RMS Titanic

Gina Bellafante wrote in the New York Times on 3/1/20 that the city would soon feel the impact of its hospital shortage when the Covid-19 Virus arrived.  She specifically singled out the closure and sale of St. Vincent's Hospital, noting its replacement by luxury condominiums.  My article here provides an example of St. Vincent Hospital in action at the turn of the twentieth century when it cared for over a hundred Titanic survivors.  Its disaster expertise is now sorely missed in New York City.

St. Vincent's Hospital was founded and run by the religious order Sisters of Charity in the Nineteenth Century.  This article is part of a larger project that examines the full scope of disaster relief for Titanic survivors in New York and London from 1912 to 1950.

This article discusses several minor refinements to Titanic's design based on experience with some specific riveted joints on Olympic (similar changes were then incorporated into Olympic and Britannic).  It is a greatly expanded version of an article originally made available on the Titanic Research & Modelling Association (TRMA) website in 2005, which published information about these changes for the first time.  This expanded article appeared in the British Titanic Society journal Atlantic Daily Bulletin in December 2019.

The Lebanese Emigration Research Center (LERC) at the Faculty of Law and Political Science (FLPS), Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU), the World Lebanese Cultural Union (WLCU) of British Columbia Council, and the Irish-Lebanese Cultural Foundation (ILCF) formed the ‘International Lebanese Titanic Committee (ILTC)’ in 2012, the year marking the centennial of the Titanic’s tragic sinking. The committee was established to identify, commemorate, and pay tribute to the Lebanese aboard the Titanic, as well as work on revealing their names and stories.
The current ILTC committee members, as of 2016, are the following: Dr. Nick Kahwaji, DDS representing the WLCU BC Council; Guy Younes, Chairman of ILCF, Ireland; Dr. Guita Hourani, Director of LERC, Lebanon; Carla Zarifeh, representing the Lebanese Canadian Society of British Columbia (LCSBC), Canada; Dr. Josyann Abisaab, M.D., USA; Raed Charafeddine, First Vice-Governor of the Banque du Liban (BDL), Lebanon; and Sid Chedrawi, Founder Lebanese-Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Nova Scotia, Canada.
With the spirit of enriching the previously established collection on the Lebanese aboard the Titanic at the Lebanon and Migration Museum (LMM) at the LERC, NDU, in Lebanon, the committee collaborated with Vestiges D’Orient and the LERC in its call for paintings dedicated to the memory of the Lebanese who perished aboard the Titanic. The call encouraged artists to “[…] participate in the artistic expression on Lebanese emigration and the tragic Titanic incident.”
The Lebanese Aboard the Titanic Art Exhibition Catalog features the various pieces of art within this collection, including testimonies from a family that lost a loved one aboard the ship as well as personal reflections following the tracing of the Titanic voyage one hundred years later.

Lorsque les passagers de troisième classe observaient, depuis les ponts inferieurs, la vie sur les ponts promenade de Première classe ils prenaient alors certainement conscience qu’ils n’appartenaient pas à la même catégorie sociale et comprenaient ainsi la raison de leur séparation spatiale d’avec les autres passagers.
En amont, déjà, il apparait que lorsque le projet du Titanic a été conçu, il s’agissait d’un projet mené par des capitalistes pour le confort de la bourgeoisie, la construction étant faite par le prolétariat.
Etudier les rapports sociaux sur le Titanic n’apparaît dès lors pas anachronique.

This paper explores how disaster relief was carried out in New York City in the immediate aftermath of the Titanic's sinking. The paper is the first part of a larger project (now in progress) on short- and long-term aid for those survivors who remained in the United States.

There is all too much incomplete, out of context, inaccurate or plain misinformation about Titanic.  Much of it stems from media sensationalism or simply the dissemination of inaccurate information in secondary sources.  That is particularly true when it comes to Titanic’s lifeboats.  There are many facets of the subject far beyond the scope of this short article, which merely draws a comparison between the original proposals for her lifeboats (July 1908) and the lifeboats she sailed with on her fateful maiden voyage (April 1912).  It demonstrates that Titanic's lifeboat capacity (as a proportion of her total passenger and crew capacity) increased by nearly 39% between the original design proposal being approved and her departure on her maiden voyage.

This paper highlights the rescue efforts of the ship Carpathia (its captain, crew, and medical staff) as it came to Titanic's aid.  It also examines the central role that Carpathia's passengers played in the relief efforts once the survivors were on-board, and concludes with a look at the survivors' committee that Margaret Brown formed as the ship headed for New York City.

