In the movie Titanic they make a big deal out of the class inequality aboard the ship.
The wealthy class was taken care of and given preferential treatment when it came to lifeboats and safety as the Titanic was sinking.
That’s what it was like during the actual events too. The only difference between the movie and real life is that no one seemed to care about the Third Class passengers during the sinking of the ship or in the coverage of the incident after the fact.
The unwritten rule was if the ship goes down it’s women and children first. That was mostly true but not for everyone.
There was a higher loss rate for Third Class children than First Class men on the ship. Just four women in First Class died, and three were by choice (to stay with their husbands). On the other hand, 15 Second Class and 81 Third Class women died. Just one child out of the First and Second Class didn’t make it out alive but 23 out of the 76 children in Third Class perished.
The sinking of the Titanic obviously attracted a lot of interest from the public and the press. However, few reporters bothered asking Third Class survivors anything about their experience.
Congress held inquiries about how the Titanic sank but they didn’t care about the lower class citizens either. Despite accounts from survivors that people in the lower rungs of the ship were kept from going on the boat deck, legislators didn’t look into the matter during their investigation.
British officials declared they couldn’t find a trace of discrimination against Third Class passengers. They didn’t bother interviewing any of the Third Class passengers who survived.
This wasn’t some grand conspiracy. It was simply how things worked in those days. Even the Third Class passengers themselves expected to be treated differently.
Walter Lord wrote about this phenomenon in his excellent book, A Night to Remember:
Even the Third Class passengers weren’t bothered. They expected class distinction as part of the game. Olaus Abelseth, at least, regarded access to the Boat Deck as a privilege that went with First and Second Class passage … even when the ship was sinking. He was satisfied as long as they let him stay above decks.
This is hard to believe by today’s standards, but that’s just the way things were back then. The wealthy class was not only treated differently, they were the celebrities of the day in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Lord explains:
The Titanic was also the last stand of wealth and society in the center of public affection. In 1912 there were no movie, radio or television stars; sports figures were still beyond the pale; and café society was completely unknown. The public depended on socially prominent people for all the vicarious glamour that enriches drab lives.
This preoccupation was fully appreciated by the press. When the Titanic sailed, the New York Times listed the prominent passengers on the front page. After she sank, the New York American broke the news on April 16 with a lead devoted almost entirely to John Jacob Astor; at the end it mentioned that 1,800 others were also lost.
We have wealth inequality in today’s day and age but it’s hard to believe how much worse things were back then:
The 190 families in First Class were attended by 23 handmaids, eight valets, and assorted nurses and governesses–entirely apart from hundreds of stewards and stewardesses. These personal servants had their own lounge on C Deck, so that no one need suffer the embarrassment of striking up a conversation with some handsome stranger, only to find he was Henry Sleeper Harper’s dragoman.
Or take the survivors’ arrival in New York. Mrs. Astor was met by two automobiles, carrying two doctors, a trained nurse, a secretary and Vincent Astor. Mrs. George Widener was met not by automobile but by a special train–consisting of a private Pullman, another car for ballast, and a locomotive. Mrs. Charles Hays was met by a special train too, including two private cars and two coaches.
Lord concludes that the Titanic was the end of an era for the disgustingly rich class:
The Titanic effectively ended this way of life. It never was the same again. First the war, then the income tax, made sure of that.
This may seem hard to believe given the state of inequality today.
In America the top 10% control two-thirds of all the wealth. The top 1% hold nearly one-third of all the wealth while the top 1% of the top 1% (the top 0.1%) has almost 14% of all the money.
Some people think inequality is the root of all our problems.
Others assume without wealth inequality we wouldn’t see as much progress and innovation.
However you feel about it, this likely isn’t something that goes away.
Inequality has always been a feature, not a bug, of the system in which we operate.
It’s been this way for a long time.
Further Reading:
How Bad is Wealth Inequality in America?