"I sat in the big carved mahogany settee, with deep, wide springy leather upholstering, and toasted my feet at the big coal fire that blazed in a fireplace worthy of a king's palace. Over the fireplace was a beautiful sea picture by Norman Wilkinson. The settee formed two horns on either side of the fire, and a dozen folk could sit in this settee for comfort. The apartment was a lounge where a couple of hundred guests might rest in cozy chairs. Its walls were paneled with rich, dark wood, exquisitely inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It spoke of wealth, refinement, luxury. It was a place for millionaires of taste and millionaires of beauty." (Ernest Townley, El Paso Herald, May 20, 1912)
Sunday, April 14, 1912, 8:00 p.m.
It was the fifth evening of the Titanic's maiden voyage. After a ten-course gala in the dining saloon, Colonel Archibald Gracie IV and his table companions James Clinch Smith and Edward Austin Kent, among many others, adjourned to the adjoining reception room where they enjoyed coffee as they listened to the band. On these occasions, full evening dress was required, and the gentlemen couldn't help but notice that there were many beautiful women on board. Gracie invariably circulated around, chatting with those he knew, and with those whose acquaintance he had made during the voyage. Among the other first-class passengers he was known as a tireless raconteur with an inexhaustible supply of stories about the Civil War.
Gracie was a member of an old moneyed Scottish-American family of New York, and divided his time between New York City and Washington, D.C. A graduate of West Point and a retired colonel from the Seventh Regiment of the U.S. Army, he was independently wealthy, active in the real estate business, and an amateur military historian. Mr. Smith, a brother-in-law of the late Stanford White, was a noted clubman, horseman, and a member of one of the oldest Long Island families. He had recently reconciled with his estranged wife in Paris, and was about to prepare his homestead in Smithtown for her return. Unlike his companions, Mr. Kent was a lifelong bachelor. He was an architect en route to his retirement in Buffalo.
The concert concluded around 9 p.m. with a selection from The Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach, so that the band could proceed to second class and play in the aft C-deck entrance foyer for another hour. Some passengers began to prepare to turn in, while others remained in the reception room or drifted off to other public rooms. Colonel Gracie and his friends always went to the smoking room, situated off the aft grand staircase on A-deck, to join in conversation with the men of world-wide prominence whom they had met there.
1st Class Smoking Room
Designed to emulate the cozy affluence of a Pall Mall gentleman's club, the smoking room comprised ornate and intricately carved mahogany paneling with mother-of-pearl inlay, ormolu sconces, and pierced brass vent covers; hand-painted stained-glass windows depicting nautical and country scenes amid honeycomb motifs, forming four large canted bay windows, with scroll design fanlights over; two side screens with arched panel mirrors, flanked on both sides with small, extra lit writing desks and captain's chairs; a three-sided screen, with two doors to the lavatories within, elegantly framed with arched, artificially backlit stained-glass panels depicting schooners and allegorical figures; a white ceiling in three sections, interspersed with raised mouldings and gilt-brass chandeliers with nine, five or three globe fittings; red and blue linoleum tiles; two supporting pillars; and numerous tooled burgundy leather club chairs and settees arranged around green-baized, mahogany card tables with bolt down bases, raised lip edges, and adjustable cup holders. In the center of the aft wall, which projected forward in three sections like a breakfront, stood the centerpiece of the room---a grand coal-burning fireplace, made from the finest Italian marble and adorned with two lion statuettes. The only functional hearth on board, it was surmounted by a paneled oil painting by Norman Wilkinson, as well as the most elaborate carvings in the room, and flanked with four pilasters, two backlit figure panels in arched frame mouldings, and two curved mahogany settees. The room was U-shaped, sixty-four feet in length, sixty-two feet six inches in breadth, and eleven feet six inches in height. It was accessible from the aft grand staircase by two plate-glass panel doors with ormolu and brass door fittings, and to the right of the fireplace was a similarly decorated revolving door, with a curved pediment above, leading to the port verandah café. Due to the connection, this café was known as the "smoking side". Lights in the smoking room were extinguished at midnight, making it the latest opening public room on the ship. Tobacco and liquor could be made available upon request, and were provided by the stewards of the bar, located in a small pantry behind the fireplace. As brandy was much in demand, the bar offered Hennessy, Martell, and Frapin. All three brands were sold at the price of 16c per shot. The cigars were Cuban, and were kept in large humidors on rolling serving carts. Silver-plated ashtrays with matchbox holders also graced the tables. From the notes for first-class passengers on board the steamers of the White Star Line in 1911, it appeared that the available cigar brands were Fernandez Garcia Vincedores (25c each), Bock's Rothschild Elegantes (13c each), Jose Morales (13c each), and Garcia Perlas Finas (8c each). Jim Smith only smoked cigarettes, and he could choose from an assortment of Fribourg & Treyer Egyptian Cigarettes (25c per box), Pall Mall (25c per box), Savory (13c per box), Virginian Cigarettes Savory (50c per tin), Three Castles (25c per tin), and Richmond Straight Cut (25c per box). For the pipe smokers there was Craven Tobacco Mixture in 1/4 lb tins (50c) and Cut (Pioneer, Savory, and Capstan) Tobacco, which cost 75c per lb.
