Madeline, who was pregnant.

They were headed back to New York so that she could give birth to their child. Could the stakes be higher? Here's a fabulously wealthy man and his 18 year old bride and she's about to give birth any moment. Yeah. There was industrialist magnet and millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim,

might recognize that name. Isidore and Ida Strauss, who were the owners of Macy's Department Store. Wow. Millionaire streetcar magnet, George Widener and his wife. John B. Thayer, who was vice president of the Pennsylvania railroad. He was there with his wife and their son, John Thayer, who was vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He was there with his wife and their son, John Thayer Jr. So all of these icons in transit themselves, right? Street cars and other kinds of methods

of transportation. President of Canada's Grand Trunk Railway, his name was Charles Hayes. Everyone's shown up to take notes, huh? It's kind of a roll call situation here. A military aid to President William Taft. His name was Archibald Butt. He was apparently a beloved aid of the presidents. Margaret Brown, who we know now as the unsinkable Molly Brown.

She was a millionaire and philanthropist and a women's rights activist. And she was on board. She had been visiting her children in Europe and was headed back to Denver to see her husband. She was traveling alone. I mean, she had like a maid servant or whatever with her. She is, I think, sort of one of the more fun characters in most of the fictionalized tellings. She's a great character. She's this sort of like American nouveau riche broad with a heart of gold. Yeah.

She's sort of there to do like new money versus the old money snobbery that one encounters amongst the British upper class. Yes. She very memorably, like valiantly tries to pitch in to kind of help save some of the passengers, which kind of gives her a little to kind of help save some of the passengers, which kind of gives her a little bit of a halo in all of this. No, that's exactly it. Titanic left its Belfast shipyard April 2, 1912, where as we mentioned, the crew was predominantly from this area. So they picked up most of the crew in Southampton along with a few passengers, leaving Southampton.

Funnily enough, Titanic almost had a collision with another boat. So, again, I come back to this, how unsinkable are we talking? Yes. Apparently, the Southampton harbor is kind of particular with its tides and currents. It was never really built for a ship the size of Titanic. The Houston harbor is kind of particular with its tides and currents. It was never really built for a ship the size of Titanic. And so there was another boat called New York in the harbor and the sheer displacement of Titanic affected the way that she was moving in the harbor, New York, the other boat, such that it was almost kind

of sucked close to Titanic and they missed each other by about four feet. Wow. You'd like that number to be larger, wouldn't you? Yes. Ideally. Yeah. And the White Star Line too had had other little mishaps like this with collisions that really do put boats back because they've got to go back to the shipyard. They have to be repaired. There's no on the fly, you know, fixing of these things.

Really? So, very lucky that they didn't have this minor collision that would prevent something later. Josie's next scalding hot take. The Titanic passengers were lucky when you think about it. Mm hmm. So they stopped next in France. They picked up more passengers and the final stop was in Queenstown, Ireland, where they took the last of the passengers and a considerable amount of mail. Because remember RMS Royal Mail Service, it had a huge mail room, the Titanic. Right.

It was lower down, but there was lots of sorting and like the mail never stops. Very like patriotic British identity of, you know, we're sending communication across the oceans. So wait, but whose mail is this though? If they're picking up in Ireland, is it Irish mail or is it British mail? I think it's some of both. is this though? If they're picking up in Ireland, is it Irish mail or is it British mail? I think it's some of both. I think because Queenstown is like this final stop, they knew to send all this mail to this particular spot. Another interesting historical note, in Queenstown,

there were 24 passengers that disembarked. They had only booked passage to cross the channel. That was all they were going to do on the Titanic. So they got off. Oh, that's got to feel good. Yeah. Also pretty good for this one stoker, this one boiler room guy who decided, fuck this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to work in these hot, stinky, hellish rooms under a boat."

JAY Call it. STACEY He abandoned his post, hiding under some mail bags that were being returned to shore. JAY Instantly justified decision. STACEY Yeah. No, totally. JAY Instantly justified. And then you get to go around telling people you know I'm a Titanic survivor. STACEY Yeah. Yeah.

JAY False if you want to claim some stolen valor along the way, why not? If you're the type of guy who'll hide under some bags, you might be, you know, who knows? So Thursday, April 11th at 1.30 PM, Titanic set course over the Atlantic. Don't do it. She was planned to arrive in New York at Pier 59

on the morning of April 17th. So a six-day journey. They cross the Atlantic. And what do you know about icebergs? What do I know about icebergs? You're Canadian. Is that a thing? It's real?

Okay, sure. Sure, sure. We're right under Alaska. I should know something. I know that icebergs, I tend to think of them as shaling off of larger ice masses to places like Greenland and the Arctic Circle. Amen, bro. And they kind of float along.

I also wanna send some love out to Greenland. I have famously loved Greenland and I don't like that Donald Trump is being mean to them right now, so I wanna send some love to Greenland. Okay, actually, yeah, that's nice. I'm gonna add on to that love. They're interesting people with a cool culture, and I think they've taken the brunt of colonialism a lot, and I don't like that Donald Trump is like, imposing.

Adding to it. We're talking about the Titanic. We're talking about icebergs actually. They're very kind of infamously much larger below the surface. Mm-hmm. And when you talk about something metaphorically, in terms of the shape of an iceberg, it tends to be that's the metaphor, is that there's much more below the surface. Yeah, the tip of the iceberg. Yeah, and I assume that they're icebergs because they're kind of slowly melting, and

that's why they kind of have broken off from whatever larger piece of ice there is. And that's kind of what I know about icebergs. That's pretty good. Thank you. I'm impressed, yeah. Thank you, I'm doing my best. You're right, April being in the springtime is a notorious month for icebergs in the Northern Atlantic

because of that spring warming that happens. And so they do, they shear off, they calve off from larger ice shelves. And another interesting thing is that they are frozen fresh water. So the buoyancy of an iceberg in the salt water means that it is going to float and ice floats. means that it is going to float and ice floats. So another interesting thing about the ice of an iceberg is that it freezes and melts and then refreezes multiple times in its journey especially if it's calved from a larger ice shelf

and has moved down currents. Some of it may have melted, some of them may even have completely disintegrated. But the ones that are still intact, this far south in the northern Atlantic, are so incredibly hard. Just as hard as sedimentary rock. Because they've done the same work of kind of contracting and melting a little bit and contracting and then melting a little and contracting. contracting and melting a little bit and contracting and then melting a little and contracting. So they're extremely dense. Interesting.

Really, really, really hard. So they're even thicker than the Titanic basically. Pretty much, yeah. You're 50,000 tons? Well, I'm an estimated 100,000 tons, bitches. Damn, wow. Reports from on deck of the Titanic claim that it was at least 50 feet high. So deducing from that, it's 10,000 tons, which was double the Titanic.

