Introduction:
           On the night of April 14th, 1912 the magnificent ship called Titanic crashed into an iceberg, and eventually sank to its doom by mid-morning. Unfortunately, approximately 1500 people went down with the ship into the deeps of the Atlantic Ocean. This tragedy is still today the worst disaster ever at sea. Before its departure, the ship's leaving had already been proclaimed as a worldwide event. The Titanic was the biggest ship the world had ever seen. Not only was it the biggest, but in a sense it was a floating hotel. It carried some of the world's most prestigious and wealth families as it traveled from England to North America. Titanic was hyped up all around the world before it allowed its first passenger on board.

Primary Sources:
            The grandeur and the innovative parts of the ship intrigued the press, and stories showed up in papers all around the world. For example, two days before the ship departed in New York in the New York Times there was an article about the ship's features. The article was titled, "Titanic. Really a Fifteen-Story Floating Hotel, Represented the Height of Luxury." Its subhead said, "Biggest of All Ships Also, Carries a Crew of 800 Men and HasAccommodations for 2,500 Passengers." Within the article it talks about many different aspects of the great ship.

          The cost of the Titanic has been officially estimated at $7,500,000. She was 882 ½ feet long, 100 feet more than any other… From stern to stern           she provided a walk equal to four city blocks. In size she exceeded that of a battleship by 5,000 tons; she was twice as big as the dreadnought           Delaware. She was built for an average speed of 21 knots, and for rich tourists and lovers of luxury. Two suites on the Titanic each cost $4,350           for a single trip… Her interior represented more that of a hotel than a ship, with heavy balustrade wide stairways, elevators running up and down           for nine stories, great saloons and restaurants, a miniature theatre, squash and tennis courts, swimming pools and Turkish and electric baths; great           smoking rooms, card rooms, beautiful music rooms, sun parlors, Winter gardens, palm courts, gymnasium, and on the top of its twelfth deck, even           a miniature golf links. There were tennis courts thirty by twenty feet in size, with a coach aboard to teach those who could not play (New York           Times 13th April).

Too bad it was too late by the time this article came out to book a trip on the Titanic. The world had never seen such a grand ship with so many features. The ship was a vacation all on its own even though its sole purpose was to carry people back and forth from England and North America. The vast ship was the subject of the press and the people. Everybody wanted to know what was going on with the Titanic. The people, the press, and the world was so caught up in how great it was the last thing anybody thought of was this ship sinking to the bottom of the ocean leaving behind thousands of people. One of the main issues the press covered before, during, and after the crash was the issue of how "safe" and "durable" the Titanic was suppose to be on the sea. Unfortunately, the ship did not live up to its reputation.
           One article in the New York Times on April 16 two days after the crash shows how shocked the experts were that the Titanic crashed. This article titled, "Bulkheads at Fault Says Naval Expert: If Titanic Stayed Up for Five Hours It Should Have Been Possible to Save Her." David W. Taylor wrote this article who was a Naval Constructor and was regarded as an expert in marine architecture, not only in his country but all around the world. He is attributed with the median line plan for the modern battleship, which is now accepted by the naval experts of all the leading powers as the most powerful type of a fighting ship. Taylor along with everybody else was shocked about what happened to this supposedly "indestructible" ship.

           There was no good reason in my judgment why the Titanic should not have floated and got to port safely after losing her bows. You will            remember she was built like the Republic, built by the same yard, and the Republic went the same way. Within the last ten years there have been            several similar accidents where the ship held up and came home. I cannot now remember the names but there was one such-case with the last            three or four years. I see thee has been something said about the Titanic going at half speed. That is a variable term on ocean liners and does not            mean what it seems to mean. The Titanic's speed was twenty one knots an hour and if her offices said she was making half speed when she struck            I think it may safely be assumed that she was going about fifteen or sixteen knows (New York Times 16 April).

Taylor later goes on to say the crash is in result of bad safety inspections and the speed at which the ship was running at when it hit the icebergs. The captain got carried away taking the massive vessel to unnecessary speeds assuming to much about the icy waters, and also assuming like Taylor did in most cases with his ships that it could not crash. Taylor's view is important to note but some other experts in the field had different opinions to offer. Naval constructor Robert Stocker of the navy yard, said,

           The Titanic must have been making full speed ahead when she collided with the Iceberg, and evidently her compartments must have been sprung            from bow to stern. Considering her tremendous displacement and the possible size of the iceberg, which may have been even larger than the            vessel, it is but natural to understand that her plates would have been crumpled up like paper (New York Times 16 April).