Aft Grand Staircase
As Colonel Gracie, Smith, and Kent arrived at the smoking room, they saw Major Archibald Butt, President Taft's military aid, sitting in a wing chair in the à la carte restaurant's reception room, which encompassed the B-deck landing of the aft grand staircase. He had attended a small dinner given in the restaurant by Mr. and Mrs. George D. Widener and their son Harry in honor of Captain Smith. Mr. Widener was a son of the Philadelphia streetcar magnate P.A.B. Widener, and managed several of the family companies. He lived with his family at Lynnewood Hall, a 110-room Neoclassical mansion in Elkins Park, Montgomery County, designed by the Gilded Age architect Horace Trumbauer. Aside from the captain and the major, the Wideners had invited their Philadelphia Main Line neighbors---Mr. John B. Thayer, of Haverford, second vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad; Mrs. Thayer; and coal mining heir William E. Carter with his wife Lucile. Although the captain had excused himself around 8:45 p.m., the rest of the attendees were just finishing coffee, and Major Butt appeared to be winding up a very private conversation with Marian Thayer, with whom he had felt an immediate bond. Mrs. Thayer would later write a letter to the president in which she confided that Archie did not know how he was going to stand the rushing life he was returning to. On the advice of friends, doctors, and the president himself, he had taken a six-weeks leave from the White House, during which time he had toured Naples, Gibraltar, and Rome with his dear friend, the celebrated artist and writer Francis Davis Millet, and had paid a special visit to the Pope. It did not suffice, for he agreed to meet Marian the next afternoon so she could teach him a Swiss method of control of the nerves.
à la carte restaurant's reception room
Shortly after 9 p.m., the host and the ladies retired to their staterooms while Major Butt, Billy Carter, John Thayer, and Harry Widener climbed the staircase to the smoking room, one flight above, for some masculine conversation, cigars, brandy, and perhaps to play a hand or two of cards. Card playing was generally banned on Sundays on the ships of the White Star Line, but an exception was made for the Titanic's maiden voyage. It should be mentioned here that the reception room of the à la carte restaurant featured performances by a string trio stationed right outside of the restaurant doors. Serving to complement the French ambience of the à la carte, its light background music would undoubtedly have wafted all the way into the smoking room.
On this final evening, the smoking room was as well patronized as usual. Major Butt's travel companion Frank Millet was there, puffing on a cigar with Clarence Moore. There had been only the two of them at their table in the main dining saloon since Archie had dined upstairs. Unlike the major, Millet had had "a devil of a time" in Rome, referring to his grueling obligations as director of its newly-formed American Academy. Now he was required back at the National Commission of Fine Arts in Washington, where more meetings awaited. Mr. Moore was a Washington banker and stockbroker with the firm of W. B. Hibbs & Co., as well as one of the city's best-known horsemen and clubmen. As stated by his wife Mabelle, he had gone to the north of England on a pleasure trip, expecting to return home around April 19. During his stay, he had witnessed the Grand National steeplechase and had purchased a pack of good foxhounds to be shipped later for use with the Loudoun Hunt in Virginia, of which he was master.
Billy Carter, who was returning to his summer cottage in Newport with his wife, two children, maid, valet, chauffeur, two dogs, and a brand new 25-horsepower Renault Type CB Coupe de Ville that was crated and stowed in the forward cargo hold, remembered congregating with Major Archie Butt, Colonel Gracie, Harry Widener, Mr. Thayer, Clarence Moore, Philadelphia lawyer William C. Dulles (who owned a house next to Carter's), and several other men. Seated around two adjacent tables, their conversation wandered from one subject to another. Archie likely discussed Colonel Roosevelt's run against Taft at the impending Republican National Convention. Clarence Moore related his venturesome trip some years earlier through the West Virginia woods and mountains, where he had helped a newspaper reporter in obtaining an interview with the outlaw "Devil Anse" Hatfield. Frank Millet was planning a journey west. Immaculately attired in white tie and tails with gold watch chains or, in the major's case, an imposing dress uniform with campaign medals and gold-braid aguilettes; these men looked every inch masters of the upper class.
Major Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, of Toronto, president of the Standard Chemical, Iron & Lumber Company of Canada, Ltd., had just taken coffee in the reception room with fellow Canadians Harry Molson and Hudson and Bess Allison when he decided to make his way up to the gentlemen's retreat. There, around 9:15 p.m., he joined Thomson Beattie, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, director of the Haslam Land Co.; Thomas McCaffry, the superintendant of the Union Bank in Vancouver; and Austin Partner, a Surrey gentleman who had begun employment with the brokerige firm of Messrs. Myer and Robertson only two weeks earlier and was bound for Canada to familiarize himself with an affiliated firm, Robinson and Black. Beattie and McCaffry were returning from a tour of Italy, Egypt, France, and England that they had made with another friend, Winnipeg mining man John Hugo Ross. While in Egypt, Ross had fallen ill with dysentery, prompting the travelworn men to cut their vacation short and sail home on the Titanic. "We are changing ships and coming home in a new, unsinkable boat," Beattie had written to his mother three days before departure. Mr. Ross, who had to be carried aboard in Southampton on a stretcher, kept to his stateroom on A-deck the entire voyage. His travel companions, as well as Major Peuchen, would regularly look in on him.
For the first time on the voyage, Colonel Gracie's stay in the smoking room was short, and he withdrew to his cabin, C-51, at about 9:30 p.m. During his various transatlantic trips it had been his custom to take as much exercise as needed to put himself in prime physical condition. From Wednesday to Saturday, however, he had neglected his fitness regimen in favor of socializing and reading. To make up for it, his bedroom steward was to awaken him early the following morning for a game of racquets in the squash court, work in the gymnasium, and a plunge in the swimming pool---all before breakfast.
Twenty-one-year-old tennis player Richard Norris Williams and his father Charles Duane, a lawyer from Geneva, had been out walking on deck after dinner, but even in their raccoon coats they found it too chilly and so went inside to the smoking room. There they joined some men with whom Charles was acquainted, such as John Thayer, Archie Butt, and William Dulles, and over the next hour the group talked about the speed of the ship, the cold weather, and the reports of icebergs ahead. In keeping with the subject, Charles recounted the story of how he had been aboard the S.S. Arizona in 1879 when, on her way from New York to Liverpool, she had slammed into a massive iceberg at full speed. The impact had crushed her bow flat, but the crew and passengers had taken bales of cotton from her cargo hold and plugged her forward bulkhead so that she was able to reach St. John's, Newfoundland, the nearest port of refuge, thirty-six hours later. The gentlemen all agreed that if the Titanic were ever to hit an iceberg, she would probably not sustain much damage.
To their port side, a party of four was engaged in a game of seven-card stud, among them the Manhattan lawyer and Yale tennis champion Karl H. Behr, whom Richard would not meet until after the disaster. Behr, aged twenty-six, had been a doubles runner-up at Wimbledon and a member of the U.S. Davis Cup team in 1907. Seated around his table were Richard L. Beckwith, a financier hailing from Hartford, Connecticut; Edwin N. Kimball Jr., president of the Hallet & Davis Piano Company in Boston, Massachusetts; and Alexander T. Compton Jr., one of the largest shareholders in the Laurel House and the Laurel-in-the-Pines at Lakewood, New Jersey, as well as treasurer of the Waumbek Hotel of Jefferson, New Hampshire. This combination allowed Mr. Compton to live the life of a lavish bachelor, spending much of his free time abroad, at the family hotels, on elite social gatherings, and on golf courses. Residing at the Laurel House during summers, he had boarded at Cherbourg with his mother and older sister, the latter of whom would soon inherit his estate. Behr's main reason for traveling on the Titanic was to continue his courtship of Mr. Beckwith's nineteen-year-old stepdaughter, Helen Newsom, who was a friend of his sister. The Beckwiths had disapproved of the age gap between the suitors and, to separate them, had swept Miss Newsom off for a Grand Tour with the Kimballs. It hadn't worked as Behr had feigned a business trip to Austria and therefrom had followed them around through Algiers, Funchal, and Nice before booking passage on the same liner for his return to the States. During the crossing the Beckwiths' attitude had gradually softened toward him and he was permitted to further enjoy the pleasure of Helen's company, albeit under the watchful eye of her mother.
Mrs. Virginia Clark, of Los Angeles, was chatting in the lounge with Miss Edith Rosenbaum when, at about 9:30 p.m., her husband approached and asked her permission to play bridge in the smoking room. At the age of twenty-seven, Walter Miller Clark was president of a fuel oil appliance company, manager of the Los Alamitos sugar company, partner in the firm of Ruether and Clark, and was active in the Montana Land Company of his father, J. Ross Clark, the vice president of the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad. "Play all the bridge you want," Virginia said," but under no circumstance do I want you to come down and wake me. I want to have a good night's sleep." Having received his wife's approval to spend a night out with the boys, Walter walked along the corridor abaft the lounge to the male sanctuary. Almost as soon as he entered, he was allowed to join a bridge game already in progress. Little did he know that this particular game had been carefully orchestrated by three card sharps---George A. Brereton, better known as "Boy" Bradley, traveling under the alias "George A. Brayton of Los Angeles"; Charles H. Romaine, who had boarded as "C. Rolmane of New York"; and Harry "Kid" Homer, listed as "H. Haven of Indianapolis". The fourth at the table was Howard Brown Case, London manager of the Vacuum Oil Company, who had been lured into the game about fifteen minutes earlier. Harry Romaine had struck up a conversation with Mr. Case while standing on the promenade deck. As it had become too chilly to stay outside, he had suggested going in the smoking room for a highball. Having received their drinks, the men had sat down at a card table with Romaine's shady partners. Though the act had completed the table, there was always room for an extra "pigeon", especially one as compliant as young Mr. Clark. Brereton pulled up an extra chair as Romaine shuffled the deck of cards and dealt them with meticulous sleight of hand.
At another table, three Swiss gentlemen were playing a more amicable game of cards. They were Colonel Alfons Simonius-Blumer, president of the Swiss Bankverein; Dr. Max Staehelin-Maeglin, director of the Swiss Trust Company, which had been founded by the Swiss Bankverein; and Maximilian Frölicher-Stehli, a manufacterer and importer for the R. Stehli-Hausheer & Sohn silk mill in Zurich. Oberst Simonius and Dr. Staehelin had left Switzerland on the first available ship to New York, because a firm owned by the Bankverein---Arnold B. Heine & Cie, embroidery manufacterers---had fallen victim to a knitting industry crisis and thus had to be subsidised. Simonius, who had gladly accepted chairmanship of the firm in 1911, considered it a top priority to open negotiations at its New York branch and put the firm back on its feet before millions of francs were lost. Max Frölicher had less urgent appointments. He wanted to visit his associate textile firms in the U.S. and Canada, along with some old friends, and his wife and daughter were crossing with him. Alas, both of them were lying in bed with sea sickness.
