A Night to Remember

At the time the RMS Titanic was launched into the harbor at Belfast, Ireland, the ship was the largest movable object ever created. An elegant colossus, she was a testament to the technological advances surging forward during the early Edwardian period and to the prowess and mastery that humankind had achieved. She was one of a trio of luxury liners (also including the RMS Olympic and the RMS Britannic) built for the White Star Line by Harland & Wolff. The opportunity to sail on the Titanic, especially in first-class accommodations, communicated status; a trip on a transatlantic ocean liner, for wealthy westerners, was not simply a means of being conveyed across the ocean but an opportunity to take part in a pleasure cruise, socialize and network with one’s upper-crust peers, and take advantage of all of the amenities and services on board. Sailing on luxury liners was a pastime that many of the world’s wealthiest individuals frequently enjoyed; the White Star Line emphasized the notion of the experience of embracing sea travel as not simply a means of traveling from one place to another but as an enjoyment in itself.

The Titanic, like many other luxury liners of the period, was structured to provide an “appropriate” experience to each passenger according to their socioeconomic standing. The first-, second-, and third-class areas of the ship were exclusive and exclusionary; passengers were expected to remain in the respective areas designated for their use. Locked barrier gates prevented third-class passengers from venturing into areas in which their presence would be considered inappropriate. While all passengers were able to avail themselves of the ship’s deck space, these areas were also restricted based on the ticket purchased. In this fashion, the wealthiest members of the Titanic’s passenger roster could be “protected” from having to socialize with those considered beneath them and assured of the same kind of socioeconomic segregation they expected in their experiences of daily life on land.

April 1912 fell squarely within a period in American history during which most members of the Protestant Anglo-Saxon elite subscribed to the ideals promoted by members of the eugenics movement; eugenicists believed that human traits, desirable and undesirable, were the product of heredity and that human society should focus its efforts not only on encouraging procreation among the best and “fittest” among them but on actively discouraging and in many cases preventing procreation among those they considered unfit. A major component of the eugenics movement was the push to limit or eliminate entirely immigration from certain parts of the world considered to be populated by people whom Anglo-Saxons didn’t want to pollute or tamper with the fabric of their fragile notions of social welfare. The third-class passengers largely represented those national origins. To a 21st-century audience, it may seem surprising that first- and second-class passengers and crew members would demonstrate such a callous, indifferent attitude toward the loss of life occurring below them in steerage while they boarded lifeboats, but social elites regularly ignored the plights of those they viewed as inferior. These were people whose fortunes often relied on the labor of those risking their lives and health in mills, mines, and agrarian settings that these elites controlled and exploited to expand their scope of power and influence. Even while witnessing the deaths of so many occurring before their eyes, if they weren’t personally affected, many of these first-class passengers seemed content to attend to their own problems, no matter how trivial and self-involved they might appear to a contemporary audience.