Crazy. And what was it then that they had never considered the iceberg problem, evidently. Because if they did this particular thing, that it is larger and heavier than it, would seem to already make you think, okay, well, perhaps the precautions that we've already taken aren't enough. No, am I crazy? Or did they just think that what they had built was sufficient? I think there was this feeling of what we have built with so much safety in mind and it's so large, this will certainly be sufficient. I think before the disaster that is the Titanic too, I don't think there was a very clear sense of what a danger icebergs were. They were kind of

chalked up as like, oh fog,, oh, high winds, heavy seas. Right. But even today, and I didn't realize this, but with all of our technology and all of our like satellite imagery and sonar and all the bullshit that we have, icebergs still present a very real threat to ships in the ocean. No doubt. If you are stupid enough to read the story of the Titanic in any way and come out of it thinking, well, icebergs are probably fine now, well then you have not learned the lesson. Yeah. But this is one of the primary lessons that this story teaches us, even stripping back all the metaphorical work is that icebergs are dangerous. Icebergs are extremely dangerous. Yes. So it's the morning of Sunday, April 14th, 1912. Our seven-year-old

second class passenger Eva Hart, her mom has broken her normal Titanic routine. She's not asleep during the day. She decides, you know what, I better go to church. It's Sunday morning. I'm going to head to church and then I'm going to go back and sleep until the evening." So they are doing that. Captain Smith is also at a church service. This is going to be his last church service as captain at sea. And so he's very eager to give his sermon. And in doing so, he decides with all his authority that he's going to cancel the lifeboat drill. It would interrupt the church services. This is his last opportunity to give a sermon on ship. He has captained a very similar ship, the Olympic, to no issue.

This is going to be fine. Some reports also claim, and of course this doesn't come from Captain Smith himself, but some other reports alleged that he was worried that the lifeboats would not hold being lowered sexual long distance off the side of the boat. So he was like, you know what, we're not going to attempt it because it's going to freak people out if these don't work. So fuck it. Yeah, it would freak people out if the lifeboats didn't work. Yeah. Yeah, it would. Also that same day, he pockets a few ice warnings that are given by other ships via the wireless. He reads them, notes them. Okay. He hands one to the de facto ship owner, Ismay, J. Bruce Ismay, who kind of carts it around for a little bit, shows some other

passengers and then hands it back. The wireless on this day, Sunday, April 14th, the operators of which there are two on the Titanic, both are extremely busy relaying personal messages in what they call Cape Race. So the landed wireless station off the coast of Canada is called Cape Race. So while all these other boats are saying, hey icebergss detected. Hey, ice field up ahead. Hey, keep an eye out. We're in ice. It's, we know it's strange.

Ice, ice, ice. It's so far south. And this is the normal trading line that we always do. But there's ice, ice, ice. Apparently the wireless operators were like, okay, got it, okay, stop, stop. We have personal messages we have to relay. And if you think about it too, with all of these highfalutin folks on the Titanic,

they were sending messages to family or businesses, sell this stock, buy this stock, and all of these produced a little change, a little money, a little tipping for these wireless operators. So they were eager to make these messages a priority. And of course, capitalism kills. They did take in a few of the ICE reports and of course they handed it off what they needed to the captain, but it was not deemed as much of a priority as that good old tipping.

Typical. Yeah. The evening of this Sunday, first class passengers, the Wideners throw a lavish dinner party in the first class dining room. Captain Smith is invited to this dinner. It's noted that he leaves earlier than the other passengers and he does not take a single drop of liquor. He's not drinking. That allegation had been thrown around a little bit, but it was made clear by the people in first class who were with him in those last hours. He did not drink.

Was this just a smear of like, oh, the captain must have been drunk kind of thing? A little bit. Yeah. There had been some other run-ins on the White Star line with a drunk captain. And so that was like, whoa, maybe it was this. How could the unseekable ship sink? Well, maybe the captain was drunk. Well, it starts with the captain. Yeah, unfortunately, he was sober Sally. The evening goes on. It's 1135 PM. Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee, they're the two lookouts who are on rotation who are in the crow's nest, which is this very high up kind of basket attached to a mask that's meant for exactly that, to look out and see what's out. They've heard about

the ice and so they are meant to keep an eye out for it and they see it right ahead. Fleet, there's a bell that he is meant to ring, he rings the bell. There's a telephone in the lookout and so they call to the bridge. Iceberg right ahead. It's noted and this comes out later that the entirety of this trip, every lookout of which there are six of them, have put in a request for binoculars, what they call glasses. And that's not regulation to have binoculars in a lookout, but it's not uncommon.

Sounds like it should be. It's pretty customary. And every one of the lookouts had made a request for it. So it was a tool that some people claim, you know, like binoculars can kind of narrow your vision. You're not looking like with enough periphery. But there's two lookouts. So the idea of somebody looking closely and someone looking more widely, that would seem to work. That's something that gets noted later in some of the inquiries. But they did not have binoculars for this. They were meant to use the naked eye.

but they did not have binoculars for this. They were meant to use the naked eye. Fleet calls officer Murdock, first officer Murdock, who is manning the bridge, and Murdock says, thank you, hangs up the phone, and yells the order hard a starboard, followed by the order, stop, full steam a stern. So what he's saying is pretty much like, turn the goddamn bow and stop

because there's an iceberg. Yes. He then closes the watertight compartments in the boiler rooms and in the engine rooms. He immediately does that within minutes of having the iceberg in view. When they hit the iceberg, actually Fleet and Lee, who are the lookouts in the crow's nest, they think that they have maybe even cleared it because they see how the very tip of the iceberg is away from the boat. But as you very wisely stated early on, Taylor. Is this great wisdom? I don't know, but icebergs tend to be a little pear-shaped, a little bottom heavy. Most of it's under the surface. What happens underneath the waterline is a 300-foot gash on the starboard side gouged

in by the iceberg. This is below the waterline, but above the double bottom of the boat, the double bottomed hull. There are chunks of ice that kind of break off and are on the boat deck. Captain Smith is alerted and he comes to the bridge and he asks what's happened and Murdoch says, an iceberg, sir. Within minutes below deck, there's 14 feet of water and six watertight compartments had been filled and breached. I have a quote from this book, Titanic, the Death and Life of a Legend. It's by a British reporter named Michael Davy. And I quote him when he writes, The transverse bulkheads or upright partitions had not been built all the way up to the deck heads. So as the ship's bow went down, adjoining compartments filled up too. These watertight compartments filled up. Like, as someone said later, the sections of an ice cube tray.

If only three of the Titanic's compartments had been flooded, the ship could have stayed afloat. But with six gone, she was doomed. Wow. Why not build those all the way up and make them watertight from one another? I don't know. That seems like a really obvious design flaw. I really don't know. I guess they thought it was so big that they could get away with it. No. I mean, obviously not. They couldn't get away with it.

Josie, we are better engineers. Yes. Than the people who designed this ship. No. Easy to say in retrospect, I guess. Maybe harder to spot in motion, but it seems quite like an obvious flaw when you put it that way. So many passengers most likely did not feel the collision. Those who did reported that they thought

it was the boilers kind of like doing a double a little time or a propeller had thrown a blade. That was what a lot of people had thought, which would make sense because then I think what most people reacted to was the sound of the engines being turned off. Like the thrum of the boat stopped because they turned off the boilers. Eerie.

Yeah. And a lot of them were under the impression, as the advertising would have it, as the grandiosity of the boat would lead you to believe, that the boat was in fact unsinkable. It couldn't sink. It can't sink. It can't sink. So if something kind of like bumped or rattled, then that's okay. We killed it.

It's no big deal. We hit a whale. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but a lot of people with that, I guess hubris that we could say now or confidence you could say then just did not take it all that seriously. When stewards were being dispatched to tell people to put on their life jackets, a lot

of them were like, oh, OK, this thing's kind of ugly or it's uncomfortable. Second class passenger Eva Hart, her mother feels the impact and immediately looks at her husband and is like, are you gonna go up top? See what's going on? Yeah. He leaves their cabin. She dresses her daughter and herself in the warmest clothes possible and puts their life belts on and her husband comes back to the cabin and according to Eva's recounting, they do not exchange a word. Oh no. I told you all about this fucking devil ship and no one would believe me. Go to the squash court, you said.

Exactly and I think the moment of like, I told you so is like very short-lived because because now the ship is sinking. We can't we can't bask here. Let's try to get into a boat and then we'll bask there. Exactly. The first distress signal is sent at 12 15 a.m. So again, the call for the iceberg dead ahead is at 1135. And then how much time elapses between the two? 1215 is the first distress signal. So half an hour.

About a half hour, yeah. And that's because they're trying to assess the damage. 14 feet of water right away. Is not great. Yeah. Yeah. A wireless message is sent by the senior wireless operator by the name of Jack Phillips. And a long series of these go out. He taps out, it's still kind of a morse code situation.

He taps out CQD and then the other wireless operator reminds him there's a new signal you can use as well, SOS. And so he taps out both. Wow. reminds him there's a new signal you can use as well, SOS. And so he tops out both. Wow. A new signal you can use, SOS. That's scary. That's dramatic shit right there.

From the bridge, they send up a series of rockets, which are essentially like fireworks. They're big fireworks. They're white in color and they're reportedly about eight that were sent from the Titanic deck. They're white in color and they're reportedly about eight that were sent from the Titanic deck. There are also interestingly enough reports of a ship within sight of Titanic that could be seen by passengers and crew alike. And the idea was let's send these rockets up so they can see it. And there was even like a Morris code that wasn't the wireless, it was just like a lamp Morris code situation. So an older technology. And they were trying to

send messages that way too. But nothing seemed to be coming, nothing seemed to be happening. Who did pick up the SOS signal was a boat called the Carpathia. It was a canard ship, which you remember from the beginning of this telling was the rival ocean liner company, also British. That's awkward. A little awkward, yeah. Yeah. Well, and awkward enough that the captain of the Carpathia,

Captain Rostrum, Arthur Henry Rostrum, he at first didn't believe it. He told his wireless operator, Are we being punked? Are you fucking sure? Is Ashton Kutcher here? No, I got you. I got you. But when they confirm it is a distress signal, it is coming from the Titanic and- Ashton Kutcher is not here. Yes. Ashton Kutcher is nowhere to be seen. Nowhere to be found. No. Captain Rostrum hauls ass. He is 70 miles away, which means he's going to be

three and a half hours if he goes full steam ahead. Oh. Interesting to note too, the Carpathia picks up this wireless message, this distress signal, out of sheer happenstance. The wireless operator on the Carpathia had turned in for the night. He was actually getting into his pajamas. Oh, he had on his little dangling cap and his big night shirt.

He was going to honk shoe the night away. He was just putting his feet into his bunny slippers. But he was just kind of casually listening to the wireless when he heard, oh, that's a distress signal. I better go put the headphones on and see what's actually happening. Interesting. Yeah.

So it was actually quite lucky that he heard it at all. So once again, your back at Titanic is lucky here. Yeah. Damn. You try and look for the silver lining. But I think that's also important to note too, that like these wireless operators and the whole operation of communicate over these devices was that super regulated. It was like, if you want a cup of tea, go make a cup of tea. Like no one has to like listen the whole time. You can go to bed, doesn't matter. Like, so it

was like, this is great, cool technology, but Didn't realize Christian Wigg was running the maritime telegraphs in fucking45 A.M. on Titanic when the first lifeboat is away. And an order comes down right before then to fill all lifeboats with women and children only. Right. So no men are permitted to get on a lifeboat. Bullshit. Let me on! It is, and it's very interesting, this situation.

It's kind of bullshit, right? It sounds very noble, but it's kind of bullshit. And the way that it gets deployed, I think maybe ends up creating a lot of problems that didn't need to happen, especially around the splitting of families, I would say. Yeah. That's kind of the main problem is,

I get women and children first and then if there are no other women and children around, we start boarding people or like entire families together kind of makes more sense to me. Women and children is sort of like this very, again, re being British is mental illness. It's sort of this just like archaic self-felatio about chivalry in its way. And then of course, as you scale down, like class wise, your odds get lower and lower and lower regardless, right? Yeah.

Because like safety is afforded as a privilege. Eva Hart, our second class passenger, her father picks her up and puts her in the lifeboat with her mother. And you talked about the splitting of families. He says, now hold your mother's hand. And that's the last words that he ever says to her. That's so unnecessary.

It's pretty rough, pretty rough. The lifeboats, you mentioned like, privilege of access to them. Yeah. So I think this is one of the hotly contested things. There's many a hotly contested item of Titanic. Right, we all have our idea of what happened and how. But let's talk about lifeboats.

There were 20 on board, which meant that only half of the population had a seat on a lifeboat, half of the population of the ship. How many to a lifeboat? So there were different types of lifeboats. There were two collapsible. And then I think like one other different style that was a little bit smaller, the collapsible were smaller too, but the biggest number and the biggest lifeboats could hold 65 to 70 passengers.

Okay. That's a lot of people. Yes. That's a very large boat. Yes. Now, and we mentioned this earlier, the Titanic did meet regulation for the number of lifeboats because the metrics for that were dumb. Everybody on board did smartly have a life jacket, a life vest that they could wear.

So there were plenty of those and most people were wearing them. Yes. Which is good. So access to these lifeboats is questionable. The ship was designed for first class access to certain decks, the open air promenade. Some people could have their own private little promenade. The lifeboats were on public promenades, but public for first class. Second class had access to other decks that also had life boats on them.

But there was very limited access to these upper outward, you know, open air decks for third class passengers. Right. Right. Fulfilling the order of filling the boats with women and children. In that order, there was no specification that only first class women and children could go. That was never the case. If there was a woman or a child or both in view of the lifeboat, they were instructed to get on. Not all of them did, but they were instructed regardless of if they were first class, second class or steerage.

Right. But the problem was first class and then second class had much more of a likelihood to be on deck at the time that the lifeboats were leaving and could get on a lifeboat. Now, steerage and third class, especially at the stern of the boat, the furthest from the point of collision, it was possible that one, they never felt the collision and two, that by the time that they had been told to get off the boat, that this boat was sinking or that there was any type of danger at all sinking or otherwise, it was much too late for them to access the decks and the lifeboats. So you've architected a beautiful death trap for poor people, which again, feels very capitalist.

Yeah. And there is no ship wide alarm. There is no like huge PA system on this ship that the captain could get on and say, everybody aboard the Titanic. Women and children first, old chaps. None of that. But interestingly enough, I don't think Captain Smith, and I say I don't because I read somebody else's opinion about it,

he probably never would have enacted section alert because there weren't enough lifeboats. Why would you tell everybody that the boat is sinking if not everybody could be saved? You're just going to stoke the chaos. Because that way as many people as possible can be saved and also like shame on you for sailing on a boat where not everyone can be saved in a situation like this. Exactly. And there's many different accounts of Captain Smith and a lot of them portray him as being very stoic. Some paint him more as being a little more

in shock. It's a very harrowing thing because in addition to these sort of like fine cultural traditions of things like women and children first, we also have the tradition of the captain goes down with the ship. Yeah. Which he does. Which is also a very important, like, this is about your honor as a man thing in the same way that the other thing is, right? Yeah. So he's probably like, well, I've either got to like float societal code and just like endure the shame that comes with that or else I'm dying on this.

What I thought was my like retirement journey. So rough. Another note on third class access to lifeboats is the boat did have these metal partitions that were designed to contract and pull away. You'll probably remember them from James Cameron's Titanic most of all because he has them. Now there's like debate about whether those were forcefully closed or if they were closed at all or if it were just some. I think the prevailing idea is that while there was an order to open all of them in the chaos that happened, the stewards were not able to open all of them.

And so there were third class passengers who were trying to get to the top decks and encountered these metal partitions and could not cross them. In the narrativizations of it, it's always a very like, back you animals! Like that's sort of the vibe. Yeah. That happens. In the first few offings of the lifeboats, it is pretty calm. Some of these women and children are getting on the boats and being told, now take this pass, because if you don't have a pass, you can't get back on tomorrow morning. Like there's this sense of like, this is routine, like it's fine, we're just all, it's fine. Which is not a terrible way to handle it. No.

We're going to be looking at a lot of different ways to handle something like this. That's not one of the worst we're going to hear about, I don't think. But as time went on and the bow went further and further, and it became much more obvious to everybody on board that this was not routine, that this was going to be a serious issue. If not, this boat would completely go under. Then it became more panicked.

Then it became more people crowding lifeboats. Some of the officers were given revolvers to fend people off. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. And these are all people who are like staring down their own mortality as they do this. Yes. Yeah, exactly. There were reports of a light of what many people believe to be another ship. It was not a long way distance off. And it was so reported because a few of the lifeboats had been told once they got into the water to row towards it. And they were told row towards it, go towards that boat and tell them to get over here and help us. A few boats tried, though none reached it.

And there seemed to be, from those who were on those lifeboats, said it seemed as if that light were moving away from them and wasn't coming towards them. So there was just like, we got to give up. We're going back. Honestly, in a lot of ways, I guess, because the way so many narrativizations of the Titanic story presented is that like, if you get on the lifeboat, you are safe, you live, congratulations that you are saved. One forgets that these people are really just like being dropped many feet into like the pitch black freezing cold Atlantic ocean. They don't know if they're going to live. They don't know who's going to come, if anybody's coming.

Terrifying shit. Terrifying shit. Who's going to come if anybody's coming terrifying shit terrifying shit and this ship is so high up, right? That to be lowered on these davits is really like spooky scary. You're dropping like 200 feet. And again, the crew wasn't completely convinced that these davits would hold. completely convinced that these davits would hold. So even though so many of these boats could hold up to 70 people, some of them went out with as little as like a dozen or two dozen because there was concern that yes, the lifeboats could hold 70 in the water, but could the davits hold 70 in this boat right here suspended above the water? And also they've got to be women and children. Exactly. Yeah.

Hi, Karaj. Yeah. And this was reported by Lighthaller, the second officer who was in charge of filling lifeboats. He stated in his testimony that his primary concern was that all the lifeboats get off. He thought, oh my God, how horrible would this be if some of these lifeboats go down with the ship? Like we don't want that. We want all of these to get away from the ship and be able to hold people, even if they're not full,

then at least they are holding some people and maybe they can save people from the water. I get that logic too. The boat was listing, the bow was going under, there was a clock on this. And in fact, the final collapsible, they couldn't get it off in time. It was capsized. And people still stood on it. Lightholler was actually swept into the water and found himself next to this thing, swam to it, and got on top and balanced a whole crew of people with him on top.

Which is a scene that we see in A Night to Remember, I believe the 1958 version. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Which is reported to be truthful in terms of his testimony and the others who were on that boat with him or balanced on that boat. And apparently A Night to Remember has a lot of factual stuff in it. Yeah. I think it's like well noted for being one of the more documentarian fictional takes. Yeah, exactly. There were of course some women who refused to get into the lifeboats because they didn't want to be separated from their families or husbands. Fuck yeah, ride together, die together. Yeah, A and Isidore. There's a very, you know, famous scene depicted in A Night to Remember where Ida is on one of the lifeboats and she's taking off all her jewelry and puts it in her coat and gives

her coat to her maid and says, you take this. I'm not leaving that man. I've been with him for 45 years and I'm not going to stop now. Very moving. Is it true? I'm not gonna stop now. Very moving. Is it true? I know the coat is true. She gave her maid the coat. I don't know about the jewelry.

Oh well. I did like it with the jewelry. I won't lie. I know. Coats not bad. It's cold out there. It's very cold. It's cold.

And it was a fur coat. It's a fine coat. Okay. Well, now we're talking. It was acceptable back then folks. Yeah, different time. Now you gotta Ipcycle that shit from your grandma or they'll throw red paint on you. Yeah, that's true. And apparently with that Strauss story, the maid, she did survive. And she went to the Strauss's daughter and tried to return the coat and the daughter said, no, my mother gave it to

you. It's yours. Oh, and apparently, yeah, the so the Strausses were the owners of Macy's. Yep. The staff at Macy's were so upset by their passing. And of course, their story is so heart wrenching and sweet. Yeah. But apparently they were huge philanthropists in New York, and so their memorial service had all these people from all over the city come. And Macy's staff pitched in, everybody pitched in to have a plaque made so that there was like an entrance to Macy's that had a little garden and this little plaque to commemorate the Strauss' passing. That's very sweet. That's very sweet. garden and this little plaque to commemorate the Strauss's passing. That's very sweet.

That's very sweet. Very beloved. Yeah. And really like, I don't know, intense too that Ida would do that because a lot of the upper class wives did not. I mean, I don't know. I say that as if it's a bad thing. It's not.

It's like, it made sense at the time to get on the boat. And perhaps they didn't have the same grasp of what the situation meant when they got on the boat. They might've still been in the, oh, we're coming back later. We've got a squash appointment tomorrow. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

The men have their own boats, you know, like all that. Yeah, who knows? John Jacob Astor, he put his pregnant wife of 18 on a boat and then he drowned in the sinking. Benjamin Guggenheim, he very famously put on his evening whites and decided that he would go down honorably in a way that his wife would find commendable. I also think that like, I don't know, you know, like the Titanic architect drowned, Thomas Andrews, he was there.

And of course, Captain Smith went down with the boat. There was a first-class passenger who was a well-known tennis player. He realized what was about to happen and he actually went to the gym and rode on the stationary bike as the boat went down. You know what? Like, sure.

