R E S O U R C E L I B R A R Y A RT I C L E Titanic Losses The "Unsinkable Molly Brown" itemizes what, exactly, went down with the ship. G R A D E S 6 - 12+ S U B J E C T S Social Studies, Economics C O N T E N T S 3 Images, 1 PDF For the complete documents with media resources, visit: http://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/titanic-losses/ Margaret Tobin Brown was one of the most famous survivors of the Titanic. Brown was a wealthy, first-class passenger returning to the United States after a long trip to Egypt and Western Europe. (She and her husband, an engineer for a gold-mining company, made their fortune in the "boom town" of Denver, Colorado.) In this insurance claim, Brown lists (itemizes) all her valuable possessions that went down with the Titanic. With this claim, she is asking the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, Limited (the owners of the Titanic) for a grand total of $27,887 as compensation for her losses. The claim, filed in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1913, demonstrates the Titanic disaster did not stop Brown from international travel! Margaret Brown did not spend most of her time outside the United States, however. She became a powerful voice for woman suffrage and labor reform, and twice ran for U.S. Senate in the state of Colorado. A fanciful musical based on her life was called The Unsinkable Molly Brown. (She was never called Molly in her lifetime.) Fast Facts Margaret Brown claimed a Titanic loss of $27,887 in 1913. Adjusted for inflation (as of April 2018), her claims come to $693,549. The most financially valuable item Brown lost on the Titanic was a necklace, valued at $20,000. Today, it would be worth $497,400.04. The least-valuable items claimed by Brown were two pairs of slippers, valued at $16, or $8 a pair. That sounds fairly reasonable. However, today those slippers would cost $397.92, or $198.96 a pair. Margaret Brown's claim was far from the most extensive submitted by Titanic survivors. Charlotte Cardeza, a Pennsylvania textile heiress, itemized $177,352.75 in a 21-page claim. Adjusted for inflation, that's more than $4 million. ($4,410,763.26) Margaret Brown was probably the first philanthropist to raise money for destitute Titanic survivors and families of the victims. She began raising funds as soon as she boarded the Carpathia, the ship that raced to rescue Titanic survivors. By the time the Carpathia docked in New York City, Brown had raised $10,000—that's $248,700.02, adjusted for inflation. Vocabulary Part of Term Definition Speech boom town noun urban area that grows very rapidly due to economic opportunity. compensationnoun fee or money paid for goods, services, debt, loss, injury, or suffering. destitute adjectivevery poor. person who plans the building of things, such as structures engineer noun (construction engineer) or substances (chemical engineer). fund verb to give money to a program or project. person who inherits property or money following the death of the heir noun property owner. inflation noun increase in the price of goods and services. money paid in good health to guarantee financial or physical health if insurance noun injury or damage occurs. labor noun work or employment. mining noun process of extracting ore from the Earth. philanthropistnoun person who donates money, goods, or services to those in need. textile noun cloth or other woven fabric. Part of Term Definition Speech Titanic noun luxury cruise ship that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1912. woman noun right of women to vote. suffrage Articles & Profiles Titanic Artifacts Caught in International Tug-of-War Audio & Video Titanic Stories: The Oh So Famous Titanic Survivor Molly Brown Interactives Bureau of Labor Statistics: Inflation Calculator © 1996–2021 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved..