The Titanic disaster wasn't just a terrible loss of life, it also robbed the world of
all the great things the victims could have done if they lived. Immortalized in books,
films, and legend, here are some of the Titanic victims that could have changed the world.
You know you've made something of your life when the president of the United States not
only gives your eulogy but describes you as a younger brother. President William Howard
Taft wrote that once he heard about the Titanic disaster, he knew that his old friend had
been lost, because there was no way Major Archibald Butt would have done anything other
than remain on deck and help others around him.
Butt wasn't just one of Taft's military aides — he had served as the personal aide to
President Theodore Roosevelt, too. Taft's first term was coming to an end in 1912, and
Roosevelt decided to run against him in the Presidential election. Caught between his
two bosses, Butt became extremely stressed out, so Taft ordered him to take a vacation.
Butt was on the last leg of a six-week European trip when he set off on the ill-fated Titanic
— according to one witness, he was last seen in the smoking room with his good friend
Francis Millet. Other witnesses claimed he took charge of the ship's evacuation, personally
helping women into the lifeboats. The truth is unknown, though, and his remains were never
recovered.
Today, the name Guggenheim is more closely associated with art museums than with their
original endeavors, such as mining. Meyer Guggenheim, a Swiss immigrant who first bought
two Colorado copper mines in the 1880s, built a mining empire from the ground up and passed
it on to his sons. One of those sons, Benjamin, was working full time in the family business
by the time he was 20, and he later helped develop and found the International Steam
Pump Company.
He died on Titanic only a few years later through a fluke of fate. Originally scheduled
to return to the U.S. on the Lusitania, he was first given the option to take Lusitania's
replacement ship, the Carmania. Instead, he opted to be a part of history and take Titanic's
maiden voyage.
Guggenheim certainly became a part of history, though not in the way that he intended. He
was immortalized as part of Titanic legend when he and his valet dressed in their finest
and declared they were spending their final hours as they had lived — like gentlemen.
"There are for you, Mr. Guggenheim."
"No thank you. We are dressed in our best and are prepared to go down as gentlemen!"
One of his daughters, Peggy Guggenheim, became the driving force behind Venice's Guggenheim
art museum, while Benjamin's will left the equivalent of $3 million in today's money
to charity.
Daniel Warner Marvin was only 18 years old when he died aboard Titanic, but he already
had set his sights on becoming an engineer and contributing to his family's film legacy.
His father was the co-founder of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, one of the
early pioneers in filmmaking. And Marvin was on his way to becoming an engineer in his
own right; Marvin's wedding was one of the first ever filmed, using the new camera technology
they had built.
He and his young bride were returning to the states after a three-week honeymoon when Titanic
sank. After carrying his pregnant wife to the lifeboats, he reportedly told her, quote,
"It's alright, little girl. You go. I'll stay."
Marvin's daughter was born a few months later, and his widow destroyed almost all the footage
of their wedding. His family's company? They're still going, now known as Biograph.
John Jacob Astor IV was the scandalous and controversial heir to the Astor family, and
if the only thing you're really familiar with is his building of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel,
that's a shame. His great-grandfather arrived in America carrying just $25 and a few flutes
his brother had made by hand; by the time he died, he was one of the richest and most
famous men in the country.
The elder Astor built on his fortune by investing in New York real estate, and that's where
John Jacob Astor IV comes in. Not only was he responsible for part of the Waldorf-Astoria
(and several other landmark hotels in the area), he was a pretty brilliant jack-of-all-trades.
He wrote science fiction novels, acted in plays, invented things like wind turbine engines
and, at the time of his death, was the richest man in the world. Just how much he was worth
is tough to pin down, but one estimate suggests that he had the equivalent of $58.7 billion
in today's money.
The scandalous and controversial part happened when Astor IV divorced his first wife and
married another woman, who was a year younger than his own son. They decided to go to Europe
to get away from the resulting media scandal, and unfortunately chose to return home on
Titanic.
"Don't make me leave you!"
"Nonsense. I'll be on a later boat."
His young wife, Madeleine, survived to give birth to their son, who she named John Jacob
Astor VI. Astor's body was recovered on April 22 and buried in New York.
Every so often, you read about someone who makes you believe in the better things in
life again, like true love, decency, and self-sacrifice. That's the story of Isidor [IS-uh-dor] and
Ida Straus, who were immortalized in one of the most memorable scenes of the 1997 hit
Titanic.
The couple wasn't just incredibly wealthy — they were major charitable donors who
gave away a huge amount of their fortune to causes across their adopted city of New York.
Perhaps it's because they remembered what it was like to have nothing. After emigrating
from Germany to Georgia, Isidor's family had to declare bankruptcy during the Civil War.
After paying off their debts, they moved to New York City and started over. Isidor worked
his way up, eventually buying Macy's and becoming a congressman. Isidor and Ida were also famous
for his benevolent treatment of his employees, taking a personal interest in their lives
and well being, and offering benefits that are generous even by today's standards.
In turn, the couple had dedicated employees who were moved to tears with the news of their
deaths on the Titanic. Ida famously had a place in the lifeboats, but she refused to
leave her husband and chose to die at his side, giving her place to her maid. While
Ida's body was never recovered, Isidor's body was; he was buried amid tributes and mourning
that moved the whole city, with songs and memorials dedicated to their memory.