Yeah. This has been a great de-stressor for me in the past. Yeah, yeah. So. Fair enough. We also have to talk about J. Bruce Ismay because I think this is pertinent to this question of like what it looks like at this time

when chivalrous men, some of the most wealthy men in the world, decide to go down with the ship and let the wives and children go. What happens when a powerful man doesn't do that? Doesn't do that. What do you think? This is a fascinating question to me. Of all the characters, of all the real life characters, let's say that we meet in the Titanic story. Ismay is a really interesting character because, like, how do we receive the actions of this man who, like, if you were making a list of people who, like, should absolutely nobly

die on paper to, like, cede their spot to someone else, this guy's got to be top of the list, right? Yeah. He's de facto owner. Rich boy. And apparently there's reports of him kind of like wandering around on the top decks, kind of like telling the crew to do things

that they're already doing. One must feel important. Yeah. It gives him something to do, right? It gives him something to do. But he's there as the second to last lifeboat goes down on the davits. The last one is a collapsible that actually capsizes, right? And according to him, there is nobody else around and they are lowering it.

Yep. And he thinks, well, there's room for me. Well, I think that's fair. And why would I add to the death toll? Why would I add to those going in the water when there's room for me? And as it's being lowered, he hops in. Yep. You know what?

I think that that moment that we've been talking about of staring down his mortality was there. Yeah. And he saw his ride taken off from the party. And I think he did a very human thing. He hopped on. Yeah. I don't think I judge it. I get it. I get why people judge it so harshly. And certainly I get why people judge it so harshly. If you take the lens that so many of the fictional versions seem to take that like this guy, Isme, was in some way like directly responsible for the iceberg being collided with because... He wanted the spoilers to be full steam ahead, yeah.

Yes, it'd look great if we beat our timeline to get to New York and da da da da. And I don't know to what degree how true any of that is, but like that certainly changes the amount of responsibility one might assign him for this. Other than that, I'd jump on the boat. Me too. Me too. We'll come back to him. Because I think there's some more information as the story continues. So it's 2 18 a.m. Again, remember we hit the iceberg. We see the iceberg at 11 35 p.m. It's 1218 a.m. The bow of the ship goes under. Two minutes later, 220, the whole boat founders. That's the word they use, founders. You mentioned earlier the band. Speaking of that question of chivalry and like at this

time and like do you go do you not go? Like I think John Jacob Astor, sure. Guggenheim, wear your white tails. The band is what gets me. They're second class passengers on board. They decide that, you know what? We're going to play it out. They go up on deck and they begin by playing some more happy music to kind of calm the masses. For he's a jolly good fella, for he's a jolly good fella. Some lively ragtime.

And then as the boat goes down, and it's depicted in James Cameron movie, it's depicted in the 1958 A Night to Remember, they decide, okay, we're done. It's every man for himself. It was a pleasure to play with you. They start to disperse, and then the violinist starts playing another song, and they all come back, and they decide we're gonna play it together.

Extremely moving. I cried every time I saw that in a movie. It was very touching stuff. Is it true? So they did play until the very end. Until the boat was no longer able to be stood upon to play an instrument. You can only play a fucking double bass on such an acute angle before it stops working out.

Because it's music on, you know, on this open ocean, there are reports of people in the lifeboats being able to hear the songs that they're playing. And so in all likelihood, yes, they did continue to play. They probably did have a moment of, well, we're kind of done, aren't we? And then kept going. Yeah, and then we're like, what else are we gonna do? Yeah, it's obvious that this shit ain't gonna be good, so. That guy's already on the exercise bike.

Yeah, let's keep playing. The biggest thing that's contended is what they were playing, which I wanna note is kinda secondary to the fact that they just kept playing. The song that gets kind of thrown around is that they were playing the hymn, Near My God to Thee, which, Sure. According to Eva Hart, seven years old and a lifeboat,

she says they did play that, undoubtedly. Others say who were in lifeboats and who survived said, they never played that. And then there's also this question of like, well, there's the British version and there's the American version. There's the like Episcopal and the Methodist version. So maybe people didn't recognize it.

I want you to imagine Josie, that you are woken up with a stir by your like your mother and she's like, no, we need to get on the boat. It's sinking. There are many people who don't even believe it. People are screaming. They're like thrusting their babies at you. Take my baby, take my baby.

You get on by the time you get up, you're at like a fucking like 45 degree angle, you can barely hold on, you manage to get to lifeboat and escape. And then you're sitting there huddled in a lump of you all 70 all night, hoping that someone discovers you finally, you get discovered. And then someone asks you at the end, quick question,

what was the band playing? How the fuck are you supposed to, they didn't play near my God to meet the- really, you're willing to stake money that none of the fucking 15 songs that they played while the ship went down was this particular song? You might not have been paying attention, you were more pressing other concerns. And the other thing that I want to add to that too, is that this boat, as we talked about earlier, is four city blocks long.

Yeah, this is a big boat. This is a huge boat. Full of screaming people trying to escape it. And these boilers are exploding, the funnels are falling. There are literal fireworks being fired into the air at points. Oh my god, yeah. The crew at a certain point... Was relieved. Yes. Every man for himself.

And that was certainly told to the wireless operators. The battery was about to go out. The boilers that supplied electricity to the ship, which those engineers stayed as long as they could and most likely all lost their lives so that the ship would have electricity, so that there was some light. Because that was another concern, is like, if all the lights went out, you're in the middle of the goddamn Atlantic, there's no light there. It was like famously a dark night that this all goes down. A moonless night, yeah.

Oh, scary. You know, we mentioned all the mail that was on board. The mail clerks were busy trying to save the mail as best they could, which was not going to happen. But many of them lost their lives because they were doing just that, like trying to end out their duties in a most honorable way. I think there's something admirable in it. Yeah. I think it's the musicians that really get me though because what they're doing is

not a task necessarily. What they're doing is they're acknowledging like this very human need for comfort. Art baby art. Art baby art. You know, everybody has their own art. Maybe sorting mail is your art. Maybe you know, tapping the wireless is your art. I don't know.

Like purpose. Pur don't know. Like purpose, purpose. Yeah. But to know that you might not be saved, then that idea of like, well, then I'm going to do what I can to help and in whatever way that looks like. Do you happen to know the names of the band members? William Braley, Roger B. Crew, John Clark, Wallace Hartley, Jock Hoom, George Crins, Percy Taylor, and the last musician John Wesley Woodward. The youngest was 20 and the oldest was 40. They were from England, Belgium, Scotland, and France. So by the time the bow went under, 218. What that meant was the entire stern of the boat

came up out of the water and bobbed like a cork. According to second officer Lighthaller, who remember we were saying, found his way to the upturned collapsible lifeboat, he was standing on it and he could see the Titanic going down. And I'll read his account that he gives after. I could now see the massive outline of the Titanic's silhouette against the starlit

sky, her blackness emphasized by row upon row of lights still burning, but only for a matter of minutes. With her attaining an angle of about 60 degrees, all the lights suddenly went out, and with a roar, every one of the gigantic boilers left their beds and went crashing down through the bulkheads and everything that stood in their way. Crowds of people were still on the after deck and at the stern, but the end was near.

