Harper's Weekly Titanic Issues
DESCRIPTION
This three-part collection of Harper's Weekly issues (Vol. LVI No. 2887 Part I & Vol. LVI No. 2888 Parts 1 & 2), published in the days following the sinking of the RMS Titanic, presents firsthand survivor accounts of the disaster, photographs documenting the rescue, and a spectacular two-page spread featuring L.A. Shafer's illustrated rendering of the tragedy.
Eyewitness Accounts of the Titanic Disaster
While the front covers of No. 2887 and No. 2888 Part I feature striking photographs of the Titanic's hopeful departure and a lifeboat of survivors moments before boarding the rescue ship Carpathia, the most substantial coverage appears in No. 2888 Part II. This seven-page feature, "The 'Titanic' Disaster: A Detailed and Exclusive Narrative by One of the Survivors. Illustrated with Photographs Taken by Passengers Aboard the 'Carpathia,'" presents a firsthand account of the sinking alongside photographs documenting the rescue. Included are images of lifeboats being hoisted aboard the already crowded Carpathia, survivors gathering on deck and sharing their experiences, Captain R.H. Rostron posed heroically, and the emotional reception awaiting passengers upon their arrival in New York.
More Than the Titanic
Though the loss of the luxury liner is the dominant focus and principal source of these issues' appeal, their additional contents provide a broader snapshot of the era. Also included are reports on labor unrest among striking miners in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, an article titled "How the Strange Pictures of the 'Futurists' Brought Artistic Paris Almost to Blows," and a striking full-page portrait of Clara Barton commemorating the recent death of the famed founder of the American Red Cross.
Taken together, these issues do far more than report that the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank. They preserve one of the earliest and most influential contemporary accounts of the disaster while capturing the social, political, and cultural landscape of the world it forever changed.
CONDITION
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