Ince Titanic was considered the most luxurious ship in the world, it is not surprising that some of those who died essentially comprised a “who’s who’ financial, social and artistic worlds.
The wealthiest person aboard was 47-year-old John Jacob Astor IV. The great-grandson and namesake of a man who had earned both fame and enormous fortune first in the fur trade and then in real estate investments in New York City, Astor had taken over the management of his family’s New York properties while still in his mid-twenties. He made large sums from owning overcrowded and run-down tenements that were rented to immigrants, but he also profited from building offices, apartment buildings and hotels. In 1897, he financed the Astoria Hotel adjoining his cousin’s Waldorf Hotel, and the new complex became world-famous as the Waldorf-Astoria. Astor also wrote science fiction, invented mechanical devices and served in the military long enough to reach the rank of colonel.
Another prominent military figure aboard Titanic was Major Archibald Butt. He was originally a journalist, through which he gained many contacts in Washington, leading in turn to him being appointed as first secretary of the American Embassy in Mexico. In 1898, during the Spanish—American War, he joined the army as a lieutenant. In the next eight years, he served in the Philippines and Cuba before becoming a military aid to President Theodore Roosevelt and then to his successor, William Howard Taft. Suffering ill health in early 1912, Butt holidayed in Europe for six weeks — travelling for part of it with the artist Francis Millet - before the two boarded Titanic.
Like Astor, 50-year-old George Widener came from a wealthy background. His father had been a founding partner of the hugely successful Philadelphia Traction Company and was on the board of Fidelity Trust, the bank that controlled
IMMC, owner of the White Star Line. The younger Widener eventually took charge of the Philadelphia Traction Company and oversaw the development of lucrative cable and electric streetcar operations. A patron of the arts, he lived at Lynnewood Hall, a 110-room French classical-style mansion outside Philadelphia. Although Widener’s wife, Eleanor, survived, Widener and their 27-year-old son, Harry, did not.
Like Madeleine Astor and Eleanor Widener, Pennsylvania steel millionaire Arthur Ryerson’s wife Emily boarded Lifeboat 4, and like the others, she lost her husband. The Ryersons had been visiting Europe when they learned of the accidental death of their son, Arthur Jr. Wishing to hurry home, they booked passage on Titanic. Unbeknown to them, a distant cousin, William E Ryerson, was also aboard as a dining saloon steward; he survived the tragedy.
ABOVE: Major Archibald Butt began his career in journalism as a reporter for the Louiseville Courier-Journal. While an officer in the US army, he served in the Philippines and Cuba.
World History