Slowly and almost majestically, the immense stern reared itself up with propellers and rudder clear of the water till at last she assumed the exact perpendicular. Then, with an ever-quickening glide, she slid beneath the water of the cold Titanic. Despite our own danger, every one of us had been held spellbound by the sight, and like a prayer as she disappeared, the words were breathed. She's gone. It must really be something to watch the biggest ship in the world sink right in front of your eyes. Absolutely fucking terrifying. And you'll notice too from that account and a few others,

there is no mentioning of the bow breaking. This is a subject I gathered in my late research of some debate. Yes. Or was for a time. Was for a time, until 1985. When we discover the remains of the Titanic and we can sort of confirm or deny various theories about it. But I think maybe what is confusing to people, besides the pandemonium and chaos, is that it broke apart, but it was still connected at the bottom. The stern went up, it broke, but then as the bow continued to go down,

the stern went back up and bobbed there, like a cor cork before the whole thing got pulled down. And then as it was pulled down, then it like fully separated. But when it was still at the surface, it wasn't so separated that one half could kind of stay there and begin its own process of sinking. It was pulled down with the rest of the boat because they were still connected. All that beautiful Art Nouveau finery kind of goes sinking to the bottom of the ocean, right? And all the candelabras and all the specially picked china and the gym and the squash court and the chandeliers, all those staircases, all those beautiful things

that you see when the YouTubers walk through their Unity models on YouTube. And all of it brand spanking new. First time used. If used at all. If used at all. That assistant vegetable cook didn't even get to use that mandolin. That's for James Cameron to discover.

I'm leaving this one for James. Yeah. Good old Jimmy. Terrifying, terrifying, terrifying. What's reported and is probably like, I don't know, one of the sadder elements of this is these lifeboats, some of them not even nearly filled up. And is this because in trying to rescue them, they might topple our lifeboat? Is that the logic? That was the logic that was shared. The idea that their desperation

would swamp the lifeboats that were afloat. What would you do? I don't know. We like to think that we would all say go back. I mean, of course I would love to say, I'm going back. I'm going back. You pointed this out before. There's still a big question mark of, are we even going to survive? Yeah. And I think the other thing too that we haven't noted is it is freezing outside. The water temperature is negative 2.2 degrees Celsius or 28 degrees Fahrenheit. The air temperature is above freezing but still extremely cold.

And that's the reports that are so harrowing is that this decision had to be made quite quickly. And if you just sat in your boat and were scared, those cries and those screams for help did not continue for very long. The water was so cold that people froze extremely quickly. Yeah. Wow. Eva Hart gives an account of being in the boat and saying at first the worst sound she had ever heard was the sound of people crying out for help. And then that was quickly followed by the worst sound that she'd ever

heard, which was the silence that followed. Mind you, this is a moonless, clear night. The stars are so bright, you can see them like drop below the horizon. And the water, as cold as it it is is glass. There's not a wave in sight. Creepy, creepy, creepy. So creepy. And I think something to note too is we mentioned this with like the third class and all of this, but the difference between the classes is so stark and so embedded, I think, in these people. Yeah. That it even applies to, like, the overwhelming incident of humanity on display.

Right. There's an 18-year-old US congressman's daughter who's in one of the lifeboats. She's a first class passenger. Her name is Mary Eloise Smith. And she said after the fact from her seat in lifeboat as the boat went down, I thought it was the steerage on rafts and that they were all hysterical describing the sound of the cries and people asking for help. Hysterical.

Hysterical. These people can't control their emotions that everyone they love just drowns, and they are now drowning too. She thought that the cries were from, quote, semen, or possibly steerage, who had overslept. It not occurring to me that my husband and my friends were not saved." End quote.

Oh, well, if it was just steerage, that would have been one thing. Isn't that disturbing? But I think it is a good indicator. The class difference is so embedded. Yeah. In this point in history, when we're not interested

in social services, when, you know, all we're getting back to that point, which is terrifying, but you know. Cheer stuff, cheer stuff. So there's more. The boat is under, the ship is gone, but there's always more to the story. Yes, no, the Titanic never truly rests. No, she do not

She'd be busy the Carpathia the canard ship captained by Rostrum arrives at about 330 a.m It has sped through the night at considerable danger Remember a boat went down and these waters because of an iceberg and he's still hauling ass. Yeah. The lifeboats are gathered and everybody is brought aboard. Now the Carpathia, even though it's not as big as the Titanic, it's still a huge boat

and there's no way to get on the boat mid ocean in an easy gangplank situation. So people, and remember mainly women and children, or sorry, women will say this, are climbing up rope ladders, up hundreds of feet. The children could not be trusted to climb those ladders safely. You can't trust children. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. We're putting you in a bag or something.

Like, come on, get in my bag. According to Eva Hart, a seven-year-old. Our voice in second class. Yeah. She's going to leave a bad Yelp review after this. Big time. Strongly worded in letter. The kids weren't put on the ladders, but instead they were hauled up using luggage nets.

But the gaps in the netting were so wide that they were concerned that the kids would get an arm or a leg through and fall through or somehow get hurt. So all the kids were bundled into sacks and then they were hauled up. So they liked my bag idea. Sick. It had to be bags. I thought about it for a moment. I was like, oh, bag them. Tag them, tag them, send them up. They're just large fish, right? Same logic. Yep. And everybody got up into the boat. It was a challenge. Again, a very large boat, but everybody was there. Harold Briggs, who was the junior wireless operator of the Titanic, he managed to escape

the freezing waters and he was hauled up one of these rope ladders up onto the Carpathia. So he's an interesting character, this Harold Bride, because wow, what a story. He survives. Not just survives, but survives out of the water, which is, you don't hear that arc much in Titanic stories. There's less than I think a dozen people who are pulled from the water. He's one of them.

And also on board is J. Bruce Ismay. Our boy. Our boy, our boy of question. Yes. He, you will be interested to know, gets the largest stateroom on the ship. You shouldn't be alive, bro. You need to start spinning right now. Is there a pregnant woman you can give this room maybe, man? Exactly. Do a little PR for yourself. Sorry that the White Star Line fell short of our customary, you know, like, come on, Jesus. And instead of trying to go and help the huddled masses on board of the rescue

ship, he's in his large stateroom, sending wireless messages to New York telling the white star line, Hey, you need to hold the next outgoing ship to England because me and all the English crew need to get back there as soon as possible when it's like that's not a good look. Well like also like is there about to be some sort of criminal something here in which case I'd much rather be in my own country than a foreign one right now. True.

Or is this international waters? Is there any crime here? Well what happens and we'll note too that the wireless messages that are leaving the Carpathia are of personal nature. So it's important to note this because there are quite a few official requests from White Star Line Company itself asking what happened. Everybody knows that something disastrous happened. They're all dead and there's no boat, what happened? But that's not even, not everybody was certain of that.

Some people thought, oh, they'll be towing a wrecked Titanic or a damaged, significantly damaged Titanic. They didn't even know that there was no boat anymore, shit. And our guy, Harold Harold Bride is up there tapping away messages like, hold the next boat. Could you? Could you? And oh, I miss you, sweetie.