They did agree on something and the something was the speed. The people were looking for answers especially why, and the press had to somehow answer accurately and quickly in order to keep the attention of their readers. People began to point fingers at the idea of the ship's unnecessary speed because the ship's safety system was built so well people just could not understand why it crashed. The iceberg might have been just big enough to put enough holes in the different compartments to cause it to sink no matter how much it had been tested. People did not want to turn to that solution because they were still in shock about the whole crash.
           When looking back on the issue of the Titanic crash it is thought to be one of the world's worst disasters. It is still today the world's worst Sea tragedy, but headlines the days after the crash never reported it as this, and its main headlines always stayed away from words like Catastrophe, Disaster, Devastation, and Death. Here are some examples of different headlines that ran after the crash: "Titanic Sinks Four Hours After Hitting Iceberg; 866 Rescued by Carpathia, Probably 1250 perish Ismay safe, Mrs. Astor Maybe, Noted Names Missing," "Noted Men on the Lost Titanic," "New Liner Titanic Hits an Iceberg; Sinking by the Bow at Midnight; Women Off in Life Boats; Last Wireless at 12:27 A.M. Blurred," "Thirty Millionaires," "Where the Titanic Hit the Iceberg, and Where She Foundered, and How Other Liners Answered the Wireless Calls for Help," "Biggest Boat in the World Collides with an Iceberg on Her Maiden Voyage from Southampton to New York," and "Only 868 People Saved: No Room for Hope that There are More Survivors." It is ironic that such a great disaster did not have more sympathetic headlines. There were headlines that spoke of disaster and death, but the majority did not unlike similar events that happen today. The reason for this is because the world was still shocked by the crash. It did not seem possible that something so well planned, so well built, and captained by probably the greatest captain alive at the time could crash. If they wrote about how bad it was, those articles would just make things worse for the many people concerned with the issue.

Structured Society:
           During this time period class was a distinct issue. Society was structured high class, middle class, and low class. The Titanic ship is a perfect example of how society was structured in the teens of 1900. There was a spot on the ship at the top with access to the restaurants, the breeze of the sea, the bars, the smoking rooms, and the dance floors. Like society, the rich upper-class people stayed on top in these luxurious rooms the Titanic offered in its upper VIP floors. Also like society, the lower class was literally below the upper class in the bottoms of the ship. The lower part of the ship had much harder access to the top of the boat where the fresh air was best. Also, the types of food, bars, and entertainment were not offered to the people staying at the bottom of Titanic. Their rooms were also much smaller, dirtier, and not as elegantly decorated as the rooms up above. Unfortunately during the crash the structure of society stayed the same, the people below even the women and children had little chance of escape. During the crash, an old English rule was followed called the Women and Children first rule. It was not a law, but it was just something that was understood within society. Similar to that unwritten rule was the ideology of the rule that the upper class goes before the lower class including the women and children (Cox Introduction). It was a grand ship with the best rooms that could be offered, which made it very appealing to the upper class even a large number of the world's most notable millionaires. The lower class was in a sense just way too "low" in the ship and in society's structure to have a chance of survival during this crash. The press revealed this structured society with its articles. For example a couple articles from the Daily Sketch, a newspaper out of London, talks about the upper class on the ship. The first article is headlined, "Thirty Millionares: New York Excited by Peril of Wealthy Passengers."

           Apart from the immense value of the great liner and her cargo, the total wealth of her passengers would reach a record figure. There were fully            thirty millionaires on board, including Mr. G. D. Widener (song of Mr. T. A. B. Widener, the Philadelphia millionaire), Colonel John Jacob, Mr. J.            Bruce Ismay (chairmen of the White Star Line), Mr. J. J. Astor and his young bride, Mr. B. Guggenheim, the famous banker, Mr. C. M. Hays,            president of the Grand Trunk Railway, with his wife and daughter, Mr. Isidor Straus, and Mr. J. B. Thayer, president of the Pennsylvania Railway.            Other notable passengers included Mr. W. T. Stead, Major Archibald Butt, President Taff's aide-de camp, and the Countess of Rothes (Daily            Sketch 16 April).

