Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage

by Hugh Brewster

  Hardwick, Joan. Addicted to Romance: The Life and Adventures of Elinor Glyn. London: André Deutsch Ltd., 1994.

  Homberger, Eric. Mrs. Astor’s New York. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

  Hustak, Alan. Titanic: The Canadian Story. Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1998.

  Hyslop, Donald, Alistair Forsyth, and Sheila Jemima, eds. Titanic Voices: Memories from the Fateful Voyage. Southampton: Southampton City Council, 1994, 1997 edition, Sutton Publishing Limited.

  Iversen, Kristen. Molly Brown: Unraveling the Myth. Boulder, Colorado: Johnson Books, 1999.

  James, Henry. Picture and Text. Reprinted by the Dodo Press, 2011.

  Jessop, Violet, edited by John Maxtone-Graham. Titanic Survivor. New York: Sheridan House, 1997.

  Kaplan, Justin. When the Astors Owned New York. New York: Penguin, 2007.

  Katz, Jonathan. Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

  Kavaler, Lucy. The Astors: A Family Chronicle of Pomp and Power. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1965.

  King, Greg. A Season of Splendor: The Court of Mrs. Astor in Gilded Age New York. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2008.

  Kowsky, Francis R. Buffalo Architecture: A Guide. Buffalo: Architectural Guidebook Corporation, 1981.

  Kuntz, Tom. The Titanic Disaster Hearings: The Official Transcripts of the 1912 Senate Investigation. New York: Pocket Books, 1998.

  Langford, Gerald. The Murder of Stanford White. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962.

  Langtry, Lillie. The Days I Knew. New York: H. Doran, 1925.

  Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City. New York: Vintage, 2003.

  Lee, Hermione. Edith Wharton. New York: Random House, 2007.

  Lehr, Elizabeth Drexel. “King Lehr” and the Gilded Age. New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1935.

  Lessard, Suzannah. The Architect of Desire: Beauty and Danger in the Stanford White Family. New York: The Dial Press, 1996.

  Levinson, J. C., Ernest Samuels, Charles Vandersee, and Viola Hopkins Winner, eds. The Letters of Henry Adams, vols 1–6. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press at Harvard University Press, 1986.

  Lewis, Alfred Allan. Ladies and Not-So-Gentle Women. New York: Viking-Penguin, 2000.

  Longworth, Alice Roosevelt. Crowded Hours. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933.

  Lord, Walter. The Night Lives On. New York: William Morrow, 1986.

  _____. A Night to Remember. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1955. Bantam edition, 1956.

  Lynch, Don. Titanic: An Illustrated History. New York: Hyperion, 1992.

  Lynch, Don, and Ken Marschall. Ghosts of the Abyss. Boston: Da Capo Press, 2003.

  Marshall, Logan. The Sinking of the Titanic. Philadelphia: C. Winston, 1912; Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 1988.

  Millet, Francis Davis. A Capillary Crime and Other Stories. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1892.

  _____. The Danube from the Black Forest to the Black Sea. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1893.

  _____. The Expedition to the Philippines. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1899.

  Marcus, Geoffrey. The Maiden Voyage. New York: Viking, 1969.

  Moffat, Wendy. A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life Of E. M. Forster. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.

  Mooney, Michael Macdonald. Evelyn Nesbit and Stanford White: Love and Death in the Gilded Age. New York: William Morrow, 1976.

  Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Random House, 1979.

  _____. Theodore Rex. New York: Random House, 2001.

  O’Donnell, E. E. The Last Days of the Titanic. Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1997.

  Paterson, John. Edwardians, London Life and Letters, 1901–1914. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996.

  Patterson, Jerry E. The First Four Hundred. New York: Rizzoli, 2001.

  Pellegrino, Charles. Her Name, Titanic, The Untold Story of the Sinking and Finding of the Unsinkable Ship. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.

  Rostron, Arthur H. The Loss of the Titanic. Ludlow, MA: 7 C’s Press for the Titanic Historical Society, 1975, first published 1931.

  Ruffman, Alan. Titanic Remembered: The Unsinkable Ship and Halifax. Halifax: Formac Publishing, 1999.

  Sharpey-Schafer, Joyce. Soldier of Fortune, F. D. Millet, 1846–1912. Utica, New York: 1984.

  Skinner, Cornelia Otis. Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962.

  Sloper, William T. The Life and Times of Andrew Jackson Sloper. Privately printed, 1949.

  Smith, Harriet Elinor, ed. Autobiography of Mark Twain, vol. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.

  Spedden, Daisy Corning Stone, and Leighton Coleman. Polar the Titanic Bear. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1994.

  Stead, Estelle. My Father: Personal & Spiritual Reminiscences. London: William Heinemann, 1913.

  Stead, William T. Hymns That Have Helped. Charleston, SC: BiblioLife reprint, 2009.