Like all these personal messages and not giving any official notification. And that's going to be important to note in a little bit here. So when they do arrive in New York, the reception of the boat is tremendous. Nobody really knows what's going on besides something horrible. So there are reportedly

2,000 people in New York Harbor waiting for these passengers to see if their people have survived, to see if they can take them home. And a good amount of people just trying to learn what the fuck happened, including reporters. Also including a Senator William Alden Smith of Michigan, who is very interested in what happened. Senator Smith, he gets on board the rescue ship and he immediately finds J. Bruce Ismay and says there will be an inquiry. You and your crew need to remain here in New York for as long as necessary. Oh, you're the star of the inquiry, man. As the lone survivor. Yes.

Of the White Star Line crew. You're the fucking star of this inquiry. Of the top of the heap, indeed, indeed. And Senator Smith is an interesting character in all this because he's Republican, but it's 1912. Things are a little different. So he's kind of a different ilk of the Republican Party than what we might recognize from the last.

He's not a mad guy. He's not a mad guy. He's a big anti-trust guy at a time of the monopoly monocle, meaning he wants to break up these huge corporations. Something like JP Morgan is just too big. It needs to be understood as like, there needs to be competition that's regulated by the government so that things are more fair.

Remember that? And that's partly why he's so interested in investigating and conducting the inquiry into the Titanic's wreck. One of the things he claims is this unregulation is a byproduct of the unregulated market, of these trusts that are much too large, where capital is the only important thing and we're not thinking about, you know, the solid lower class man. We're not thinking about like the public in total. This whole thing kind of plays into a lot of his talking points and persona. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

And he conducts a very thorough inquiry. The crew doesn't leave the US until June and they dock mid-April. He questions the entirety of the crew, including Ismay, but he also talks to paying passengers who don't really have a stake in who's at fault or who's not at fault. I would have a stake in who is at fault, maybe not in the same way that Ismay would. Again, I would be very keen to leave my Yelp review. Yes, that's true. To make my feelings on the matter known. Two stars, not enough lifeboats, great band.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Band was, band kept going all night. All night. Oh. When it came to Ismay, Senator Smith was rough because this idea that this man who should have, according to the code of the time, honorably

gone down with his ship, snuck onto a lifeboat. According to the code of this time. Yeah, yeah, no that's true. That's still the code. That's still the code. And here's where Ismay does not do himself any favors. He makes a pretty good case saying, listen, no one else was around. There was room on the boat.

It was going down with or without me. It was going down with or without me. That's a good point. Everything else he says is just like, what? When they ask him how exactly the ship went down, he says, I don't know. I didn't look behind me. I just kept rowing. I didn't want to see it go down. And it's like, it's your goddamn ship. Take a look at it, baby.

I get also being like, oh, it's just gonna bum me out. Again, I get like, I sort of take pity on Ismay in what I perceive to be very cowardly seeming, but very human instincts to like look away from one's own mess. Yeah. I don't think it takes a great man to feel that but I think that we're all capable of it. I think that that's like, like you said, we all like to say we'd be like, turn this boat around like Molly Brown, but would we? Yeah, the tack that Ismay takes is he kind of leans in to being de facto owner. He's like, well, I don't really know much about ships. I just butt-fucked my way to this because just my dad's rich, dude. I'm not too familiar with latitude, longitude.

What's a boat? A boat? Does it float? I don't know. Is West left or right? Yeah. What's kind of damning about that, I guess, is either he's faking it so that he's not held responsible. Or he's just an incompetent failed child, I guess, is either he's faking it so that he's not held responsible.

JAYLEE Or he's just an incompetent failed child, which is infuriating in its own way, because why is he running this boat? STACEY Exactly. Either way, it's a little rough. And the press? Lakshan. They certainly do. He's turned…

JAYLEE Well, if we need a villain for the Titanic story, what better guy? STACEY Exactly. They call him J. Brute Ismay instead of Bruce. I heard your boy Hearst was all over that. Yes, he was. Yeah, a lot of, a lot of the public opinion got fueled and churned by the newspaper reportings, which makes Marconi a very interesting character at this point, because as we mentioned, the Titanic wireless operator, Harold Bride, he had refused to send any official reports from the Carpathia. So when they get to New York, he doesn't really explain himself. Rather,

Marconi, the inventor of this technology, Googs! along with a New York Times reporter, board the rescue ship, and immediately conduct an interview with Harold Bride. Harold Bride is then later paid for his story. I don't think you're supposed to do that. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Nope. I don't think you're supposed to pay for interviews like that. So what becomes apparent after a little distance is, holy fucking shit, Harold Bride wasn't giving any official reports from the rescue ship because he had been told by Marconi, who owned this company, who owned the patent, who invented this machine, that he would get a bigger payout if he just kept quiet and waited to talk to a reporter. That's why you're not supposed to pay for interviews. That shit. Yep. And the other thing that kind of throws a wrench into some of the storytelling about Titanic is this nefarious reporting that happens. Even Harold Bride himself has a few,

he tells a very harrowing story of his experience in the Marconi room relaying wireless messages, and it's very moving. But then in the inquiry, he says something a little different. Things keep kind of shifting and changing. It becomes clear that he's not telling the entire story in the written and paid for, notably, account that he

gives the New York Times. That becomes kind of like a stanchion of the Titanic story. What a tangled web. What a tangled web. Another villain we'll meet here is Captain Lord of the Californian. Yes, I remember you mentioning them. Yes. So the Californian, and you also remember me mentioning there were some lifeboats who were sent to go look for this light that was reportedly a ship on the horizon. There was heavy speculation that that ship was the Californian. The Californian was a smaller passenger ship that hit this ice field. It didn't hit it, but noticed it and stopped,

turned off their engines, went to bed. Smart. Except their wireless operator also went to bed and missed any communication. Well, that's no good. The first mates and Captain Lord reported that they had seen rockets go up, but they weren't sure really what they were. They thought, Oh, maybe it's company communication. So it's not,

it doesn't really have anything to do with us. They're having a party. Yeah, they're having a party. We don't really know. They would have been, and there's varying viewpoints on this, but they would have been within maybe 10 or 20 miles of Titanic. So if the Californian had been paying attention or had taken interest or had just been more responsible, at least according to the American inquiry conducted by Senator Smith, then all those lives could have been saved. Why did protocol around receiving messages and potentially messages of distress not extend to like,

it should be a service available at nights because disasters happen at night, possibly more frequently? That's a very good question. I guess we had to learn from something like this. I don't know. A direct result of Titanic's disaster was that wireless operations had to be conducted at 24-hour watches. Rockets when they were sent only meant distress.

No ship can send off a firework or a rocket in jest or in celebration. It always means distress. And all ships need to have lifeboats that can fit every passenger on board. There was a grand overhaul of regulation that was a direct result of Titanic. But I think prior to that, I would maybe examine the way that it was all such new technology. You know, like 10 years ago, we didn't have this. So why, you know, why would this be necessary now if 10 years ago, we got along fine without it? And I think as technology like that becomes more readily available. It becomes easier to regulate because so many people have it.