This article discusses a number of false, sensationalised claims made by conspiracy theorists about Titanic in recent years, including unsubstantiated claims of deliberately flawed construction.  It was published originally in the Titanic International Society journal Voyage in December 2015.

This article examines a last-minute change to Titanic's design: the enclosure of the fore end of the ship's promenade deck, A. It proved to be one of the most obvious external features to distinguish Olympic and Titanic at a distance, but a lot of claims have been made about the reason for the change which do not stand up to scrutiny.  The article looks at them in detail and provides little-known evidence from Olympic's career.  It was first published in the British Titanic Society journal Atlantic Daily Bulletin in March 2016.

This article, published in two parts, combines insights form travel writing, history, and urban studies to explore the social welfare milieu of early 20th century New York City and its connection to disaster relief efforts for Titanic survivors.  Part Two appeared in Voyage 108 in Summer 2019 and is also posted on Academia.edu.

With art, artifacts, and entire extinct locales beneath its surface, the ocean has become the most expansive excavation site for society to learn from. Up until the mid-twentieth century, the primary mode of cross-continental travel was by ship; when unsuccessful in their journey, those ships became frozen in time at their wreckage sites. While few will disagree with the archaeological merit of the locations, there is little exploration of the sites through an art historical lens. This thesis investigates the context and value of the visual and material culture of shipwrecks through the unique remains of the RMS Titanic and the RMS Lusitania. These sites function as heritage sites but also as gravesites for those who lost their lives and for the objects unable to be recovered. Fascination with sinking ships has turned these vessels into subjects of the arts as well, introducing their viewers to a multifaceted dialogue with the past that deals with disentangling fiction and history. By exploring the cultural memory and multiple ways in which one can view these microcosms, we are able to appreciate the ruination of materials as a different, but equally respectable, life phase of an object. These sunken passenger liners function like matryoshka dolls, with layers embedded underneath what we initially view. The Titanic is one of the most notable shipwrecks in history, but it is viewed primarily as a symbol of tragedy rather than a site and object of grandeur after its sinking on April 15th, 1912. Similarly, when the Lusitania sank on May 7th, 1915, it became a contributing catalyst for World War I, thus imprinting its legacy into history, but also overshadowing the ship’s glory. Branching away from these common viewpoints, I will delve into the value of these ships, what they encompass, and what they still have to offer.

Keywords: collective memory, gravesites, heritage sites, Lusitania, material culture, ruination, ruins, shipwrecks, Titanic, visual culture.

This 2:1 essay seeks to discuss Slavoj Zizek’s theory that blockbusters give audiences an official narrative that allows them to enjoy a film whilst secretly satisfying their right wing unconscious. Using examples from various secondary sources including but not limited to the works of Zizek himself and the works of Louisal Althusser with regards to his theory of ‘interpellation’ as discussed in his publication Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation), the essay will explore the ways in which Titanic sets out an official narrative path for the audience to follow and the social and political implications and ideologies presented with regards to class and status. The essay also seeks to discuss how Titanic presents a sense of ‘Hollywood Marxism’ with focus upon the relationship between Titanic’s protagonists, Jack and Rose, and how this focus pulls attention from the tragedy that inspired the movie adaptation of events.

Wreckwatch is an eco-friendly, paper-free magazine. Ocean exploration, adventure, marine conservation, history and archaeology. Seven seas news, features, opinions, iconic explorers, books & film reviews. Travel to Indonesia, Mozambique, Pitcairn, Canada, Bermuda, Colombia, Holland & the Isles of Scilly - amazing tales & stunning sunken history.

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This article was first published in the Titanic Historical Society’s Titanic Commutator 2008: Volume 32 Number 183. Pages 108-12.
The original article examined what was then a new photograph of Britannic, showing her official transport number as ‘G.608’, in the early part of 1916, and another which showed it as ‘G.618’ in October 1916. The evidence available indicates Britannic had the number ‘G.608’ for the first phase of her career as a hospital ship and then ‘G.618’ for the second phase.  The reason for the change is still not known as it is not specifically documented.  However, it seems reasonable to suggest that the original number was simply freed up to be allocated to another ship, when Britannic was initially withdrawn from hospital ship service.  She was then allocated another one when she returned to service a few months later.

This article, published in two parts, combines insights form travel writing, history, and urban studies to explore the social welfare milieu of early 20th century New York City and its connection to disaster relief efforts for Titanic survivors.  It should be read with Part One, which appeared in Voyage 107 and is also posted on Academia.edu.

Over time the RMS Titanic which was a revolutionary development in shipbuilding has become a symbol for loss and calamity, completely losing its glamour as a state-of-the-art ocean liner. While it is easier to recall these memories of its tragedy over ones of it as a separate entity from its demise, it is imperative to reflect back on what the past has to offer, lest history turns into lost memory. Through various forms of documentation and recollection, the Titanic proves that it is, and always has been, in a class of its own.