Many of the articles both in the New York Times and in the Daily Sketch of London used old pictures of the ship as extras with the many articles that were appearing. Besides the pictures of the ship almost always along with the ship were pictures of the many different notables. In one example, an article from the Daily Sketch on the 16th of April there is the headline, "Biggest Boat in the World Collides with an Iceberg on her Maiden Voyage from Southampton to New York." Below this there are four pictures of the ship before it left dock, below that is a huge line of pictures of the upper class who traveled upon board, and below that is pictures of the different rooms that were offered to the upper class including pictures of the bedrooms, living rooms, porches, and cafes. It is obvious the death of a few upper class members is more important than the death of a thousand no names.
           Similar to the Daily Sketch the New York Times had very similar articles. It had an article called, "Some of the Notable Passengers Who Were on Board." Below the main headline there were numerous pictures of the famous people on board. Next to that article on the side column there was another article that was similar called, "Noted Men on the Lost Titanic: Col. Jacob Astor, with His Wife; Isidor Straus and Wife, and Benj. Guggenheim Aboard." It goes on in both articles that take up the whole page of the New York Times talking about what each men did with his life and who is remaining family is and who is getting the wealth of the lost noble. It is obvious that some people are better known than others. If today, a famous person dies it is a big issue and the press covers it. The difference is that the issue of the prestigious rich people dying seemed to surpass in most instances the horrible tragedy that occurred to a much larger number of people. The press covered at the time what people wanted to read; this further proves how structured society was at the time of the crash of the Titanic.

Close By Ships:

           Another issue that typically appeared in the many different newspapers were articles discussing the boats near by and how they were on their path to help save the victims of the crashing Titanic. The press made it out to the reading public both in Europe and in the United States that the nearby ships were close enough to help save the majority of the passengers that were not on the lifeboats, but the hopeful message they portrayed was far from true. The first article was in the New York Times on the 15th of April and its title was, "Where the Titanic Hit the Iceberg, and Where She Foundered, and How Other Liners Answered the Wireless Calls for Help." Above the headline was a map showing the exact position of the crash and also where the other boats were according to the position of the Titanic. The article talks about how the Titanic through the radio sent its first message out as a SOS at 10:55 and at 11:25 the station established contact with the Allan line Virginian, from Halifax to Liverpool. Titanic gave its position and asked for immediate hope from this boat. The Titanic also contacted the Olympic, Carpathia, and the Baltic.

           At 11:36 the Titanic informed the Olympic that they were putting the women off in boats and instructed the Olympic to have her boats ready to            transfer passengers. The Titanic during all this time, continued to give distress signals and to announce her position… The last signals heard from            the Titanic were received at 12:27 a.m. when the Virginian reported having heard a few blurred signals which ended abruptly"(New York Times            15 April).

Unfortunately, the ships were too late to help the drowning passengers. Within the article, Sir Montague Allan, head of the Allan Line, stated to the New York Time's that:

           We have heard no word from the Virginian, and have received no official message as to the whereabouts' of the passengers. We have received,            however, a Marconigram dispatched to New York stating that the Carpathia had arrived on the spot where the Titanic had been, that all the            Titanic's boats had been accounted for, and that 655 of the passengers had been saved, but that the rest had gone down with the Titanic. This is            not official and we have no official new yet. I shall be very glad to make public the text of any official news we receive (New York Times 15            April).

           Similar to the press Sir Allan tried to keep the view of some more survival positive. Most likely, he knew that the remaining passengers had not been reached by his ship or any other and had drowned in the ocean, but he kept it positive. Some possible reasons why he kept his outlook positive was because the sinking was such a terrible tragedy that he did not want to make people upset especially if he is the first one reporting it to the press. Second, he does not want his boat liner and boats responsible for not being there in time to help out the sinking ship. By upholding a positive image and speaking optimistic words, his public image is not obstructed by the people reading the article.
           Another article in the New York Times called "Mishap at Very Start" also talks about the approaching ships coming in for the rescue. The beginning of the article very similar to the other talks about how the Titanic was putting out SOS dispatches for help and how the Virginian was the closest ship.

           The Virginian put on full speed and headed for the Titanic. No particulars have been received as to the extent of the damage sustained by Titanic.            The Virginian sailed from Halifax at midnight on Saturday night, and would probably be 300 miles off this coast when she picked up the calls from            the Titanic for assistance. The Allan line has only about 200 passengers on board and would have ample accommodations for a larger number of            persons in case a transfer from the Titanic was necessary (New York Times 15 April).

           This article is evident that the press is trying to keep the positive view on the whole tragedy. The reader sees that the boat is going at "full speed" and there is "ample accommodations for a larger number of persons in case a transfer from the Titanic was necessary." Somebody who is skimming through the article has a good chance of catching these words and if they do then they will think that there is a much better chance of survival than there actually was in the sinking situation. Was it right for the papers and the press to cover the issue this way? The press probably did not have all the facts so keeping it positive rather than negative was probably a good idea.

Capt J. Smith: Is He to Blame?