Henry Blank, of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, co-owner of the Newark-based Whiteside and Blank jewelry company, had traveled alone to Europe to conduct customary dealings with watch movement manufacterers in Switzerland and stone dealers in France, Belgium, and Holland. A man known for his taste for the finers things in life, inherently paired with an indomitable squandering habit, it would have been unnatural for him to pass up the opportunity of sailing on the world's largest and most luxurious steamer. At some point, either in Cherbourg or shortly after boarding, Blank had struck up an acquaintance with two German-speaking passengers. One was William B. Greenfield, a New York businessman who worked in his father's fur trade company and sailed to Russia once a year to purchase pelts. His mother had gone with him this time to buy silk in Paris for the lining of the coats and, after meeting there, they had chosen to return home on the Titanic. The other was Alfred Nourney, a vain youth from Cologne who had spent $2,320 on his wardrobe so that he could pose as "Baron von Drachstedt". He hoped to land a job with a New York auto manufacterer, demonstrating their high-speed automobiles. On the night of April 14, the "Baron" repaired to the smoking room with Blank and Greenfield. The trio set up a bridge game, lit their cigars, and began conversing.
After dinner, Mr. Spencer V. Silverthorne, a buyer for Nugent's department store in St. Louis, had been walking the decks with most of the other buyers making the voyage---Edward Calderhead (with whom he shared cabin E-24), James McGough, John Flynn, and George Graham. Wearing caps and heavy overcoats over their evening clothes, they had been generally remarking all evening how cold it was and that they must be in the vicinity of ice. At about 10:30 p.m., after his friends had gone below, Mr. Silverthorne stepped into the warmth of the smoking room. He settled in a comfortable armchair, most likely in the aft port side bay window, and began browsing through Owen Wister's The Virginian. From behind his book he could also observe the professional gamblers playing auction bridge with Messrs. Case and Clark at a nearby table. They were playing for five cents a point, "a pretty stiff game". One of the players, presumably Mr. Brayton, was an acquaintance who had recently crossed with him on the Olympic. The ship had dropped a propeller blade during that crossing, causing them to arrive late in Southampton on February 29.
Near the starboard entrance of the room, wreathed in cigar smoke, sat Mr. George Rheims, president of a millinery goods business, with stores in Paris, Boston, and New York City. He was accompanied by his brother-in-law, Mr. Joseph Holland Loring, a stockbroker with the firm of Rose, Van Custen & Co., who lived with his wife and two children in St. George Hanover Square in London. After a splendid dinner in the à la carte restaurant, according to usual custom, the duo had ascended the aft grand staircase to the smoking room for cigars and brandy (around 9 p.m.). More than an hour and a half later they were busy trying to figure out the speed of the ship to see what the run would be the next day, since there was a betting pool on it. The previous day's run (from one noon to the next) was posted daily in the smoking room. According to the reckoning, the ship had covered 546 miles in the twenty-four-hours' run ending the 14th. Brook H. Webb, the chief smoking room steward, came up to the men and said that they might figure on a bigger run. "Why?" asked Rheims. Webb said, "Because we are making faster speed than we were yesterday." Joe scoffed at him. "What do you know about it?"
"I got it from the engine room."
"That doesn't mean anything."
"Gentlemen, come out and see for yourself." Webb led the men out in the passageway right outside of the smoking room and, as they stood there, he said, "You notice that the vibration of the boat is much greater tonight than it has ever been." And the men did notice the vibration, which was very strong that night, and Joe, whose stateroom was right underneath the passage, said, "I never noticed this vibration before; we are evidently making very good speed."
Charles and Richard Williams had left the room shortly after 10:30 p.m. At approximately 10:45 p.m. John Thayer, too, said goodnight and went off to bed. William Dulles probably retired around the same time as Mr. Thayer, and Rheims and Loring went to their adjoining cabins on B-deck sometime around 11 o'clock.