"Where you go, I go. Don't argue with me, Isidor. You know it does no good."
A metallurgist who was also an African explorer, Henry Forbes Julian was one of the first Europeans
to see the majestic Victoria Falls. He also traveled extensively through Mexico and Europe,
documenting archaeological artifacts and previously unexplored territory, all while doing what
he went there to do — pioneering new techniques in metallurgy and mining.
During his travels, he'd made the trip across the Atlantic at least 13 times. By the time
he got on the Titanic, the crossing was fairly everyday for him. Still, despite being a bit
jaded by the whole thing, he wrote to his wife that he was reluctantly impressed by
the luxury offered on the massive ship
Sadly, his body was never found after the sinking.
Quigg Edmond Baxter spent his post-school years playing football and then hockey for
the Montreal Shamrocks Hockey Club. Hockey being what hockey is, he only lasted a single
season before getting hit in the face with a stick so hard, he lost half his eyesight.
Hockey players being as badass as hockey players are, he started coaching and playing amateur
hockey in Europe instead of retiring like a sane person. Baxter ended up being one of
the driving forces behind organizing the first international hockey tournament in Paris and
was on his way back home when he boarded the Titanic.
As he was perhaps the most typically Canadian hockey player ever, he had not only his mother
and sister with him but also his lover, a 24-year-old cabaret singer named Berthe Antonine
Mayné who was traveling under an assumed name. When he got his mother, sister, and
would-be bride safely onto the lifeboats, he handed over a silver flask and sent them
on their way. His body was never recovered.
There's nothing about the life and accomplishments of W.T. Stead that isn't amazing, starting
with how he could read both Latin and English when he was 5 years old. Oh, and he almost
single-handedly pioneered the idea of investigative journalism.
The son of a minister, he took his steadfast morals to the streets and, more importantly,
to the pages of London newspapers. In 1885, he rocked polite London society with a four-part
series called "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon," where he exposed London's seedy
underbelly and its world of human trafficking. Not content to just repeat what he'd heard,
Stead went undercover to "purchase" another human, then published all the details on just
how easy it was, and who was involved. He was actually arrested and imprisoned after
the story ran, but his work ultimately led to a change in English law.
Stead believed that journalism should have an end goal, and that it wasn't just about
bringing news to the masses. It was for inciting people to change the world for the better,
a tool for social reform, and a way for people to shape their own government, calling out
injustice and unfairness when they saw it. His work had such a large-scale impact that
he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize more than once, and word on the street was
that he was going to win it in 1912. That was, of course, the year he died on the Titanic,
and his body (like so many others) was never found.
There's a strange postscript, however. In death, he managed to somehow become even more
famous than he was in life, because of a pair of stories he wrote decades earlier that seemed
to predict the Titanic disaster. In one, a ship sinks in the Atlantic with great loss
of life because there aren't enough lifeboats. In the other, a handful of survivors are rescued
from the ocean after their ship strikes an iceberg and sinks.
Francis Millet started out as a drummer boy and surgeon's assistant in the Civil War and
later became a reporter and editor for the Boston Courier. It was his skill as an artist
that got him the most recognition though, and by the time he devoted himself full-time
to his artistic career, he was winning awards and recognition across Europe. Even as he
acted as a war correspondent in the Russo-Turkish and Spanish-American Wars, he painted, observed,
wrote, and collected.
That experience, along with the countless artifacts he brought home with him, led to
him creating some of the most detailed and accurate murals and paintings of the time.
His work is in London's Tate Gallery and New York City's Met, along with government buildings
and churches across the country. His research notes, writings, and stories are in a collection
in the Smithsonian, along with clothing and other artifacts he amassed during his travels
to the Orient, Alaska, and Panama. He helped found Boston's School of the Museum of Fine
Arts, and he was working as the head of a fine arts school in Rome when he headed to
New York aboard Titanic.
Millet wrote perhaps the most scathing description of the ship's passengers in a letter to a
friend, saying in part,
"There are a number of obnoxious, ostentatious American women, the scourge of any place they
infest and worse on shipboard than anywhere."
His remains were later recovered, and he shares a memorial with his good friend, Major Archibald
Butt.
You've heard of Agatha Christie, right? Jacques Futrelle's work is often credited with being
her inspiration — before he died aboard Titanic, he wrote more than 40 stories about
a detective called Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen who, like Sherlock Holmes, was renowned
for thinking around corners and unraveling even the most bizarre of mysteries.
Futrelle already had massive success stateside, and in 1912, he and his wife headed to Europe
to negotiate the European release of his work. While there, they also signed a handful contracts
that would make any writer today willing to sell their soul. The contracts were worth
thousands and, in order to celebrate his newfound global success, they booked passage back home
on the most luxurious ship they could find – Titanic.
As the Titanic was sinking, Futrelle's wife got into one of the lifeboats, only leaving
him because he promised to get into the next one. He never did, however, and witness reports
say he was last seen standing on the deck with John Jacob Astor IV. After his death,
his wife released his final novel, My Lady's Garter, posthumously.
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