Featured in the Gilder Lehrman Collection is a poignant eyewitness account, scribbled on RMS Carpathia stationary, of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Written by Washington Dodge, a first class passenger and one of the few men to survive the sinking, this handwritten testimony gives a unique insight into one of the most infamous maritime accidents in history. 

Unlike Washington Dodge, the majority of the passengers on the luxurious ocean liner were steerage passengers, of which many were immigrants from Europe and Asia looking for a new life in the U.S. The period of 1840-1912 saw a massive increase in immigration into America, due to political and economic pressures in Europe and Asia and the promise of riches in the ‘promised land’. Many of the steerage passengers were women and their children, whose fare had been paid by husbands who had already started to make a life for them in the U.S. Many others were single men looking for work and these men were also represented in the crew of the Titanic itself, another group that suffered great losses. 

Due to this increase in immigration into the U.S. in this period, policies had become stricter. Third class passengers were required to be quarantined to stop the spread of disease, detailed passenger lists were drawn up to assess the eligibility of potential new American citizens and fines were imposed on the ship for unsatisfactory or illegal passengers. Whilst first class passengers had luxurious and roomy staterooms on the top decks, as described in Dodge’s account, the third class were quarantined in the lower decks, with gates that could be shut to prevent them from heading to the top decks. This meant that there were hundreds of passengers housed in small rooms at the bottom of the ship, easily cut off from the safety of the top decks, and unable to effectively assess the situation. Eyewitness accounts tell us that many third class passengers did not get onto the lifeboats simply because they did not reach them in time. 

Dodge describes his actions as he realised the ship was in trouble and recounts what was happening around him. After putting his wife and son on a lifeboat, he helped other women onto another, before he took his chance with some other men and joined the boat. The boat was lowered into the water and they left the sinking ship. Being first class, he had a certain amount of luck that many steerage passengers did not. He was close to the lifeboats and persons of authority. Being top of the social ladder, he had the confidence to question those around him and ascertain the situation, something which eyewitness accounts say many third class passengers did not feel they could do. And, crucially, he was not trapped below decks by corridors and locks and an inability to speak English.

Those who died in the steerage classes on the Titanic represented a large portion of the U.S.’s new population and citizens. Drawn to the bright lights of New York, whole families who often could not speak English and had spent the majority of their life savings on their ticket made the same journey that the first pilgrims had made in the 1600s, in the second major wave of immigration in U.S. history.

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