What new Titanic facts/artifacts discovered since movie?

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What new facts or artififacts have been discovered since the Titanic movie craze began? I heard a Titanic scrapbook sold at auction for $50,000 I'm really curious about its contents.

Crystal

The article.

Sunday April 26 12:52 AM EDT

Titanic memento sells for thousands

ELGIN, Ill., April 25 (UPI) _ A scrapbook made by a witness of the Titanic disaster sold for $50,000 at a Chicago suburban auction.

Riding on the ripples of the blockbuster movie ``Titanic,'' the scrapbook, containing photos of survivors in lifeboats and watercolor paintings of the sinking ship, was auctioned off today at Dunning's Auction Service.

A Chicago doctor put the scrapbook together based on what he witnessed as a passenger aboard the Carpathia, the ocean liner that picked up 705 survivors after the Titanic crashed into an iceberg in 1912.

Frank Blackmarr recorded survivors' accounts of the disaster and compiled them on 60 pages of a three-ring binder, adding his three-word editorial at the end on what caused the accident, ``speed and greed.''

A man found the scrapbook while cleaning out a relative's attic.

An Oakbrook, Ill., firm bought the scrapbook, intending to break it up into pieces to auction off this summer.

-- crystal smithwick (crystal@9v.com), May 01, 1998

Answers

Hello Crystal and Crystal:

I'm on a Titanic-related internet mailing list with a fellow Titanic enthusiast who had an opportunity to go through the Blackmarr album before it was sold. Its contents included a number of signed statements from Titanic survivors, written on board the rescue ship Carpathia (many written on the Carpathia's stationery); two watercolor drawings of the scene, painted by artist Colin Campbell Cooper, a Carpathia passenger; some photos, including a signed photo of Lucille Duff-Gordon; and a letter from WSL president Bruce Ismay to Dr. Blackmarr, thanking him for his help in treating injured survivors.

My friend posted excerpts of some of the survivors statements to our list, none of which had been previously published anywhere. The statements didn't reveal any new details, but are nontheless fascinating and sometimes harrowing reading. It's a shame the collection is going to be broken up. Hopefully the buyers will allow a more thorough review by historians before this occurs.

Cheers!

-- Kip Henry (kip-henry@ouhsc.edu), May 02, 1998.


Kip, you mention extracts of the survivors' records being posted to your Internet list. Did you perhaps save those, and if so, could you post them here? Just a thought...they sound interesting....

ml

-- Mary Lynne Nielsen (m.nielsen@ieee.org), May 04, 1998.


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