           The other subject covered most by the papers was talking about the well-known and prestigious captain of the vessel, Capt. E. J. Smith. Capt. Smith was sixty years old, and had been one of the White Star Company's commanders for about twenty-five years. The press covered him so much because he was probably the most famous captain of huge sea-liners in the world. He was renowned as the best by the people of the world, and his peers. Another reason why he was included in almost every article is because the press pointed a quick finger at him for the crash. Capt. Smith allegedly got carried away and a little pompous about the power, indestructibility, and the speed of his ship. He was quickly blamed despite his status and grandeur that he was partially responsible for the crashing of the ship because he got carried away and assumed too much about his own ship and also the waters he was sailing in. His picture was included on every front page in both the New York Times and The Daily Sketch. Capt. Smith decided to go down with his ship. Supposedly, he was one of the first offered an exit off the ship on the lifeboats but he refused and like a true captain went down with his command. One article in the Daily Sketch on Tuesday April 16th specifically focused on Captain Smith. At the beginning it talks about how Captain Smith was formerly the commander of the Olympic, while in charge the ship collided with another ship called the Hawke. On April 20th, 1912 The Daily Sketch's front page was a picture of Capt. Smith standing in front of his main cabin before the ship took off to its unknown tragedy. It is titled, "Where the British Captain Stood Till Death." Below it has some quotes from some prominent people talking about the captain.

           I saw Captain Smith while I was in the water. He was standing on the deck all alone. Once he was swept down by a wave, but managed to get to            his feet again. Then, as the boat sank, he was again knocked down by a wave, and then disappeared from view. - Mr. G. A. Braden of the Union            Trust Building, Los Angles, California.

           Captain Smith was the biggest hero I ever saw. He stood on the bridge, shouting through the megaphone, trying to make himself heard. - Mr.            Robert Daniel of Philadelphia.

           The Captain stood on the bridge and continued directing his men right up to the moment when the bridge on which he stood became level with the            water. He then calmly climbed over the rail and dropped into the sea. -Mr. Laurence Beesley of London.

The Captain died honorably, and unlike some presses reported that he killed himself that was false. He went down with his ship like a true captain, but this can be interpreted as heroic or as serious guilt that he was possibly going through. He assumed the best with his ship in the icy waters, and that his ship was indestructible. Such an experienced captain knows not to run so fast in icy waters. There had been radio messages warning of ice, but the Captain assumed the huge most innovative ship in the world could pile through anything.
           An article in the New York Times there was an article on the 16th of April called, "Disaster at Last Befalls Capt. Smith: Veteran Commander of Titanic Went Forty Years Without Accident of Any Kind. White Star's Best Officer, Declared Only Recently That He Did Not Believe Modern Ships Could Be Sunk." The beginning of the article says, "For forty years it was his proud boast that he had had an uneventful life. That is why he was promoted to the highest post in the gift of the White Star line. Events came crowding upon him only in the Winter of his life, and with events came misfortune." It goes on describing his history on many different boats showing off his impressive resume of working on some of the world's top ships. Later he is quoted,

           When any one asks me how I can best describe my experiences of nearly forty years at sea I merely say uneventful. Of course, there have been            Winter gales and storms and fog and the like, but in all my experience I have never been in an accident of any sort worth speaking about. I have            seen but one vessel in distress al my years at sea, a brig, the crew of which was taken in a small boat in charge of my third officer. I never saw a            wreck and have never been wrecked, nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort. The love of the ocean that            took me as a boy has never left me. In a way, a certain amount of wonder never leaves me, especially as I observe from the bridge a vessel            plunging up and down in the trough of the seas, fighting her way through and over great waves. A man never outgrows that (New York Times 16            April).

The press brings out a quote like this to show the Captain's experience and pompous attitude. The person reading this begins to understand the newly developed theories about how Capt. Smith might have had a little too much faith in himself and his ship. The Capt is quoted a couple paragraphs further talking specifically about the invulnerability of the Titanic: "I will go a bit further. I will say that I cannot imagine any condition, which could cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that (New York Times 16 April). This further proves the point that the press is trying to make. It in a way also points the finger at the formerly well renowned captain. The people reading this begin to look differently at the whole situation and the captain himself. Unfortunately, Capt. Smith was entrusted with the biggest and most extraordinary ship the world had ever seen. When it crashed, the world was looking to point fingers at specific people and unfortunately he was partially blamed. At the time, he was not remembered as a prestigious captain, or a hero for doing everything he possibly could, or even for being a true captain and going down with his boat, but many different articles and press members made him out to be the bad guy.