Then that kind of changes the situation. Another note on the regulation around wireless communication is that everybody, any officer who was using it had to be certified to use it. You couldn't just say like, I know the stuff, whatever. You had to have a license in order to operate it. Right. And so you learned all these regulations. And so I think that might be part of it too. Like if we think about the newer technologies that we have, it's like,

Oh, that really rich person knows how to work it. You get the, you know, the driverless car over here and we'll figure it out. And we certainly learned from our mistakes. There was a second inquiry in Britain led by a Lord Merset, and it was not nearly as exhaustive as the American one. But like the American one, they did not find any particular person or company to be at fault. People in both inquiries were chastised and the American inquiry captain Smith, E.J. Smith of Titanic was deemed to be irresponsible,

but not at fault. And the British inquiry, he was not so roundly accused. It was deemed, you know what, he's dead. He went down with his ship. We're not gonna. Right, and that's the other thing too, is like, part of why Izmay presents such a tempting target for lashings is he's the only person left alive. Yeah.

What are you gonna say about this guy that's worse than getting fucking drowned? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Case dismissed. The pain has been dealt? Yeah. You know?

And we're conscious too that this man certainly has family. What's good is it to them to drag him around even though certainly you want to identify responsibilities so that these mistakes can't happen again, but in the casting a villain thing, it's not super helpful to do that to the dead because they're dead. In slightly more nefarious ways though, nobody was found at fault because if let's say White Star Line was found to be at fault, then that meant they had to pay out all the survivor claims that were filed for loss of life, property, and injury, which all of those claims together were $16.4 million.

Pay the people, you drown their families. The final settlement that was determined, because again, White Star Line was not found to be at fault, nor her captain, which would implicate White Star Line, the settlement that was paid was $664,000. Just like a little fraction of that 16.4 million. Right. Yeah. Interestingly enough, the McKay Bennett, which was a ship that the White Star Line

hired out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. This was a boat that left Halifax April 17th and they were given the very solemn task of collecting any bodies. Lord, that's, yeah, very solemn task. That's no joke. Those life jackets meant that even though those folks had died a few days earlier, they were still floating in the water. The boat went out, the McKay Bennett went out and recovered 306 bodies. 116 of them were buried at sea. The remaining were brought on board where there were numerous embalmers waiting to embalm the bodies and bring them back to Halifax. And there is the Fairview Cemetery just outside of Halifax, where many of the Titanic survivors are buried, including many members of the band. Wow.

Aster's body was reclaimed by his son off of the McKay Bennett. And he was identified not by the diamond ring he was wearing and all the money that he had shoved into his pockets, but by the name that was written on the inside collar of his shirt, J.F. Write your name on your shirt, folks. Yeah, that's the lesson here. Watch out for icebergs and write your name on your shirt. Write your name on your shirt, absolutely.

And listen to your mother about that boat. It's not good news. Yeah, and there's so much more to this story. There are so many tiny facets that I could not get to that are so incredibly fascinating. If the Californian had picked up the wireless in the same way that the Carpathia picked up their wireless messages. If, you know, they had hit the iceberg so that it scraped above the waterline, if they'd hit the iceberg dead on, and so it like crunched the bow but still maintained the integrity, if there had been enough, all of it, all of it.

If we'd put a badminton court on instead of a squash court. You never know. You never know. You never know what might've changed. Wow. If you had been one of those 24 passengers that just wanted to do the channel transit and not the Atlantic transit. Yeah, good day for them.

Bad day for everyone else, man. It is a story that is extremely fascinating. There are so many different people, so many recognizable people, so many telltale signs of a very particular time. Just on the eve of World War I, just at this point of extreme wealth and extreme poverty. Industrial giants in a time of industrial explosion. In a huge industrial ship. You know, I think that's the other part of it is like.

We're stoking engines the entire time. That's well put. We're stoking engines the entire time. And a story of like, yeah, I guess like our bitter adherence to our class mores until the very end and yeah, a lot of really resonant themes about humanity. You did a really good job there. Anything Josie didn't tell will get told so like shipwreck discovery of that's coming don't worry. Yeah. What was the thing

that surprised you most that you learned from this? I didn't know anything about the Senate inquiry in the US or the British inquiry. I didn't know any of that. I don't know if it surprised me, but I was like, oh, damn. All the kind of like near miss things were really interesting to me. We're very like, I think, fascinated by these there, but for the grace of God moments where, you know, Fabriz these there, but for the grace of God moments where, you know, Fabrizio wins your ticket in a poker game and you're really mad at your buddy that you don't get to go on the Titanic now, but then, you know, two days later you feel quite

differently about the situation. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is luck? Against all odds, the situation could have been worse, right? Like, people survived, sometimes nobody survives. Yeah. We spot our silver linings, we spot our patterns, we spot our themes that we think will help

us make better sense of the world and especially of, like, the kind of randomness that comes into play in a tragedy like this and also the fallibility of many of the the sinking of the things that we believe to be unsinkable, right? Thanks for listening. If you want more infamy, we've got plenty more episodes at bittersweetinfamy.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to support the podcast, shoot us a few bucks via our ko-fi account at ko-fi.com forward slash bittersweetinfamy. But no pressure, bittersweetinfamy is free, baby. You can always support us by liking, rating, subscribing, leaving a review, following us on Instagram at bittersweetinfamy, or just

pass the podcast along to a friend who you think would dig it. Stay sweet! The sources that I used for this episode include the book Titanic, death and life of a legend written by Michael Davy published 1985 it was later updated in 2012 by Dave Giddens I read excerpts of Gilded Lives Fatal Voyage the Titanic's first-class passengers and their world written by Hugh Brewster, published 2012. I read excerpts of How to Survive the Titanic or The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay, written by Francis Wilson. I looked at the National Geographic book Return to Titanic, a new look at the

world's most famous lost ship, written by Robert Ballard with Michael S. Sweeney. I watched the 1958 film A Night to Remember directed by Roy Ward Baker. I watched the 2024 film Unsinkable Titanic Untold directed by Cody Hartman. I watched a YouTube video, how the Titanic used steam from steam culture and was posted to YouTube January 13th, 2017. I looked at the website Royal Museums Greenwich that had exhibition notes on the RMS Titanic. I watched an interview with Titanic survivor, Eva Hart on YouTube.

The video was entitled, Eva Hart Interview on Surviving the Sinking of the Titanic, 1993, posted to Mind Matter Channel, April 14th, 2021. And I looked at the Wikipedia pages for Passengers of the Titanic, Sinking of the Titanic, and RMS Carpathia. To listen to Taylor, me, and perpetual special guest Mitchell Collins talk about 1997's Titanic, directed by James Cameron, then head over to ko-fi.com slash bittersweet.mp3. That's K-O dash F-I dot com slash bittersweet.mp3. Become a monthly subscriber and get access to slash bittersweetimphony. Become a monthly subscriber and get access to the Bittersweet Film Club.

Other folks who have hopped on the boat, Terry, Jonathan, Lizzie D, Erica Jo, Soph, Dylan, and sexualdecap. Thanks for the support y'all. Bittersweetimphony is a proud member of the 604 Podcast Network. This episode is lovingly edited by Alex McCarthy with help from Alexi Johnson. The cover photo for Bitter Sweet Infamy was taken by Luke Bentley. The My Heart Will Go On Melodica music was performed by Mikhschel Collins. And the song you're listening to now is and steel.