The Unknown Dogs of the Titanic

We all know the epic love story of Jack and Rose in James Cameron’s Titanic (currently being reshown in theaters everywhere). But do you know the stories of the 12 dogs that boarded to RMS Titanic, only 3 of which survived?  Not many do, that was until now, thanks to one professor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and news of his exhibit which has gone viral.

April 10^th, 1912 marked the departure of the RMS Titanic on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York in the United States.  April 15^th, 2012 marked the 100^th anniversary of the tragic day when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.  The Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time, able to carry 2,435 passengers and 892 crew members.   While the ship was the highest standard in luxury and comfort it was also equipped with advanced safety features, such as remotely activated watertight doors.  Despite this and other state-of-the-art safety measures, the ship lacked one pertinent safety feature – carrying enough lifeboats for the number of passengers on board.  As a result of this and other issues, such as the lifeboat not being filled to capacity, of the 2,223 people on that voyage 1,514 lost their lives. 

When you think of the Titanic you think of the great tragedy that befell its passengers and all of the lives that were needlessly lost.  What many people have never heard about (and probably never even thought about) was that there were 12 dogs aboard the ship and an onboard kennel to care for them.   An exhibit at Widener University, located in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hopes to change all that by focusing part of its latest Titanic exhibit on the stories of the 12 dogs (4 of which belonged to Philadelphia families) who made that fateful voyage.  

The exhibit at Widener University is produced and curated by J. Joseph Edgette, Ph.D., professor emeritus of education and folklorist emeritus at Widener and an authority on the Titanic.  “There is such a bond between people and their pets. For many, they are considered to be family members,” Edgette says, “I don’t think any Titanic exhibit has examined that relationship and recognized those loyal family pets that also lost their lives on the cruise.”

Of the 12 dogs aboard the ship only 3 survived. “All surviving dogs were small and were kept in the first-class cabins of their owners,” said Edgette.  And while the remaining 9 dogs that perished were taken well care of in the onboard kennel, their owners could not get to them in time to rescue them. 

One of the 3 dogs that survived included Lady, a Pomeranian puppy owned by Margaret Hays of New York City.  She wrapped the puppy in a blanket so the crew assumed it was a baby and allowed her to carry it on to the lifeboat.  The second dog to survive was Sun Yat-sen, a Pekinese owned by Henry and Myra Harper (of Harper & Row Publishing fame), also of New York City.  The third dog to survive was another small Pomeranian owned by Elizabeth Rothschild from Watkins Glen, New York. 

Two of the dogs that were lost with the Titanic belonged to William Carter, a coal magnate from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  His children were very worried about their pets but William assured his daughter Lucy and son Billy that their King Charles spaniel and Airedale would be alright and encouraged his children to get into the lifeboats. The family survived but the dogs did not.  (According to Edgette, the 1912 Renault replica, used for the love scene between Jack and Rose in James Cameron’s Titanic, was based on the car owned by the Carters).

 Two other Airedales, named Kitty and Airedale, belonging to John Jacob Astor IV and his wife, perished along with their master, John.  Another lost pup was Dog, a Fox Terrier belonging to William Dulles, an attorney from Philadelphia. 

Of these heart-breaking stories, perhaps the most tragic is that of Ann Elizabeth Isham.  After living abroad for nine years, Ann boarded the Titanic to visit her brother in New York for the summer.  During the sinking of the Titanic, Ann was already in a lifeboat but got out to go rescue her Great Dane.  She never returned to the lifeboats and a few days later her body was found in the water still holding on to her cherished dog.

The Titanic exhibit not only spotlights the four-legged family members and their owners onboard, it also tells the stories of the 68 Philadelphia families aboard the ship (including 3 members of the Widener family, for whom the Widener University is named), as well as information about the ship’s builders, recovering the bodies after the ship sunk, how local families have commemorated their lost loved ones, and the impact this tragedy has had on popular culture.  The exhibit is now open and free to the public until May 12^th.