Secondary Sources:
           The way the press focused on the crash of the Titanic is in some ways similar and different to the way scholars studied the disaster many years later. The first very important thing to note about the secondary sources is the people who wrote the chapters and books had much more turnaround time than the members of the press who would deadlines to finish in order to get the articles out to the public. Thus, the secondary sources answer the question why and how much more detailed.
           The books talked about similar stuff as the newspapers raving how the Titanic was the world's newest most beautiful and innovative ship. It was to be the most luxurious cruise liner in the world in the present and the future. Instead of being all this it became an important warning for the ship builders of the future and was a shocking disaster to the whole world. The first book concentrates on how the crash of the Titanic even though it was one of the world's worst misjudgments and tragedies became an important stepping stone for the future of ship building and navigating. It says, "And from the ashes of her loss arose new rules for safety, for navigation, for judging ships themselves, and the men who sailed in them" (Eaton 1). Titanic is something that intrigues people all around the world ever since that day it hit the iceberg and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Authors especially in their books tried to explore the mystery of Titanic and reveal to the readers of their books information they most likely did not know about the voyage and the ship.
           The books focused on recreating the event being detailed oriented focusing on all the details and in some aspects investigating each move trying to figure out what the possible mistake might have been. Without even reading the whole book it is obvious the main points the book is trying to bring out by looking at the chapter divisions. The chapters are in order: " 'Iceberg, Right Ahead!', Lights that Pass in the Night, A Burst of Cheering, From the Four Corners of the Compass, Park Lane and Scotland Road, Westwards to Destiny, City of Sorrow, Questions and Answers… and Questions, With Time's Passing, Dateline: North Atlantic, and Titanic: Past, Present, Future" (Eaton Contents). Just seeing the chapter heads gives the reader a good idea of what he or she is about to discover by opening this book and books like this. The first chapter goes into very specific detail about what was going on the ship right before and during the hitting of the iceberg. Also, it specifies many aspects about the ship talking about things like the different cabins, floors, and the many rooms that Titanic offered. The book attempts to recreate what was exactly going on in the many different floors right before the ship hits the iceberg. For example talking about the first class:

           Sunday, 14 April. The day was bright and clear. During the afternoon it became noticeably cool. Passengers deserted the decks and sought            comfort and warmth in the spacious lounge, the cozy library or the comfortable smoke room. The murmur of conversation was punctuated by an            occasional genteel laugh, the rattle of teacups, and the clink of glasses. The veranda café's outer doors were slid closed. But seated in the red and            brown cushioned wicker furniture there, young merrymakers could still watch the sea speed past through the bronze-framed windows nearly            seven feet tall. In the first class reading room- its floor carpeted in old rose, its windows hung with pink draperies- passengers leisurely read books            and the latest magazines placed there by the Times of London's book club (Eaton 10).

The author continues to describe more and more about the luxuries the first class passengers were enjoying before the dreadful crash. He also talks about what the other classes were doing with their luxury time on their part of the ship:

           The second-class smoking room aft on B deck, and the second-class library, directly below on C deck, were no less thronged with conversing            passengers, while others, such as Mrs. Ester Hart, rested in their cabins. But most strolled the corridors. Children played in the enclosed            promenades flanking the library. The brown carpet and mahogany, tapestry-covered furniture in the second-class library were well set off by the            green silk draperies, creating a comfort and intimacy usually found on other liners only in first class accommodation. It was a splendid apartment in            which to spend a cold, bright April afternoon at sea (Eaton 11).

The author talks about the two higher classes and all the activities they were possibly participating in, but fails to go into any detail about what the lower classes in the lower levels were doing. This point becomes very important later in the paper. After talking about this he goes into detail about the communication the Titanic went through before the crash.
           Then comes the detail about the actual crash and the initial responses from all around the boat. This section is very focused and has a lot of depth about what happened in the crash.

           The berg's dark bulk glided along the ship's length, scraping and bumping against the first 300 feet of the vessel's hull deep below the waterline. As            Titanic was still moving at about 21 knots she would have passed through 300 feet in less than 10 seconds. The ice passed amidships and            Murdoch ordered the helm hard to port so that the stern would clear. As the berg receded beyond the stern, the look-outs for the first time saw a            tip of white at the iceberg's very crest, which appeared to be emitting an almost-luminous haze. Bobbing slightly from the impact, the berg            disappeared from view, astern (Eaton 16).

Continuing on in the chapter it goes into more and more detail about what exactly was going on during and after the crash. Including the rampant communication and SOS calls attempts, the outbreak of riot as people tried to save themselves, the division of classes onto the small number of life boats, and then the aftermath. The book uses quotes from survivors in order to put the reader right into the actual real life situation to make it even more realistic and thorough. It goes into specific detail about how survivors got off the boat, what and whom they saw as they got off the boat, and also descriptions of the massive panic on board as people scrambled for lifeboats. It went into such specific detail it even talked about the band that played music until they no longer could play as the ship slowly sunk into the water. "When, at around 2:10 am, the end was very near, bandmaster Hartley advised his men that they had done their duty and could save themselves if they wished. Not one man moved. They stood together on the slanting deck and, struggling to maintain footing, played a hymn, a solemn, soaring requiem to a great ship and its doomed people (Eaton 31). Many people do not believe the theory of the music players according to the authors, but numerous people accounted for them playing and attempting to keep a sense of tranquility in a time of death and anguish. The last part of the chapter once again uses quotes from survivors talking about the horrible tragedy that they had just survived and how they felt about it at the time. The press would have never been able to get this type of information for a long period of time that is why the secondary sources like this book are so important in understanding the actual details of this disaster.
           Nowhere is Titanic's sinking so vividly described as by those who experienced the frightful disaster. And nowhere is the picture so graphically represented as when seen through a child's eyes. A youngster on board was twelve-year old Ruth Becker. Written in her mature years (now as Mrs. Ruth Blanchad), this account recalls the hours of cold and uncertainty spent in Titanic's boats:

           As our lifeboat number 12 pulled out from the side of the Titanic we could see the water rushing into the ship. Rowing away, looking at the            Titanic, it was a beautiful sight outlined against the starry sky, every port hold and saloon blazing with light. It was impossible to think anything            could be wrong with such an enormous ship, were it not for the tilt downwards towards the bow… Finally as the Titanic sank faster, the lights in            the cabins and saloons died out. At the same time the machinery roared down through the vessel with a rattle and a groaning that could be heard            for miles- the weirdest sound, surely, that could be heard in the middle of the ocean, a thousand miles from land. To our amazement the Titanic            seemed to break in half, the prow slipping down quietly under the waters, and the stern remaining in an upright position for a couple of minutes,            seeming to say, "Goodbye- so sorry! Then with a quite slanting dive it disappeared beneath the waters, and our eyes looked for the last time on            the gigantic vessel we had set out on from Southampton last Wednesday. Such a tragedy! Over 2,000 people on board, plenty of time to get off,            but 1,500 persons went down with the ship because there were only 20 lifeboats available, definitely not enough to accommodate every man,            woman and child (Eaton 34-35).

A terrible memory that Ruth must live with forever, but it is truly the best recollection of an event when somebody who was actually there at the event sees it. Later on in this paper, it will be important to understand the difference in coverage of a primary source and a secondary source. The important thing to understand is the amount of detail one can go in vs. the other.
           Throughout the book it continues to go into further detail about what exactly happened that night. Not just from the perspective of the Titanic but also from the near by ships as they were radioed for help from the desperate Titanic. All the talk about the communication obviously means that the idea of communication is an important subject. It was also brought up in the papers at the time of the crash. The new radio systems were innovative for the time. Ironically, there was no sort of failure at all on the Titanic with its radio. As soon as the ship hit the iceberg Capt. Smith ordered the men working at the radio to send out the messages. As the accident turned into disaster a message of information turned into a plead for help in other words S.O.S. The problem had nothing to do with the speed or the clarity of the radio messages, but it had to do with the response time of the nearby ships. Titanic's destiny was at the bottom of the ocean, but if the other boats could have been faster in turning around or been closer then many more people could have been saved. Titanic assumed so much about everything on its initial voyage. A ship with 3,000 people on it should have more accommodations for its passengers than only a handful of lifeboats. Assumptions are typically made about things specifically with new innovative technology. The book gets to go into detail about what happened before the Titanic even set out on the ocean. The builders of Titanic and Capt. Smith had a right to be pompous about their novel ship, but assuming it can survive something as powerful of nature is just ludicrous. The book goes into detail about the ship's building and construction because it is important to explain to the reader how well built the ship was and how everybody of the time had a right to assume it could survive anything the great oceans had to offer in its way.
           In later chapters, more specifically in the chapter titled, "Westwards to Destiny" the first six to seven pages are dedicated to talking about how the noble and the 1st class passengers made it on board and what they did in life to earn such a notable spot in ironically the best room on any boat in the world.

           The notables also included American mining magnate Benjamin Guggenheim and his valet, Victor Giglio. And there were Sir Cosmo and Lady            Duff-Gordon, with Lady Duff-Gordon's secretary, Miss Laura Francatelli. (Lady Duff Gordon was the internationally known dress designer,            'Lucile'. For some reason she and her husband were booked under the names of 'Mr. And Mrs. Morgan' and they occupied separate cabins.)            Mrs. James Joseph Brown, better known to her friends as 'Molly', had been on holiday in Egypt where she met the Astors; eager to make the            transatlantic crossing with them, Molly was able to re-book her White Star reservation to the earlier ship- Titanic (Eaton 87).

