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11/13/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 11/13/2024 16:19

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition Comes to Boston

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition Comes to Boston

Photos courtesy of Iceberg Events, LLC

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Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition Comes to Boston

See recovered items from the wreck site and explore the ship's tragic story in this new interactive traveling exhibition

November 13, 2024
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When the RMS Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage April 10, 1912, it was the largest passenger ship in the world and deemed unsinkable, a description that sadly would be proven wrong. More than a century after the Titanic's first, and final, voyage, the public's fascination with the world's most famous ocean liner only increases.

In mid October, Boston welcomed Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, a traveling museum-quality show that's been traveling the world since 2003. Showing at the Saunders Castle at Park Plaza, the exhibition contains more than 200 actual artifacts from the shipwreck, all recovered in a series of daring underwater expeditions by the RMS Titanic Inc. (RMST), the only company legally authorized to explore the wreck. Since 1985, RMST has conducted nine expeditions to the seafloor, the most recent last summer.

Entering the exhibition, visitors are handed a replica boarding pass with the name and details of a real Titanic passenger, whose fate remains a mystery until the end of the exhibition. During my visit, I stepped into the shoes of David John Barton, a 22-year-old from a tiny town near Cambridge, England, who was traveling to Rochester, N.Y., for a new job at the Kodak Company. He had planned to depart for the United States sooner with several of his friends, but had failed the routine medical inspection that such a long voyage required at the time. Barton was traveling alone in third class.

With Barton's story in mind, I entered the exhibition, which combines unique artifacts with real-size replicas of different parts of the ship. There are passenger cabins, one of the ship's boilers, a Davit Crane arm used to launch lifeboats into the water, and most famously, the ship's iconic grand staircase, which I immediately recognized from its appearance in James Cameron's 1997 Oscar-winning blockbuster Titanic. It truly felt like stepping into the film. I almost expected Rose to descend the stairs to Jack, awaiting her at the bottom, hand outstretched.

The first room explores the ideation and construction of the ship. On display are the ship's original blueprints, a detailed miniature replica of the Titanic (the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners for White Star Line), and biographies of influential figures in the ship's history, like chief naval architect and Titanic designer Thomas Andrews, Jr. When the Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, it was deemed the largest passenger ship in the world and a feat of engineering by shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff, I learned.

As visitors witness firsthand, the sheer size of the ship, though overwhelming, paled in comparison to the decadence of its interior. Visitors can view personal effects retrieved from the ship's wreckage, like a silver-plated pocket watch and a gold locket, as well as a life-size re-creation of the ship's first-class cabins, which rivaled those of world-class hotels. A first-class ticket on the Titanic would have cost $2,500 at the time (approximately $57,200 today), with an additional fee to use the ship's squash court, gymnasium, and Turkish baths.

I was particularly fascinated by the inside look into what dining on the Titanic had been like for passengers of different classes, with full menus on display. A third-class passenger subsisted on rice soup and roast beef, while a first-class ticket bought you corned ox tongue and custard pudding. (To truly eat like a first class passenger, head to Davio's steakhouse in Back Bay, whose chefs have re-created the ship's first-class dinner in a three-course prix fixe menu, in collaboration with the exhibition. Corned ox tongue is fortunately absent from the menu.)

A photo from the exhibition of the second class deck of the Titanic.

The exhibit ends in the Iceberg Gallery, where visitors learn about the somber events of the night of April 14, 1912, when the Titanic collided with a massive iceberg that punctured its hull, causing the ship to sink. Approximately 1,500 of the ship's 2,240 passengers died in the tragic accident, many of whom found themselves stranded in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic because of the limited number of lifeboats aboard the vessel. And several of those lifeboats were saved for first-class passengers. I was encouraged to touch a slab of ice in the center of the room, which is kept at 28 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of the ocean waters at the time the Titanic sank. I was barely able to keep my hand on it for more than a second because of the unbearable cold.

Guests can also touch a recovered piece of the Titanic's starboard hull (the right side of the vessel), the exhibition's only authentic artifact not sealed within a glass case. Another cool part was learning about the impressive discovery of the ship's wreckage, which remained lost-over two miles below the ocean's surface-for 73 long years.

At the end of the experience, guests can scan their boarding passes and discover the fate of the passenger whose life they assumed as they wandered the exhibition. When I scanned my boarding pass, I was saddened to discover that David John Barton did not survive his voyage on the Titanic. He was never able to join his friends in America or take his job at the Kodak Company. The experience was sobering, a powerful reminder of the sheer number of lives lost in this tragedy, a theme repeated many times throughout the exhibition.

That's a contrast to other parts of the exhibition, though, like the decked-out gift shop. It was stocked with every Titanic-themed piece of memorabilia you can imagine and it left me with an uneasy feeling. I couldn't help but contemplate the oddity of such a massive loss of life becoming such an icon in popular culture, the subject of fictional interpretations and conspiracy theories to this day.

I much preferred the aspects of the exhibition that focused on individual victims-their stories, their passions, and what they lost on the Titanic.

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition is at Boston's Saunders Castle at Park Plaza through February 2, 2025. Purchase tickets, starting at $39.50, here.

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