The Titanic Museum in Branson, Missouri, is an amazing immersive experience. We’re going to say right up front that the kids we took were too young. We had expected to be able to focus on things like the engineering of the ship and the courage of the rescue operation, but this museum does not allow you to finesse the sad parts at all. If you’re planning a trip with your family, we recommend waiting till the kids are old enough to be familiar with the story of the Titanic and mentally prepared for the sad ending.
Does that mean you should not study the Titanic in the classroom or homeschool? We believe in studying history, even the sad parts. By now, all the people who lost their lives in the sinking of the Titanic would have passed on from natural causes. The episode includes some valuable lessons in history, geography, and economics. There’s also the important question of why the tragedy took place and how that sad event caused people to travel more safely afterwards.
Basic background
The Titanic was an amazing feat of engineering, and a marvelous ship. Part of the White Star Line of steamships, the Titanic and her sister ship the Olympic were built by more than 15,000 Irish craftsmen. The work involved included two years spent hand-carving the grand staircase as well as the setting of 3,000,000 rivets to hold the steel plates together. The launch of the ship on April 10, 1912, was a grand celebration and an important historic event.
Unfortunately, the ship hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. April 14th, 1912. The icebergs are thought to have come from Greenland. The ship was traveling at full speed even though the crew had received warnings about icebergs. In two hours, the ship had broken in two and sunk.
More than 700 passengers were rescued, but most lost their lives.
When you first arrive at the museum, you have a chance to feel a bit of an iceberg and see the grandeur of the ship. At the end of the tour, there’s information about the 1985 discovery of the shipwreck and how the artifacts were brought up to the surface.
The class system
Passengers on the Titanic were divided into classes. The Titanic Museum shows the differences in the shipboard lives of the different classes of passengers. First class passengers had staterooms like the one below. The clothing gives an example of the clothes first class female passengers wore.
The first class staterooms were more than bedrooms. They were like very fancy little apartments or hotel rooms.
First class passengers ate from beautiful dishes.
Not only did they have special fine china, they also had silver. The picture below shows coffee and teapots and a toast rack. It was the custom in those days to file slices of toast in a rack like this on the breakfast table.
62% of first class passengers survived.
Second class cabins were still comfortable but much less luxurious than the first class rooms. Four passengers would have shared this room.
Second class passengers also had less fancy dishes to eat from. 42% of the second class passengers survived.
Third class passengers had simpler accommodations. Still, they were served ice cream and had specially decorated china.
Many children were in third class.
26% of third class passengers survived.
The difference in the survival rates were not a matter of coincidence. The third class passengers had more difficulty reaching the top deck, since they stayed low in the ship, and many of the lifeboats were sent off with just a few people in them, before the third class passengers were able to reach the lifeboats at all.
Notice also that women and children had higher survival rates. In those days, “Women and children first” was the rule. Men were expected to help the women and children and then bravely go down with the ship if they had to.
The book
What went wrong?
The sinking of the Titanic has been studied for more than a century now, and historians are still not completely sure why the great ship sank. Here are some of the things that seem to have gone wrong:
- The iceberg warnings were not all passed on to the captain.
- There was no moonlight and no wind that might have stirred up waves to crash against the iceberg and make it more visible.
- Most of an iceberg is under the water, so it is hard to tell where they are.
- When the crew saw the iceberg, they tried to steer out of its way. They scraped along the iceberg, breaking into the watertight compartments that kept the ship afloat. Historians disagree on whether the crew took the right steps.
- Materials are affected by temperatures. Some experts believe that the steel of the Titanic became brittle in the freezing water.
- The book The Titanic Fact Book for Kids: A Book of 1,000 Facts About the Titanic for Kids states that “Titanic’s tragedy revealed the risks of overconfidence in technology.” As you learn about the event, see whether you agree, and what technological improvements might have contributed to the problem. Then think about our modern world. Do we also have this problem?
The Titanic Museum honors all the crew and passengers of the Titanic, but focuses on different groups at different times. The day we visited, the Jewish crew members and passengers were featured.
The Titanic Museum is beautifully organized and interpreted. It’s definitely worth a visit. An alternative is the affordable Virtual Titanic Experience.