The night wore on as the Titanic glided westward across a black, unnaturally calm North Atlantic. The raised edges of the smoking room tables, which had been fitted to prevent glasses from sliding off in rough seas, might have seemed as out of place as the twenty lifeboats stored on the open deck above. At about 11:25 p.m. two more night owls strolled into the smoking room---Hugh Woolner, speculator, widower, and son of the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor and poet, and Lt. Mauritz Björnström-Steffansson, military attaché to the Consulate General of Sweden in New York City and son of a Swedish pulp baron. Both were members of Colonel Gracie's "coterie" of after-dinner companions, and had spent part of the evening in the café Parisien (connected to the à la carte restaurant on B-deck) with Mr. E. P. Colley, an Irish civil engineer who said little but laughed a great deal, and Mrs. Helen Churchill Candee, a Washington writer and interior designer whose beauty and confidence had earned her the attention of at least a half dozen men, including Col. Gracie and Jim Smith. Mr. Woolner had been told by mutual friends to keep a chivalrous eye on her during the voyage, and it was toward this tall, suave rogue that Helen always gravitated. As it had suddenly become bitterly cold in the café, Mrs. Candee had gone to her cabin for a hot bath while Woolner and Björnström-Steffansson had moved up to the all-male bastion for a nightcap. They were just in time, for the stewards stopped serving drinks at 11:30 p.m. Woolner ordered a hot whiskey with water; Björnström-Steffansson chose a hot lemonade. It wasn't long before Jim Smith and Edward Kent walked up to them. Like Woolner, Mr. Kent had formally offered his services to Mrs. Candee at the beginning of the voyage, but despite his eagerness, she deemed him an impersonal and perfunctory man. Mr. Smith ignored the late hour and suggested a game of bridge. Soon there were six games underway in the smoking room. A fire was blazing in the marble fireplace, and the cut-glass globes of the gilt-brass electroliers shone brightly through a thick fog of cigar smoke.
Deeply engrossed in their own conversation, three men occupied a table near the aft starboard bay window. Mr. Algernon H. Barkworth, a pipe-smoking justice of the peace, of Tranby House, East Yorkshire, was coming over to spend a vacation, partly in making a trip on the world's greatest liner. He intended staying in America for a month. While on board, he had made the acquaintance of "two most agreeable chaps", both of whom favored cigars. One was Charles C. Jones, the livestock superintendant of the Colgate Fillmore Farms, a 4,000-acre estate in Bennington, Vermont, known for raising prizewinning Dorset sheep. To further improve bloodlines, Mr. Jones had been sent to southern England to purchase the finest Dorset horned sheep he could find. Apparently he could imitate the Dorset shepherds to perfection, leading Barkworth to believe that he had once lived in England himself. The other chap was Arthur H. Gee, who had only recently established himself in St. Annes on the Sea, Lancashire, together with his wife and four children. An international businessman involved in textiles and printing all his life, Mr. Gee was traveling to Atlixco near Mexico City to manage a print works for his employer, the Manchester machinery exporter Messrs. Whitehead, Sumner, Harker & Co., after which he was contemplating retirement. He had originally planned to sail from Liverpool, but a suggestion having been made that he might transfer to the Titanic, he had availed himself of the opportunity of sailing on a historic first voyage. On the night of the 14th, these three friends were discussing the science of good roadbuilding, a subject in which Barkworth was keenly interested. It was growing late, however, and he began to think about turning in. Somebody said that the ship's clock would be set back at midnight, so Barkworth decided to stay up until then in order to adjust his watch.
Others were not inclined to stay up that late. Major Peuchen sat chatting and smoking with Messrs. Beattie, McCaffry, and Partner until shortly before 11:30 p.m. They then bid each other good night and retired. Messrs. Beckwith, Kimball, Behr, and Compton lingered a little while longer before heading for their staterooms. Preceding them out of the exit were the three Swiss gentlemen, who had played cards until shortly after 11 and had taken their time to bring the day to a close.
At that point, twenty-three of the smoking room regulars remained buried in the club chairs surrounding the small card tables; their eyes unwearied under the smoky pervasive electric glow. A deep hum of voices mixed with quiet laughter continued to enliven the room, even as heavy words about the changing world order and the advances in travel were being weighed. Major Archie Butt was by then absorbed in a game of bridge whist with Clarence Moore and the last of the dinner party, Billy Carter and Harry Widener. At another table, Frank Millet was playing cards with a New York broker and yachtsman named Frederick Hoyt, who was returning home from a mixed business and pleasure trip in England with his wife Jane. The twenty-third occupant was Mr. Adolphe Saalfeld, the German-born chairman of the chemists and distillers Sparks, White, and Co. Ltd. in Manchester, who, according to a later statement, spent the latter part of April 14 relaxing over a cigar in the smoking lounge. He carried with him a leather satchel containing sixty-five essential oil vials with dreams of launching his own floral fragrance line in New York. Mr. Barkworth turned to look at the mantel clock, which stood right under Wilkinson's painting The Approach to Plymouth Harbour. It was 11:39 p.m.
