Titanic Influence

The Titanic’s Influence on America and the World

The RMS Titanic’s maiden voyage was highly anticipated in April of 1912. Construction took place overseas in the United Kingdom and took as long as 3 years to completely finish it. A rough estimate of 3,000 men worked on this luxury steam ship. What made the Titanic so significant was their newest design feature; sixteen watertight compartments that claimed to make the Titanic “unsinkable”. John Pierpont (JP) Morgan, American owner of the British ship, thought he had the state-of-the-art equipment, and was ready to set sail. The RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton on April 10th, 1912, then a few hours later reached Cherbourg, France to pick up passengers, then headed for New York City. Four

Back in 1912, the Titanic was up to par of the British Board of Trade’s regulations, but on the other hand, this passenger ship was the first of its kind so the prerequisites were not elaborate. According to Nick Barratt's book, "Lost Voices from the Titanic: The Definitive Oral History,” he explains that the U.S. Senate puts a false presumption to rest, “The Titanic was fitted with sixteen sets of double-acting boat davits of modern type, capable of handling two or three boats per set of davits. The davits were thus capable of handling forty eight boats, whereas the ships carried but sixteen lifeboats and four collapsibles fulfilling all the requirements of the British Board of Trade. The Titanic was provided with fourteen lifeboats, of capacity for thirty five persons each, of seven persons; four collapsible boats, of capacity for forty nine persons each, of 196 persons. Total lifeboat capacity, 1,176. There was ample lifebelt equipment for all.” The U.S. Senate claims that there was enough lifebelt equipment for everyone, as it could fit 1,176 people. Interesting enough, the life onboard of the Titanic exceeded 1,176 people. Reports from the U.S. Senate reports that there were 1,316 passengers and 885 crew members, totaling 2,201 people. The laws and regulations for sailing ships were not rigorous during the time of the Titanic. After the ship sunk, it had an influence on the government

Communication was not up to par during this time-- radio reporters admit that they could only take one emergency call at a time. The workers at the radio station, Californian, did not take their job seriously, “After sending personal messages from the Titanic, the operators were taking down personal messages, along with news and stock reports for the passengers to read the next morning.,” reported by Bill Kovarik, author of the article “Radio and the Titanic”. Later that night, a steam worker called the Titanic’s wireless radio operators, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, to inform them that the ships was headed into a patch of large icebergs. The operators did not believe that the message they had just received was that urgent, so they continued on with their own personal problems. According to the New York Times, a wireless reporter from the Californian tried to contact the Titanic as well, but unfortunately they also had no luck in saving the passenger ship, “Evans was also asked by a US Senator: Can you take more than one message at a time? The answer: “No.” The fact that a new and complex communications system had performed so poorly did raise some questions, but not as many as it might have. The US Senate inquiry expressed disappointment. “Had the wireless operator of the Californian remained a few minutes longer at his post... that ship might have had the proud