  _____. If Christ Came to Chicago. Chicago: Laird & Lee, 1894.

  Stenson, Patrick. “Lights”: The Odyssey of C. H. Lightoller. London: The Bodley Head, 1984.

  Strouse, Jean. Morgan: American Financier. New York: Random House, 1999.

  Stuart, Amanda Mackenzie. Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

  Tharp, Louise Hall. Saint-Gaudens and the Gilded Era. Boston: Little, Brown, 1969.

  Thayer, John B. The Sinking of the S.S. Titanic. Springfield: 7 C’s Press reprint for Titanic Historical Society, 1974, first published 1940.

  Unger, Irwin, and Debi Unger. The Guggenheims: A Family History. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.

  Uruburu, Paula. American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White and the Crime of the Century. New York: Riverhead Books/Penguin Group, 2008.

  Wade, Wyn Craig. The Titanic: End of a Dream. New York: Rawson Associates, Scribner Book Company, 1979; Penguin Books, 1980.

  Wharton, Edith, edited by Roxana Robinson. The New York Stories of Edith Wharton. New York: New York Review of Books, 2007.

  Whyte, Frederic. The Life of W. T. Stead, volumes 1 and 2. London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1925.

  Wilson, Derek. The Astors. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993.

  Winocour, Jack. The Story of the Titanic as Told by Its Survivors: Lawrence Beesley; Archibald Gracie; Charles Lightoller; Harold Bride. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1960.

  Woods, Shirley E, Jr. The Molson Saga. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1983.

  UNPUBLISHED SOURCES

  “CQD.” An unpublished memoir by Richard Norris Williams, courtesy of the Williams family.

  Hawksford, Walter, letter to his wife, private collection.

  Millet Letters to Charles Warren Stoddard. Charles Warren Stoddard Collection, Special Collections Research Center, University of Syracuse Library.

  Russell, Edith [Rosenbaum]. “By The Grace of God—And Fashion” speech, 1924, courtesy of Randy Bryan Bigham; April 1, 1934, Titanic account, Charles Pellegrino website.

  Simpson, Marc. Reconstructing the Golden Age: American Artists in Broadway, Worcestershire, 1885–1889. Dissertation, Yale University, 1993.

  ARTICLES FROM MAGAZINES. JOURNALS, AND WEBSITES

  Abrams, Melanie. “Lady Duff Gordon: Fashion’s Forgotten Grande Dame.” Telegraph, February 21, 2011.

  Barkworth, Algernon. “Barkworth’s Account.” ET. Behe, George. “The Music of the Titanic’s Band” and “The Two Deaths of John Jacob Astor.” George Behe’s Titanic Tidbits website.

  Bigham, Randy Bryan, and Gregg Jasper. “Broadway Dame: The Life and Times of Mrs. Henry B. Harris.” Titanic Commutator 36, no. 193–195.

  Bigham, Randy Bryan. “Life’s Décor,” “Madame Lucile: A Life in Style,” “A Matter of Course,” and “Star Turn,” from ET. “Lady Duff Gordon: Saved from the Titanic,” Titanic Commutator 15, no. 1.

  Brewster, Hugh. “Sinking Sensation.” Toronto Life, May 1997.

  Candee, Helen. “Sealed Orders.” Collier’s, May 4, 1912.

  Chapman, Ea
rl. “Gunshots on the Titanic.” ET.

  Chirnside, Mark, and Sam Halpern. “Olympic and Titanic: Maiden Voyage Mysteries.” ET.

  Dupuis, Michael. “And Mind You’re A Nurse.” Herstoria, issue 7, Autumn 2010, pp. 46–49.

  Halpern, Sam. “Titanic—From Daunt’s Rock to a Collision.” Titanicology website.

  Harris, René. “Her Husband Went Down with the Titanic.” Liberty, April 23, 1932.

  Hyder, Jemma. “Excuse Sending … Am Half Asleep.” ET.

  James. Henry. “Our Artists in Europe.” Harper’s New Monthly, June 1889.

  Kamuda, Ed and Karen. “The Courtship and Wedding of Madeleine Talmage Force and Colonel John Jacob Astor.” Titanic Commutator 35, no. 192.

  Louden-Brown, Paul. “Ismay and the Titanic.” Titanic Historical Society website.

  Molony, Senan. “A Tender Named America,” “Bruce Ismay and the Ring’s Taunt,” “The Fleecing of Hugh Woolner,” and “The Riddle of the Sphinx.” ET.

  Mulpetre, Owen. “W. T. Stead & the Titanic.” Attacking the Devil website.

  Pellegrino, Charles. “Astor, Straus, Futrelle.” Charles Pellegrino website.

  Rosenbaum, Edith. Article in Women’s Wear Daily, April 19, 1912.