What better way to get a name into the public than step onto the ship the whole world is watching? Some of the richest people in the world did not all sail on Titanic just because they all were in the mood to do so, but because of publicity reasons. The whole world was watching the voyage and their names were mentioned and were going to continue to get mentioned. Ironically, these noble families did get their name mentioned but for sure not the way they had planned.
           In order to fully comprehend the facts it is important to look at a different book with a similar but a little different style. Just like the other book, this next secondary source called, "The Last Log of the Titanic" is trying to go into very specific details about the preceding events, the crash, and the aftermath. It concentrates on clearing up myths and false images that people believe about the crash of the Titanic. These myths have been forced into our minds through pop culture like recreated movies and non-historical books.

           A key Titanic myth concerns the weather. It was clear, cold, and still on the night of the disaster. Each of these conditions is rare on the stormy            night of the disaster. Each of these conditions is rare on the stormy North Atlantic, but to have all three occur simultaneously was unusual enough            to allow the ship's second officer to concoct his "everything was against us" myth. Usually, favorable weather makes it easier for ships to avoid            dangers like icebergs, but Lightoller portrayed Titanic as the helpless victim of circumstances beyond human control. In effect, he claimed that            good weather made the iceberg virtually impossible to see until it was too later. Historians and moviemakers continue to repeat this claim (with            emphasis on the unusually good weather) even though the facts show Lightoller was wrong. The clear, calm conditions allowed the lookouts to            spot the deadly berg several minutes before the accident… Based on the conditions reported by Lightoller and the other surviving officers, Titanic            must have been steaming through patches of ice and dodging occasional bergs for several hours at the time of the accident. There was plenty of            time to set extra lookouts, slow down, and alter course more to the south. All three of these prudent actions should have been taken (Brown 2).

Brown throughout the chapters in the book continues to contradict the many mysteries lying around the crash of the Titanic. The truth is back to the assumption theory of the shipbuilder, the crew, and the captain. The Titanic could go through anything and without any problems make it across any ocean put in front of it. Eaton in the book before also talked about the clear weather as a factor that should have at least helped the crew of the Titanic. Brown goes into detail how hard it was and still is today to understand the details of the crash because of the gray areas in getting information from survivors, people on the ship, and the owner of the ship. Unlike today, when a crash happens like on a plane there is a black box with a log of what happened the Titanic did not have the technology to have something like this. His main point is we know a lot more today about what happened but back then it was almost impossible to attain accurate information about the crash and what happened.
           His second main point he brings up is that Capt. Smith was far too confident in his modern ship. Capt. Smith had an esteemed background, which lead to his position. But he even with all his experience put too much assurance that the Titanic could not be sunk.

           In short, Capt. Smith was overconfident… Capt. Smith forged the master link in Titanic's disaster chain by allowing Ismay to encroach on the            master's authority. Smith lost mastery over his ship, though this loss of command authority was not obvious. The other officers still reported to him            and obeyed his orders, but Smith could not provide genuine leadership when the situation demanded it. A two-man committee composed of Capt.            Smith and J. Bruce Ismay made critical command decisions that were Smith's responsibility alone. In the end, Ismay's demands appear to have            overridden Smith's years of experience at sea. Titanic's fatal chain of disaster always comes back to Capt. Smith's feeling of invincibility aboard his            giant liner. Any danger from the sea seemed so trivial when one stood 60 feet off the water, surrounded by tons of steel. Titanic gave a sense of            permanence and safety that persisted even as it was dying. "I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel, modern shipbuilding            has gone beyond all that" (Brown 11).

That quote ending this part from the book explains his attitude clearly. The quote would have meant nothing if the ship did not sink. Unfortunately for Capt. Smith and his reputation, the quote ruined his notable reputation. Throughout the book, Brown goes into very specific detail about the voyage from the minute it left to when it was getting close to the berg. Most of this information is extraneous and does not need to be mentioned to understand the point Brown is trying to prove. He wants to go into as much detail as possible in order to create a much better image of everything that happened on the ship. His other main goal is to clear up all the mysteries and myths involved that were mentioned earlier. He does a great job in giving detail, but also answering the question on why and how the ship crashed. With his precise information, the questions of why and how are answered. He offers his own argument about why, but he does an excellent job of backing it up by going into detail about the proceedings before the crash and the actions of the crew. Secondary sources offer a different view of the Titanic crash, but in ways they are similar to that of primary sources.

