TITANIC Interact with the Text

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History is filled with amazing stories—and each of those stories depends on the teller’s perspective. In the Viewpoints and Perspectives series, each book explores the context, significance, and details of major historic events and periods through the eyes of three very different people. Compelling, fact-based point of view narratives help readers VIEWPOINTS ON discover the ways varied backgrounds and experience can lead to differing perspectives.

Inquiry-based sidebars encourage readers to think critically about historical events and VIEWPOINTS ON THE SINKING OF TITANIC interact with the text. THE SINKING OF THE Books in this Series Viewpoints on the Attack on Pearl Harbor Viewpoints on the Dust Bowl Viewpoints on the Battle of Bunker Hill Viewpoints on the Oregon Trail and Westward Expansion THE TITANIC Viewpoints on the Battle of Gettysburg Viewpoints on the Sinking of the Titanic Viewpoints on the Boston Tea Party Viewpoints on the Underground Railroad

COMMON CORE ACTIVITIES This book encourages you to read and think critically about its content. To guide your reading, this book includes notes that help build understanding and skills outlined in the Common Core State Standards. Look for the following callouts throughout: Think About It: The activities in this section ask you to interact with the book’s content in ways required by the Common Core State Standards. You might be asked to identify and examine a main idea or discuss surprising facts. Analyze This: These sidebars ask you to compare or contrast two or more of the narratives in the book to discover how they are similar or different. Second Source: These sections prompt you to find another source on this topic and compare the information there to the information in this book.

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THE SINKING OF THE THE TITANIC

z Part of the Perspectives Library z

KRISTIN J. RUSSO Published in the United States of America by Cherry Lake Publishing Ann Arbor, Michigan www.cherrylakepublishing.com

Reading Adviser: Marla Conn MS, Ed., Literacy specialist, Read-Ability, Inc.

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2 Table of Contents

In this book, you will read about the RMS Titanic’s sinking from three perspectives. Each perspective is based on real things that happened to real people who were aboard the ship. As you’ll see, the same event can look different depending on one’s point of view.

Chapter 1...... 4 Mrs. Rhoda Abbott: Third Class Passenger

Chapter 2...... 18 Eva Hart: Second Class Passenger

Chapter 3...... 32 Mr. Jacob Astor: Property and Real Estate Developer, First Class Passenger

Timeline...... 44

Look, Look Again...... 46

Glossary...... 47

Learn More...... 47

Index...... 48

About the Author...... 48

3 1

Mrs. Rhoda Abbott Third Class Passenger

I was born and raised in England, you see. I did not move to the United States until I was a young woman. I married a man from London, and we started our life in Providence, Rhode Island, but it never felt like home. When my life grew difficult, I grew homesick and decided to sail home and live with my widowed mother. I needed comfort and security. I tell you all this so that you will

4 know. I understand homesickness, truly I do. Think about It And that is why I made the Determine the main point of the first paragraph and pick out one most terrible decision of piece of evidence that supports it. my life. My marriage ended in 1911. Stanton was a good man in the beginning. Oh, and what charisma he had. He was a champion too! He was the United States middleweight boxing champion. What strength, what energy he had! Our boys, Rossmore and Eugene, were the joys of our life together. But we couldn’t make it work. In the end, we both decided to separate. It’s hard for a woman to make it on her own, and I had my boys to consider. Oh! And I was so homesick. My father had died, and my mother needed company. It made the most sense for everyone for me to return home to England. At first, it seemed as though we would thrive. I became a seamstress, and Rossmore learned boot

5 making and even considered becoming a jeweler. Eugene was still a schoolboy and had not decided on a career quite yet. But now my boys were homesick. They missed their lives in the United States. They missed their family and friends. I understood their homesickness, and I hated to see them suffer. I decided to sail back to the United States. On April 10, 1912, the three of us boarded the Titanic in Southampton, England. Money was tight, and I had to purchase three tickets, so we took third class accommodations. Originally, we purchased passage on the SS Philadelphia. Due to a coal strike, the Philadelphia did not sail, and we were happy to be offered berths on the Titanic, even if they were third class accommodations. Third class is also called steerage class. Passengers’ cabins are so low in the ship, they are near the cables that move the steering rudders. I felt like steerage leaving my home. I felt very low. But my

6 The RMS Olympic, built alongside the Titanic, had a similar design using watertight doors and hatches that was meant to make it “unsinkable.”