  Ryerse, Phyllis. “Rich Man and Poor Man: The Story of the Ryersons on the Titanic.” Titanic Commutator 14, no. 2.

  Spedden, Margaretta Corning Stone, and Leighton Coleman. “Excerpts from the Daily Journal of ‘Daisy’ Spedden.” Titanic Commutator 16, no. 3.

  Ticehurst, Brian. “Marconigrams Sent and Received by Captain Smith on the Titanic.” ET.

  Warchol, Clara B. “Edward Kent, Titanic Hero.” Titanic Commutator, December 1976.

  Wilkinson, Paul. “Titanic’s Silent Distress Signals: A New Look at a Minor Mystery.” ET.

  Wormstedt, Bill, Tad Fitch, and George Behe. in “Titanic: The Lifeboat Launching Sequence Re-examined.” Wormstedt.com.

  Wormstedt, Bill, and Tad Fitch. “Did an Officer Commit Suicide on Titanic?” Titanic Commutator 30, no. 173.

  _____. “Titanic Lifeboat Occupancy Totals,” wormstedt.com.

  Wojtczak, Helena. “Elsie Bowerman: Feminist and Barrister.” ET.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My first acquaintance with the remarkable circle of people devoted to the study of the Titanic dates back to 1986, when I began working on Robert Ballard’s book about the discovery of the wreck. Twenty-five years later, I was delighted to be able to call once again on the expertise of that same circle, now greatly enlarged. Ed and Karen Kamuda of the Titanic Historical Society have been outstanding conservers of the lost liner’s history since 1963 and I’m grateful for their assistance with research and photographs and for the many articles in the organization’s magazine, The Titanic Commutator. I have also had the pleasure of working on several books with the THS’s historian, Don Lynch, who has an astonishingly comprehensive knowledge of the lives of those who made the fatal voyage. For this book, Don generously reviewed each chapter, caught many potentially embarrassing errors, pointed me towards useful new information, and shared photographs from his collection.

  George Behe, a past vice-president of the THS, has also put in years of assiduous research on the Titanic and I am very grateful for his unflagging kindness and assistance. His scholarly three-volume biography of Major Archibald Butt, “Archie”: The Life of Major Archibald Butt from Georgia to the Titanic, is invaluable to anyone interested in the life of this intriguing man, or the history of the White House during the Theodore Roosevelt and Taft administrations. Another of George’s books that I found to be of inestimable help is On Board RMS Titanic, a useful compilation of first-person accounts of the disaster. George also carefully reviewed various drafts of the text, though any errors in it are mine alone.

  In articles and books, Randy Bryan Bigham has documented the lives of some of the ship’s most extraordinary women: Lucy Duff Gordon, Renée Harris, Helen Candee, Dorothy Gibson, and Noëlle Rothes, among others. Randy generously shared his extensive research and picture collection with me, and provided excellent suggestions and welcome encouragement as he read each chapter. He also gave me prepublication access to his book, Lucile: Her Life by Design.

  The life of Frank Millet has now been properly chronicled in a definitive biography by Peter Engstrom entitled Francis Davis Millet: A Titanic Life. I’m indebted to Peter for sharing his book in manuscript form, and for giving me a guided tour of East Bridgewater and the Millet studio. In Broadway, Worcestershire, John Noott kindly provided accommodation at Farnham House, another Millet residence, and Lord Birdwood gave me a tour of Russell House, the artist’s second home in Broadway, while Richard Tae welcomed me to the Abbots Grange which was once a studio for Millet and the Broadway colony. I’m also grateful to John Lamoreau for sharing his Millet letters and to Shelley Dziedzic for her research and photos of both Frank and his friend Archie Butt.

  For editorial suggestions I must thank my early readers, Larry Muller and Marian Fowler, and also my agent Beverly Slopen, editors Brad Wilson and Charlie Conrad, assistant editor Miriam Chotiner-Gardner, production editorial director Mark McCauslin, and copy editor Richard Willett. Thanks also go to Tad Fitch for reviewing the chapters concerned with the loading of the lifeboats. I also drew on a convincing new lifeboat loading sequence, which Tad worked on with Bill Wormstedt and George Behe, that is available on Bill Wormstedt’s website. Sam Halpern and Geoff Whitfield provided insight into how the daily on-board betting pool was operated and Michael Poirier also reviewed the text and provided suggestions and photographs. Special thanks to Michael Dupuis for sending me his article about Mary Adelaide Snider. Artist Ken Marschall, a longtime friend and illustrator of many Titanic books, also provided photographs from his collection. Thanks also to Gord Sibley for his advice.

  It’s a privilege to have been able to quote from an unpublished memoir by R. Norris Williams, and I’m grateful to the Williams family for that and for the rare photograph of Norris with his father, Charles Williams. Leighton H Coleman III, with whom I once worked on the children’s book Polar the Titanic Bear, allowed me to quote from the diaries of Daisy Spedden, to which he holds the copyright, and to reprint a photograph of Daisy with her son and his nurse. Thanks also go to the Adlard family.

