News of the sinking stunned the world. In the United States, messages from Titanic and other ships got mixed up and jumbled together giving false hope that Titanic had survived. At one-point, White Star Line had charted a special train to take families to Halifax where Titanic would arrive with its passengers. It was stopped halfway when the truth was learned and returned to New York.  At the White Star Line office where hope had turned to sorrow, people came to learn whether their loved ones had survived. Lists of the survivors were sent to Cape Race via the Olympic and then to the White Star office. The names of those who didn’t survive were shocking.

Communications with Carpathian were limited. Outside of the list sent via Olympic and required messages about estimated time of arrival in New York, requests for information sent to the ship went unanswered even from U.S. President William Howard Taft. Taft wanted to know if his friend and military advisor Archibald Butt had survived. But the blackout remained. In Britain and elsewhere, there was no mixing of messages. They learned of it very quickly and newspapers reported it.  In Belfast where the Titanic had been built, it was as if a family member had died.

Titanic was mostly hand built and employed thousands for large and small projects. Some drove the rivets sealing the metal plates to the ship. Others did detail work on the inside: doors, windows, cabinets, trimmings of all kinds. There were no prefabricated materials back then, you custom built just about everything for Titanic. Francis Parkinson Jr’s father was a skilled woodworker on Titanic. He fashioned many of the elegant doors. And he remembers vividly not only seeing the giant ship being built but the day she was reported sunk. He recalled seeing the news poster where the paper boy was selling papers and it had just two words:

Titanic Sunk

 

His father ran out to get the special edition and read it in shock. And then like many who had worked on it, cried. None could believe the ship they had worked on was gone. So many prominent people from both sides of the Atlantic perished as well. The sinking of Titanic was a gut punch to firmly held beliefs of man’s steady progress. It was the death of a dream for many and the world was made less certain because of it.

 

 Sources

(Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.)

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Behe, G. (2012). On board RMS Titanic: Memories of the Maiden Voyage. The History Press.

Ballard, Robert D. Exploring the Titanic. Reprint. Madison Press Books, 2014.

Ballard, Robert D., and Rick Archbold. The Discovery of the Titanic. New York, N.Y.?: Warner Books, 1987.

Ballard, Robert D., Lost Liners: From the Titanic to the Andrea Doria the Ocean Floor Reveals Its Greatest Lost Ships(Hyperion, 1998).

Brewster, H. (2013). Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic’s First-Class Passengers and Their World. National Geographic Books.

Cameron, Stephen. Titanic: Belfast’s Own. Colourpoint, 2011.

Eaton John P. & Haas Charles, TITANIC TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY, SECOND EDITION, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, New York, 1995 First American Edition

Fitch, Tad, J. Kent Layton, and Bill Wormstedt. On a Sea of Glass: The Life & Loss of the RMS Titanic. Reprint. Amberley Publishing, 2015.

Lord, Walter, A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, Holt Rinehart and Winston, New York, New York, 1955. Multiple revisions and reprints, notably Illustrated editions (1976,1977,1978 etc.)

Lord, Walter, THE NIGHT LIVES ON, Willian Morrow and Company, New York, New York, 1986 (First Edition)

Lynch, Don & Marshall Ken, TITANIC AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY, Madison Press Books, Toronto, Ontario Canada, 1992

Marshall, L. (2019). Sinking of the Titanic: The Greatest Disaster At Sea – Special Edition with Additional Photographs. Independently Published.

Internet

“The Titanic: Sinking & Facts | HISTORY.” HISTORY. Last modified March 26, 2026. https://www.history.com/articles/titanic.

“Encylopedia Titanica.” https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/.

Videos

Titanic: Honor & Glory, “Titanic’s Final Day at Sea – April 14th, 1912,” Video, YouTube, April 14, 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hA9Yt9nbQk.

National Geographic, “New CGI of How Titanic Sank | Titanic 100,” Video, YouTube, April 5, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSGeskFzE0s.