Bibliography
Bäbler, Günter. Reise auf der Titanic: Das Schiksal der Schweizer. Zürich: Chronos Verlag, 1998.
Brewster, Hugh. Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World. New York: Crown Publishers, 2012.
Eaton, John P. & Haas, Charles A. Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: WW Norton & Company, 1995.
Gracie, Colonel Archibald. The Truth about the Titanic. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1913.
Lord, Walter. A Night to Remember. New York: R & W Holt, 1955.
Lord, Walter. The Night Lives On: Thoughts, Theories and Revelations about the Titanic. London: Penguin, 1986.
Marshall, Logan. The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters. New York: L. T. Myers, 1912.
Thayer, John B. The Sinking of the S.S. Titanic, April 14, 1912. Springfield: 7C's Press reprint for Titanic Historical Society, 1974, first published 1940.
Articles from magazines, journals, and websites
Behe, George. Fate Deals a Hand. Titanic Commutator Winter 1982: Volume 6, Number 4.
Candee, Helen Churchill. Sealed Orders: a Titanic survivor’s classic tale of love and fate. Collier's Weekly May 4, 1912.
Lynch, Don. The Clark family of Los Angeles. Titanic Commutator Winter 1991: Volume 15, Number 4.
Pellegrino, Charles. Titanic: Voices from the Deep. The Lord/Pellegrino Communications Files. 2006.
Unpublished sources
Behr, Karl Howell. Written account of the disaster in his scrapbook. 1912. Courtesy of the Behr family.
Björnström-Steffansson, Lt. Mauritz Håkan. Letter to the White Star Counsel. 1912.
Jones, Charles Cresson. Letters to James Foot. 1912.
Saalfeld, Adolphe. Letters to his wife Gertrude. 1912.
Thayer, Marian Longstreth. Letter to President William Howard Taft. 1912.
Williams, Richard Norris II. CQD (unpublished typescript is a survivor’s account of the sinking of the Titanic) by Richard Norris Williams 1941. 1941. Courtesy of the Williams family.
Other sources
Encyclopedia Titanica. (ET)
Swiss Titanic Society. (Titanic-Verein Schweiz)
Titanic Historical Society, Inc. (THS)
British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry.
U.S. Senate Inquiry.
Newspapers
The Aberdeen Daily Journal, Bennington Evening Banner, Berkshire Eagle, Boston Globe, Bridgwater Mercury, Brighton Argus, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Daily Times, Calgary Herald, Chicago Evening Post, Chicago Examiner, Chicago Record-Herald, Chicago American, Concord Enterprise, Cork Examiner, Coshocton Tribune, Conventry Standard, Daily Home News, Daily Northwestern, Daily Telegraph, Denver Post, Elizabeth Daily Journal, Evanston Daily News, Greenwich News, Hartford Courant, Hartford Times, Hudson Observer, Hull Times, Huntington Herald Dispatch, Indianapolis News, Indianapolis Star, Journal de Genève, Los Angeles Examiner, Los Angeles Herald, Los Angeles Times, Louisville Courier-Journal, Louisville Post, New York Evening World, New York Herald, New York Times, New York Tribune, Newark Evening News, Newark Star, North American, Omaha News, Omaha World-Herald, Philadelphia Bulletin, Philadelphia Inquirer, Port Jefferson Echo, Salford City Reporter, Salt Lake Tribune, San Francisco Bulletin, San Francisco Call, Scarborough Mercury, Seattle Daily Times, South Bend Tribune, St. Annes on the Sea Express, Stars and Stripes, Sun, Evening Telegram, Times, Toronto Daily Star, Toronto World, Trenton Evening Times, Washington Herald, Washington Post, Washington Times, and Women's Wear Daily.
With sincere thanks to Don Lynch, George Behe, Mike Herbold, Philip Hind, and R. N. Williams' grandson Quincy.
(Updated May 2017)