A television programme made a number of false claims about Titanic's lifeboats, claiming that the ship's original design had included enough lifeboats for all the passengers and crew but that this had been changed.  The programme showed viewers primary source documentation which purported to support these claims, but an examination of their source shows the programme completely misrepresented the contents.  This article highlights the danger of inaccurate claims in secondary sources.  The article was published in the British Titanic Society journal Atlantic Daily Bulletin in March 2019.

This article uses the letters of Mayor William Gaynor of New York City to examine how the city and its citizens responded to the sinking of Titanic in 1912. The New York Times  recently brought to light how people coped with the tragedy by drafting poetry, much of it mediocre, and sending it the newspaper.  Similarly, my article explores, among other things, the Titanic-themed poetry that the mayor received from his constituents.

On the poetry sent to the New York Times, see "The Titanic Sank. So did These Commemorative Poems," by Tina Jordan, New York Times, 17 April 2022: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/books/review/what-is-poetry.html

This thesis deals with voltage drop characterization of transmission systems by using power electronics circuits supplied from embedded generation. Many grids connected power electronic systems, such as STATCOMs, UPFCs, and distributed generation system interfaces, used voltage source inverters (VSI) connected to the supply network through a filter. This filter, typically a series inductance acts to reduce the switch harmonics entering the distribution network an alternative filter is an LCL network, which can achieve reduced levels of harmonic distortion at lower switching frequencies and with less inductance, and therefore has potential benefits for higher power application. However, systems incorporating LCL filters require more complex control strategies. This dissertation proposes a robust strategy for regulating the grid current connected via an LCL filter. The strategy integrates an outer loop grid current regulator with inner capacitor current regulation to stabilize the system. Asynchronous farm PI current regulation strategy is used for the outer grid current control loop. Linear analysis, simulation and experimental results are used to verify the stability of the control algorithm across a range of operating conditions and finally expressions for "harmonic impedance" of the system are derived to study the effects of supply voltage distortion on the harmonic performance of the system.

"Kai-Olaf Hesse’s photographs reveal the Titanic’s birthplace in the early years of the 21st century to be a desolation haunted by the events of April 1912, events which took place hundreds of miles away. Harland & Wolff are gone, the shipbuilding industry is on its last legs and the jobs have vanished: it is hardly surprising that Hesse’s lens has not recorded a single human being. Instead, we wander though a city of the dead more complex than Pompey, a geography characterised by a bewildering variety of barriers, enclosures and partitions: breezeblock walls, razor wire, chain link fencing, steel gates, security barriers and hedges separate one part of the wasteland from another. Enclosed metal staircases lead from nowhere to nowhere, the doors and windows of still standing buildings have been boarded up. In one surrealist twist, a bright orange lifebelt by Lagan canal has been carefully fenced off and rendered inaccessible to anybody who might need to make use of it."

People often express surprise when they learn Titanic sailed on her maiden voyage with half her passenger accommodation filled.  However, there's no reason she would have been fully booked.  Express liners of the period rarely sailed full and this short article explores the subject with facts and figures to put the matter into context.

To mark the centenary of the sinking of RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912, the National Maritime Museum (NMM) put on an exhibition entitled Titanic Remembered, which highlighted some of the stories told by survivors of the disaster to Walter Lord, who wrote the book A Night to Remember on which the 1957 film of the same name was based. When the exhibition closed at the end of September 2012, there was a brief opportunity to research one of the Museum's evocative Titanic-related items, an 18-carat gold open faced pocket watch, before it returned to its usual permanent display. This paper discusses the study of the pocket watch using X-ray imaging and computed tomography (CT) and evaluates the outcomes of the investigation.

Surface Electromyography (sEMG) activity of the forearm muscle was recorded from five subjects performing isometric contraction until fatigue. The signals were recorded into three stages (Non-Fatigued, Fatigued and fully Fatigued)through which different features were extracted for analysis purposes. Subject's specific Surface Electromyography (sEMG) activity of forearm muscle was recorded after the exercise which take place for four weeks. Amplitude parameters were extracted for each of thethree classes to quantify the potential performance of each feature, that could aid in differentiating the classes(Non-Fatigued, Fatigued and Fully Fatigued) of muscle fatigue within the sEMG signal.We use thegraphical and tabular approach to show the parameters that best distinguish and quantify class separability. The purpose of the work presented is to show the change in various parameters which are extracted from recorded sEMG signal to detect the presence of fatigue in the forearm muscle.