  The Internet has become a highly effective tool for Titanic researchers, and the websites I have listed in the bibliography were particularly helpful. George Behe and Don Lynch have also provided a most useful service by posting transcripts from the two Titanic inquiries and the Limitation of Liability hearings on the Titanic Inquiry Project site. But above all, I owe a debt to Philip Hind and the Encyclopedia Titanica website. To have such a comprehensive repository of Titanic information available only a click away is something I’ve been grateful for on a daily basis. And although the contributors to ET are too numerous to name, I do wish to single out the following people: Earl Chapman, Mark Chirnside, Michael Findley, Dave Gittins, Philip Gowan, Sam Halpern, Mike Herbold, Alan Hustak, Daniel Klistorner, Senan Molony, Luke Owens, Inger Sheil, Michael Standart, Brian Ticehurst, David Whitmire, and Helena Wojtczak.

  I’d like to thank Michael Levine for launching me into the sea lanes of Titanic publishing by introducing Al Cummings and myself to Robert Ballard in 1984. Thanks also to Bob Ballard for his undersea explorations of the Titanic and other lost ships and for happy collaborations on a long list of titles. Finally, the warmest of thanks go to my partner, Phillipp Andres, for his patience and support during the writing of this book.

  PHOTOGRAPH AND ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

  1.1 1.2 American Academy of Arts and Letters Collection, New York City

  1.3 Atlanta History Center

  1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Author’s Collection

  1.10 Bancroft Library, University of California

  1.11 1.12 Brown Brothers

  1.13 Canada Science & Technology Museum

  1.14 Davison & Associates

  1.15 1.16 1.17 Don Lynch Collection

  1.18
1.19 1.20 George Behe Collection

  1.21 1.22 1.23 Getty Images

  1.24 Gregg H. Jasper Collection

  1.25 International Tennis Hall of Fame & Museum

  1.26 1.27 1.28 Irish Examiner

  1.29 1.30 Ken Marschall Collection

  1.31 Leighton H. Coleman III Collection

  1.32 1.33 1.34 1.35 1.36 1.37 1.38 1.39 1.40 1.41 1.42 1.43 1.44 1.45 1.46 1.47 1.48 1.49 1.50 1.51 1.52 Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Archive

  1.53 1.54 1.55 1.56 1.57 1.58 1.59 Mary Evans Picture Library

  1.60 Mike Poirier/NARA Collection

  1.61 1.62 1.63 1.64 1.65 1.66 Museum of the City of New York, Byron Collection

  1.67 National Museums of Northern Ireland, Collection Harland & Wolff, Ulster Folk & Transport Museum

  1.68 New York Public Library, Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations, Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Arts, Prints and Photographs

  1.69 1.70 1.71 1.72 1.73 1.74 1.75 1.76 1.77 1.78 1.79 1.80 Randy Bryan Bigham Collection

  1.81 Syracuse University Library, Special Research Center, Charles Warren Stoddard Collection

  1.82 Thomas Jefferson University Archives and Special Collections, Scott Memorial Library, Philadelphia, PA

  1.83 1.84 1.85 1.86 1.87 Titanic Historical Society Collection, endpapers

  1.88 University of Pennsylvania Archives

  1.89 Wellington County Museum & Archives, Fergus, Ontario, ph16199

  1.90 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

  1.91 Worcestershire Record Office, Ref. No. x705:1235 BA11q302/xiiii

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  HUGH BREWSTER was born in London, England, but spent his teen years in Guelph, Ontario, in a house near Summerhill, the girlhood home of Titanic passenger Lucile, Lady Duff Gordon. As a young editor at Madison Press Books in Toronto he met Dr. Robert Ballard in 1984 and worked with him to produce the international bestseller The Discovery of the Titanic. Nineteen other nautical books followed, including The Discovery of the Bismarck, Lost Liners, Polar the Titanic Bear, and Last Dinner on the Titanic. Brewster also worked with Don Lynch and Ken Marschall on Titanic: An Illustrated History, a book that proved useful to James Cameron’s epic movie, and he later compiled the tie-in to Cameron’s 3D film Ghosts of the Abyss. Brewster is also the author of Inside the Titanic, 882½ Amazing Answers to Your Questions About the Titanic, and Deadly Voyage and has written twelve award-winning books for young readers. The Other Mozart was hailed as “history at its best” by the San Francisco Chronicle, and Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose was chosen as one of the best of 2007 by the Washington Post and nominated for several of Canada’s top literary awards. Hugh Brewster lives in an Edwardian neighborhood in Toronto just around the corner from the house that was the last address of Major Arthur Peuchen.