Existing comment:
Setting Sail:
Titanic left Southampton at noon April 10. It steamed to Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland. Passengers boarded and disembarked at each stop, departing Ireland for the transatlantic crossing on April 11. On ship, they followed Edwardian class structure. The 324 First Class passengers enjoyed a Versailles-style lounge, mahogany-paneled smoking room, Turkish bath, gymnasium, and other elaborate spaces. They ate filet mignon and fresh pastries off fine china in a dining room reserved just for them. Their stateroom options included Queen Anne, Georgia, Empire, Jacobean, and Louis XIV, XV and XVI. Exclusive parlor suites, each with private promenade, rented one way for $4,350 -- several times a schoolteacher's annual salary.
Second Class, comprising 284 passengers, occupied staterooms that would have passed for First Class elsewhere. Second and First Class shared a gallery that rivaled any elite restaurant. But they did not mix. Second Class could visit First Class areas before sailing, but afterward kept to their own library, smoking room, and other spaces on six decks. Electric elevators -- one for Second Class and three for First -- were a novelty.
Third Class, also called steerage for the low-priced, noisy rooms near the waterline and steering system, had 709 passengers. Many came from impoverished regions of Europe and Asia. Titanic's comfortable beds and Third Class meals of fish, bread, and potatoes likely were the most lavish some had ever experienced. They stayed behind locked barricades, erected to comply with American law requiring isolation of steerage to prevent the spread of disease. That ensured exclusive use of the Poop Deck and its excellent view, but also blocked routes to lifeboats on the Boat Deck.
Titanic had a crew of 891, including 23 women. Coal stokers, engineers, stewards, chefs, mail sorters, two radio operators, and others shared the duties of running the ship and seeing to passengers; comfort. Teens as young as 14 ran errands, carried bags, and operated elevators. |