On Monday, April 15, 1912, the front page headline of the The New York Times read: “New Liner Titanic Hits an Iceberg; Sinking by the Bow at Midnight; Women Put Off in Life Boats; Last Wireless at 12:27 A.M. Blurred.”
Late in the evening of April 14, 1912, the Titanic–ship of movie fame and book lore–struck the infamous iceberg and began to sink, eventually going under in the early morning hours of April 15. The “unsinkable ship” had sunk. Only slightly more than 700 of those who had been on board were rescued from lifeboats. The rest, approximately 1,500 passengers and crew, were lost. In the 100 years since, countless books, articles, documentaries, and websites have been written or filmed about the tragedy.
To learn more, search the Library’s online catalog. A subject browse on the keyword Titanic leads to books such as Shadow of the Titanic: the Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived, in the Browsing Books collection, call number G530 .T6 W56 2012, and The discovery of the Titanic, in the Main Collection, call number G530 .T6 B49 1995.
For newspaper accounts in the days following the sinking, try searching in the library databases ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2008) or ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1988). Limit your search by date. For magazine articles from that time period, search Readers’ Guide Retrospective (1890-1982).
Also, if you missed the Academy-award winning movie, Titanic, when it was released in 1997, you have a second chance. It was re-released this month and is in theatres now. The movie storyline is fiction (and whoever wrote the dialogue shouldn’t quit their day job), but the scenes of the ship breaking apart and going down are quite striking. The movie is also available in the Feature Films section of the Browsing DVD collection.
Need help finding information? Ask a reference librarian.
Listen up, for “words on steroids and cubed to the max” (that’s sometimes good POETRY),
enjoy (so to speak) “The Convergence of the Twain,” by British writer Thomas Hardy.
No, not “Mark” Twain of the Big Reed currently. This is about the TITANIC! Okay a little advanced in the Poeticque Diction, but all the more enjoyable to read thrice thus!
I.
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.
II.
Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.
III
Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls — grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.
IV
Jewels in joy designed
To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.
V
Dim moon-eyed fishes near
Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: “What does this vaingloriousness down here?” …
VI Well: while was fashioning
This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything
VII
Prepared a sinister mate
For her — so gaily great — A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.
VIII
And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.
IX
Alien they seemed to be:
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later destiny,
X
Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,
XI
Till the Spinner of the Years
Says “Now!” And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.
[courtesie of the Institute for Integrative Meta-Stenology, Chester Kartoffelkopfe, flaneur]