19 April 1912: Legislating Lifeboats "might save many others"

On this day in 1912, as Congress began its official inquiry into the Titanic disaster, the Athens Banner editorial staff came out in favor of lifeboat legislation:

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Senator William Alden Smith of Michigan began to subpoena White Star Line executives and surviving crew members the day the Carpathia docked in New York with the survivors of the disaster. He would spend six weeks on the investigation, and regulations involving lifeboats, ship construction, ice monitoring, and the Radio Act of 1912 were the result. Similar regulations were passed by Great Britain, and later other nations around the world.




Learn More:

• Athens Banner, Apr. 1912 - Jun. 1912 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Historic Newspaper Archive collection in the Digital Library of Georgia.
• Building the Titanic: An Epic Tale of the Creation of History's Most Famous Ocean Liner by Rod Green in the general collection.
• Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic by Steven Biel in the general collection.
• Titanic Legacy: Disaster as Media Event and Myth by Paul Heyer in the general collection.
• Her Name, Titanic: The Untold Story of the Sinking and Finding of the Unsinkable Ship by Charles Pellegrino in the general collection.
• Lost Voices from the Titanic: The Definitive Oral History by Nick Barratt in the general collection.
• Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessop Who Survived Both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters by Violet Jessop in the general collection.
• Titanic: 100 Years on the National Georgraphic website.