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Mary Katherine Backstrom Biography & Facts

A total of 2,240 people sailed on the maiden voyage of the Titanic, the second of the White Star Line's Olympic-class ocean liners, from Southampton, England, to New York City. Partway through the voyage, the ship struck an iceberg and sank in the early morning of 15 April 1912, resulting in the deaths of 1,517 passengers and crew. The ship's passengers were divided into three separate classes determined by the price of their ticket: those travelling in first class, most of them the wealthiest passengers on board, included prominent members of the upper class, businessmen, politicians, high-ranking military personnel, industrialists, bankers, entertainers, socialites, and professional athletes. Second-class passengers were predominantly middle-class travellers and included professors, authors, clergymen, and tourists. Third-class or steerage passengers were primarily immigrants moving to the United States and Canada. First class The Titanic's first-class list was a "who's who" of the prominent upper class in 1912. A single-person berth in first class cost between £30 (equivalent to £3,800 in 2023) and £870 (equivalent to £109,000 in 2023) for a parlour suite and small private promenade deck. First-class passengers enjoyed a number of amenities, including a gymnasium, a squash court, a saltwater swimming pool, electric and Victorian-style Turkish baths, a barbershop, kennels for first-class dogs, elevators, and both open and enclosed promenades. First-class passengers also traveled accompanied by personal staff—valets, maids, nurses and governesses for the children, chauffeurs, and cooks. Many members of the British aristocracy made the trip: The Countess of Rothes, wife of the 19th Earl of Rothes, embarked at Southampton with her parents, Thomas and Clementina Dyer-Edwardes, and cousin Gladys Cherry. Colonel Archibald Gracie IV, a real estate investor and member of the wealthy Scottish-American Gracie family, embarked at Southampton. The Cavendishes of London were among other prominent British couples on board, as well. Lord Pirrie, chairman of Harland and Wolff, intended to travel aboard the Titanic, but illness prevented him from joining the ill-fated voyage; however, White Star Line's managing director J. Bruce Ismay and the ship's Harland and Wolff designer, Thomas Andrews, were both on board to oversee the ship's progress on her maiden voyage. Some of the most prominent members of the American social elite made the trip: 47-year-old real estate builder, businessman, and multimillionaire Colonel John Jacob Astor IV and his 18-year-old pregnant wife Madeleine were returning to the United States for their child's birth. Astor was the wealthiest passenger aboard the ship and one of the richest men in the world; his great-grandfather John Jacob Astor was the first multi-millionaire in North America. Among others were industrialist magnate and millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim; Macy's department store owner, and former member of the United States House of Representatives Isidor Straus, and his wife Ida; George Dennick Wick, founder and president of Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company; millionaire streetcar magnate George Dunton Widener; John B. Thayer, vice president of Pennsylvania Railroad, and his wife, Marian; Charles Hays, president of Canada's Grand Trunk Railway; William Ernest Carter and his wife, American socialite Lucile Carter; millionaire, philanthropist and women's rights activist Margaret Brown; tennis star and banker Karl Behr; famous American silent film actress Dorothy Gibson; prominent Buffalo architect Edward Austin Kent; and President William Howard Taft's military aide, Major Archibald Butt, who was returning to resume his duties after a six-week trip to Europe. Swedish first class passenger and businessman Mauritz Håkan Björnström-Steffansson owned the most highly valued single object on board: a masterpiece of French neoclassical painting entitled La Circassienne au Bain, for which he would later claim US$100,000 in compensation (equivalent to US$3.1 million in 2023). Milton S. Hershey, founder of Hershey's chocolate, made plans to sail aboard the ship's maiden voyage, but cancelled his booking before the ship set sail. J. P. Morgan was also reported to have been planning to make the voyage but changed his plans at the last-minute. Second class Second-class passengers were leisure tourists, academics, members of the clergy, and middle-class English, Scottish and American families. The ship's musicians travelled in second-class accommodations; they were not counted as members of the crew, but were employed by an agency under contract to the White Star Line. The average ticket price for an adult second-class passenger was £13 (equivalent to £1,600 in 2023). and for many of these passengers, their travel experience on the Titanic was akin to travelling first class on smaller liners. Second-class passengers had their own library and the men had access to a private smoking room. Second-class children could read the children's books provided in the library or play deck quoits and shuffleboard on the second-class promenade. Twelve-year-old Ruth Becker passed the time by pushing her two-year-old brother Richard around the enclosed promenade in a stroller provided by the White Star Line. Two Roman Catholic priests on board, Father Thomas Byles and Father Joseph Peruschitz, celebrated mass every day for second- and third-class passengers during the voyage. Father Byles gave his homilies in English, Irish, and French and Father Peruschitz gave his in German and Hungarian. Father Byles reportedly perished in the sinking, performing blessings and last rites for those trapped. On the ship, a Lithuanian priest, Father Juozas Montvila, also perished during the sinking. Rev. John Harper, a well-known Baptist pastor from Scotland, was travelling to the United States with his daughter and sister to preach at the Moody Church in Chicago. Schoolteacher Lawrence Beesley, a science master at Dulwich College, spent much of his time aboard the ship in the library. Two months after the sinking, he wrote and published The Loss of the SS Titanic, the first eyewitness account of the disaster. The Laroche family, father Joseph and daughters Simonne and Louise, were the only known passengers of black ancestry on board the ship. They, along with Joseph's pregnant wife Juliette, were travelling to Joseph's native island of Haiti. Joseph hoped that a move from their former home in Paris back to Haiti, where his uncle Cincinnatus Leconte was president, would take his family away from racial discrimination. Another French family travelling in second class was the Navratils, travelling under the assumed name Hoffman. Michel Navratil, a Slovak-born French tailor, had kidnapped his two young sons, Michel Jr. and Edmond from his estranged wife, assumed the name Charles Hoffman, and boarded the ship in Southampton, intent on taking his children to the United States. Michel Sr. d.... Discover the Mary Katherine Backstrom popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Mary Katherine Backstrom books.