7 boys were as happy as I had ever seen them, and I felt I was doing the right thing. Oh! How wrong I was!

SOS

The Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14. At 12:15 a.m. on April 15, Captain Smith ordered one of the ship’s officers to calculate the exact position of the ship. Then he had the ship’s radio operator tap out the first distress signal in Morse code. By the time the ship sank, 70 messages were sent back and forth between the Titanic and other ships in the area. Ships of several nationalities started to come to the aid of the Titanic. But the ship that was the closest to the Titanic, the SS Californian, did not receive the distress messages. Its radio operator was asleep.

8 Only 24 percent of Third Class passengers survived the sinking. Second Class passengers had a 42 percent survival rate, and 61 percent of First Class passengers survived.

9 Look, Look Again

Take a close look at this illustration of the sinking of the Titanic and answer the following questions: 1. How would a mother who had lost sight of her children describe this scene? What would the woman, who had been pulled from the water into the safety of a lifeboat, think when looking at this scene? 2. What would a little girl who was separated from both of her parents see in this picture? What would she think of the other passengers that she could see were in the water? What would she want to do? Why? 3. What would a man who was used to a life of luxury think about this scene, knowing he would not be allowed on a lifeboat? How would he feel to be separated from his family?

46 Glossary chaos (KAY-oss) disorder and confusion scandalous (SKAN-dl-us) dishonorable or culinary (KUHL-uh-ner-ee) having to do with improper cooking squash (SKWASH) a game in which two gangplank (GANG-plangk) a moveable ramp players use rackets to hit a small, soft rubber people use to board or leave a ship ball against the walls of a closed court penetrate (PEN-ih-treyt) to force a way superstitious (soo-per-STISH-uhs) believing through in things that are irrational or cannot be proven perish (PEHR-ish) to suffer death in a sudden or untimely way turbine (TUR-bahyn) a machine that produces continuous power premonition (prem-uh-NISH-uhn) a strong feeling that something unpleasant is going to uncouth (uhn-KOOTH) lacking happen sophistication or good manners promenade (prom-uh-NAHD) a place created undertow (UHN-der-toh) a strong current for public walking that causes a hazard to swimmers

Learn More

Further Reading Websites Price, Sean. Passengers of the Titanic: Stories of Survivors Traveling on an Ill-Fated Ship. North https://www.biography.com/news/titanics- Mankato, MN: Capstone Press, 2015. 100th-anniversary-6-survivor- Sabol, Stephanie. What Was the Titanic? stories-20799733 New York: Penguin Workshop, 2018. This website explains more about what Zullo, Allan. Titanic Young Survivors. happened to survivors after the tragic New York: Scholastic, 2012. sinking. The Titanic https://www.britannica.com/topic/Titanic This website describes the construction, sailing, and sinking of the RMS Titanic.

47 Index

Andrews, Thomas, 33, 34, 39, 45 Morse code, 8

Brown, Margaret Tobin, 40 New York, 21, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37

Carpathia, 16, 17, 30 Olympic, 7

England, 4, 5, 6, 19, 21, 44 Philadelphia, 6, 18

icebergs, 8, 12, 13, 41, 45 Smith, Captain Edward John, 8, 15, 34, 35, 36, 45 lifeboats, 14, 15, 17, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, SOS, 8 31, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46 life jackets, 12, 26 tickets, 6, 28

About the Author

Kristin J. Russo is a university English lecturer. She loves teaching, reading, writing, and learning new things. She and her husband live near Providence, Rhode Island, in a small house surrounded by flower gardens. They have three grown children and three rescue dogs.

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