"Titanic" Exhibit Puts You on the Ship and James Cameron Film ('Ghosts of the Abyss') Documents the Discovery Further

I attended an exhibit on the "Titanic" at the Putnam Museum in Davenport, Iowa on Friday, March 18^th, 2011. The timing of the exhibit was fortuitous, because the "Titanic" actually sank on April 14, 1912.

The fact that the ship had numerous warnings about the icebergs is driven home again and again in the exhibit. At 1:45 p.m. the Amerika sent ice warnings. At 9:30 p.m. the Mesaba sent warnings. At 10:55 p.m. the Californian wrote: "We are stopped, surrounded by ice." But the "Titanic" steamed on at almost full-steam, traveling at 21 knots, and collided with the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. 400 miles southwest of Newfoundland at 42 degrees 27'N 50 degrees 8' W. The great ship's 29 boilers (each 15 foot diameter boiler could have held a double-decker bus), powered by the Black Crew, shoveling coal into 159 furnaces, steamed into history.

It cost a lot to be aboard the "Titanic" on its maiden voyage. In 2011 dollars, a first-class ticket (which cost $2,500 in 1912 dollars) would cost $57,200, on average, in 2011 dollars, and one of the finest suites with hot and cold running water, cost $4,500 in 1912 dollars, which would be $103,000 today.

John Jacob Astor

Aboard the ship at the time of its demise were many famous names, including 48-year-old John Jacob Astor IV, who had left his wife and was with his new wife, 18-year-old Madeline Force, who was 5 months pregnant. The Astor family is associated with the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and John Jacob, himself, was partially responsible for the development of the turbine engine. Another famous name was Ben Guggenheim, age 46, whose family had made a fortune in the mining/smelting industry. Although he had a wife and three daughters, Guggenheim was traveling with Leontone Aubart, his French mistress.

Adelphe Scalfeld

Another passenger was Adelphe Scalfeld, 47, a perfume maker, who had 65 perfume samples with him in a specially-made Swiss leather satchel. Sixty-two of the samples were recovered, and when you journey through the exhibit you are offered the opportunity to sniff the aroma of one of the recovered perfume vials which sat 90 some years on the ocean's floor 12,500 feet down but still retain a perfume aroma.

Founders of Macy's and Quaker Oats Were Victims

The founders of Macy's, Ida and Isador Straus were aboard and died in the tragedy and the founders of what is now Quaker Oats (then known as North Star Oatmeal Mills), Walter and Mahala Douglas were also victims of the "Titanic's" sinking.

Ordinary Passengers

Among the ordinary passengers, Alfrida and Anders Andersson, 39, were traveling from Sweden to Canada with their entire family and all perished. An 18-year-old young mother, Leah Aka, was able to place her small son Filly in Lifeboat 11, but she was separated from him and ended up in Lifeboat 13. After they were rescued, another woman tried to claim that Filly was her son.

Local Passengers (IA/IL)

From the area nearest me, Dr. Ernest Moraweck, in second class, was a somewhat unscrupulous sort who had profited from having many elderly widows (supposedly) will all their worldly goods to him. (He ran a sort of "farm" for women, in fact).

My Identity at the Exhibit (Given You As You Enter)

Another regular passenger on the trip was Miss Marie Grice Young, age 36, from New York City, who was accompanied by Mrs. John S. White, a friend. She was an accomplished musician who was returning to Washington, D.C., where she had been music instructor to Ethel Roosevelt, President Theodore Roosevelt's daughter. She and her traveling companion were shipping some very expensive live chickens with them on the Titanic and, each day, one of the ship's carpenters would escort Marie to the cargo hold to inspect her brood. I received her Boarding Pass as I entered the exhibit and learned at the end of the exhibit that Marie had survived the collision with the iceberg.

Davenport Iceberg Exhibit

At the Davenport exhibit, someone accidentally turned off the equipment that was supposed to keep a fake iceberg at 29 degrees Fahrenheit (the same temperature the water was when the passengers went into the water.) On Friday, March 17, 2011, the iceberg was not cold enough to be touched, although it did look like a piece of Styrofoam, when it was real ice.

Last Surviving Passenger Died on May 31, 2009

Because the White Star Line owner instructed the captain to try to bring the ship into port a day early, and there were not enough lifeboats for all the passengers, and the two watchmen that night (Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee) had forgotten their binoculars, 1,523 people lost their lives (705 were saved). The last survivor of the Titanic was Millvina Dean, who died at the age of 97 on May 31, 2009.

Ironically, Millvina, who was an infant at the time of the event, did not find out until she was 8 years old, when her mother was remarrying, that she was a Titanic survivor.