Comparison
Primary sources at the time of the Titanic crash did not have the technology or the sources to obtain the same details about what had really happened with the Titanic ship. They answered to the best of their abilities why and how but mostly focused on answering what and when to its shocked readers who were itching everyday to find out more about what had happened. At the time, primary sources wrote according to the culture they lived in. With the departure of the Titanic, it was already a worldwide heavily covered event by the press, but once it crashed it became with no contest the hottest subject in the world. Everybody wanted to know the answers, and everybody was still in shock about how something built up to be so great could just sink. Would all these books have been written about the Titanic if it had not crashed? Most likely not, the Titanic probably would have been like most ships and sailed the sea for decades with no big problems. Books would have been written, but not nearly as many as there are now.
           The issue that was brought up both in the papers and in the books decades later was the concern over the upper class members that went down with the ship. It is always a big deal in the press when big famous people die, but imagine how the press will react to an event where a big number of rich and notable people died at the same time. Both the secondary sources and the primary sources i.e. the papers had chapters and articles about the upper class that sunk with the ship. It was a hot topic when the ship went down. It was what people wanted to hear, and still today historians felt the issue was very important and they put even more detailed sections in their books about these rich people's lives before they stepped onto the Titanic. In the teens of 1900, society was very much structured. Just like the ship's structure earlier mentioned, society follows the same guidelines and that is the way people wrote about it back then, but even today historians in their books concentrate on the upper class that died and describing what was happening on their levels much more than they talked about what was going on in the lower levels of the ship. Today's society is not structured nearly as bad as at the time of the crash of the Titanic, but there is still obvious evidence what is important for the authors and the readers.
           At the time of the Titanic, people more specifically the press were looking to figure out why this huge supposedly indestructible ship crashed. They were quick to point fingers at people whom they felt responsible. One person who unfortunately got the blame immediately was Capt. J. Smith. The press accused him with hardly any concrete evidence of not being cautious enough about the icy waters, and also having too much faith in his ship. They said he was going way to fast and that he had been warned of ice, but still refused to slow the speed down of the ship. The press and people at the time of the crash wanted to put the blame on somebody's shoulders because it was a terrible disaster. Ironically, the historians that looked back at the event and studied it with much more evidence and specifics also pointed the finger at Capt. Smith. Nobody in the books or the papers at the time of the crash put all the blame upon his shoulders, but he got more than any single person on that ship. Some of the historians hardly mentioned him as responsible and others studied each and every decision that he made on the boat and analyzed how overall it was his fault. He was chosen to lead the Titanic on its first voyage because he was the most respected Capt. in the business. His attitude that the grand Titanic would never crash lead to his name going down in both papers and books for people to read forever and make their own assessments whether the crash of the Titanic rests on his shoulders.
           The best way to recreate an event in both newspapers and books is to interview somebody who was actually there on the ship who can through their own words best describe the event. Both the papers after the crash and the historians in books seventy years later used survivors in order to paint an image of the crash. Also, they want to bring the readers of their articles back to Titanic and have them see it through the eyes of a survivor. There are some chapter's even books dedicated to talking about how one person survived the crash. The papers used people's quotes in order to describe the event better. Later, after everything had settled down a little bit papers got sit-downs with the survivors and wrote long stories about what happened instead of using two line quotes. Words from somebody who actually experienced an event is what the readers wanted to hear in 1912 and still want to hear now in the present.
           Lastly, both books and papers like to use as much detail as possible when writing about any particular event. Historians have a huge advantage on this compared with the writers for papers because time and research is an issue. Both in the primary sources and in the secondary sources the writers use as much detail as possible when describing the actual ship, the crash, the aftermath, and the preceding events. Detail is relative to how much time and research that could be done. Even though the newspapers did not have as much time as the historians in their books, the newspapers writers still without much time and investigations got a ton of details into their articles.
           In closing, the Titanic is something that everybody knows about eventually. It is a story people see in pop culture like the biggest selling movie of all time, Titanic. In the future people will continue to read and see images and movies about this truly tragic event. There is so much to learn about all the different aspects of the event. There is not just a crash, but so much more involved. Most people will never read the articles that were printed in 1912 newspapers, but if they did they could truly understand the differences and similarities in writing for primary sources and for secondary sources. Some people will never know the true facts about the ship. They will just watch the movie and believe everything that goes on there. Other people will continue to research and write about this event and keep those people interested in the event on their toes. The crash is still today the world's worst sea disaster. Something like that will be remembered in culture forever as people look back into our history.

Brown, David. The Last Log of the Titanic. R.R. Donnelley & Sons, Crawfordsville, IN. 2001

Bryceson, Dave. The Titanic Disaster: As Reported in the British National Press April- July 1912. Haynes Publishing: Sparkford, Nr. Yeovil, Somerset. 1997. (Has articles from British Newspapers including the Daily Sketch).

Cox, Stephen. The Titanic Story: Hard Chocies, Dangerous Decisions. Open Court Publishing Company: 1999.

Eaton, John and Charles A. Haas. Titanic Destination Disaster: The Legends and the Reality. W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue: New York, NY. 1987.

New York Times. April 14-17th, 1912. Microfiche.

Email: kneipper@email.unc.edu