Book Review:
Down with the Old Canoe
by Nick McCormick


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Steven Biel explored what the Titanic disaster meant to Americans in 1912 and what it has meant to generations since in his book, Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster (W.W. Norton and Company, NY, 1997. ISBN 0-393-31676-9 pbk). Authors of Titanica such as Lord, Lynch, Wade, Pellegrino and others discuss the Titanic in terms of the emergence of the modern world- the end of an age of innocence. The sinking is often posed as the ultimate fall from ambivalence and the uninhibited consumption by the very rich whilst exploiting the destitute. Biel suggested that the disaster was “neither catalyst nor cause,” but it did “expose and come to represent anxieties about modernity- about deeper changes” that were occurring regardless of whether an ocean liner struck an iceberg and sank. The thesis of Biel’s book rests upon the notion that Americans understood and responded to the disaster according to concerns they felt, beliefs, ideas, and hopes and dreams that they held before the disaster. Society was transforming from agrarian to industrial, rural to urban, personal to public. The occurrence and aftermath of the Titanic disaster was merely another act in the drama of Western society.

The base alloy of America’s reaction to the Titanic (and ultimately everything she embodied) was anti-modernism personalized for anyone reading the newspaper. What is important for the historian, and for students of Titanica is the fact that the disaster did not occur in a cultural vacuum. The tragedy did not strike a pre-World War America of unity, stability, and peace. April 1912 was a time of conflict, violence, instability, uncertainty, and of intense socio-political concerns. Americans fretted about the “race problem,” the “woman problem,” the “labor problem,” and the “immigration problem.” The nation’s northern cities in particular were filled with “foreigners” competing with unskilled Anglo workers and blacks. The recognition and further exposition of the tumultuous atmosphere of April 1912 is the crowning achievement of Biel’s book. The plethora of Titanica on bookshelves ignores these issues when considering the disaster and its implications upon society. “The Titanic went down in a cultural moment,” Biel wrote, “not an isolated moment but one full of resonances, implications, relations and associations.”

The first chapter entitled, “April 1912,” shed some light upon the events of that fateful month. Biel provided evidence (from the NAACP) for sixty-four lynchings in 1912; all but three victims were African-American. Ten of these occurred in April and May. Two men were lynched on the night of April 14; the night Titanic struck an iceberg. On the same day in May, thousands of women attended John Jacob Astor’s funeral whilst another group of women and men marched in the largest suffrage parade in American history. In San Diego, a labor conflict came to a head when IWW members and law enforcement met with each other over protest and free speech rights. Meanwhile, as the Titanic investigation was carried out in subcommittee, the entire Senate was considering a bill restricting immigration. The prevailing feeling was that the best Eastern Europe had to offer already came ashore; the rest would only degrade American society.

Biel examined the role of gender in the conventional narrative of the disaster, which began to take shape before any survivors were interviewed. Much of the Titanic story has remained unchanged from the early accounts of the disaster. It was assumed that the men traveling first class would act with the utmost heroism and protect the weaker sex of not only their own class, but those who traveled in steerage as well. Their calm and deliberate demeanor expected on shore was also expected at sea by Edwardians. In truth, the only available evidence to any such deliberateness or calm was, as Biel pointed out, the last message from Titanic: “Sinking by the head. Have cleared boats and filled them with women and children.”

What emerged after the disaster was a myth because it located a disturbing event within the routine structures of understanding. This myth is embodied in the series of oppositions it entailed: strength versus weakness; independence versus dependence; intellect versus emotion; public versus private. Biel undertook the task of explaining each opposition and how it was used to promote or destroy social, political, and even religious understanding of the disaster and the present uncertainty in American society. For example, marriage was glorified in the devotion of the Strausses who chose to die together. The perogotive of the affluent was the concept of noblesse oblige, upheld by those men (and it must be done by a man) who gave up their seats in a lifeboat to women of the lower class. They gave their lives so that the wretched might live. Biel was accurate in stressing the “might live” aspect of the last statement because while the noble princes may have stepped back from the lifeboats, the certainty of survival in a poorly equipped lifeboat in the cold, North Atlantic is fair at best. Perhaps they simply chose the least traumatic form of death.

The second and third chapters examined religious reactions and Biel spent considerable print discussing the juxtapositions of Christianity and capitalism. Race also played a part in as much as stories of racial conflict represent society’s fears. Anyone who was not Anglo was deemed inferior in society and likewise did not act with dignity and heroism. Surviving women made references to men in lifeboats being Chinese, Italian, and Armenian. Only a “foreigner” would put on women’s clothes and sneak aboard a lifeboat. Racism is distinctly a form of classism, for these “foreigners” were either stokers or third class passengers, and not from the upper classes.

Biel examined the way in which the disaster was perceived by African Americans, labor activists, and socialists. This rough assemblage of groups experienced struggle throughout the early Twentieth Century, and April 1912 was by no means an exception. It was the timeliness not the timelessness of the disaster that seared itself into American memory, Biel surmised. Disaster happened to strike at a time when the restless society could find ways for the disaster to speak out for and against their cause. Americans in 1912 made it speak to the concerns of contemporary politics, society, and culture. Some pundits have claimed to find transhistorical truths in the disaster; however, “such claims were themselves historically grounded in their own present circumstances and ideological purposes.” Biel concluded his thesis by stating:

No more than any other event was the Titanic inherently memorable. Making rather than finding its significance, people worked and fought to shape how the disaster would, they hope, be remembered.

The second part of the book examined the cultural memory and legacy of the Titanic since World War Two. The first acts of memoriam involved relief funds, statues, and the published accounts of the disaster written by survivors. If the maritime laws had not been changed by the initiative of politicians, seamen would have provided the necessary stimulus for change by striking until the ships made safety provisions for all. Some passengers feared the big liners while others flocked to them in the months after the disaster. Some of the Olympic’s popularity may have been due in part to a sort of “disaster chic” because of her infamous sister.

The commercial possibilities did not emerge until after World War Two, when a new generation had cultural meanings to find in the disaster. Two films, Titanic (1953) and A Night to Remember (1958), brought Titanic into the public’s consciousness and with it the uncertainty of the nuclear age and the Cold War. Some found allegories of technology and doom in the disaster, while others found something new to explore- what would they have done on the sinking ship? It was imperative in the 1950s for men to be the undaunted protector of women and the Titanic was an exercise in chivalry. The Cold War introduced two more shots of adrenaline into the legacy of Titanic. The first was the jet age that replaced the great ocean liners with jumbo jets. People are often fascinated with what they cannot experience and eras that are bygone. Once, ocean liners were a viable, regular, and necessary mode of transportation- the only way to cross. But now they were curiosities, dinosaurs from transportation past. People began to wonder what it would have been like to sail on an ocean liner, and most of all, the great Titanic! The enthusiasts or “buffs” of Titanic were (and still are) seeking to relive a “golden age” and search for what has been lost in this modern age. For many, the remembrance of Titanic is a moral undertaking- a refuge from modernity. For a select group it is a way of life to study, though they do not perform reenactments as Civil War buffs do. The mastery of Titanica at its peak is a path to authority and simulates a profession with journals, conventions, and conflicts. Biel devoted considerable type examining the meanings and actions of “buffdom.”

The Cold War also introduced key technologies that allowed humans to explore the depths of the oceans. It was simply a matter of time before someone successfully pieced together deep-sea vehicles, money, and a passion for the Titanic. Biel saw the quest to discover the Titanic wreck as a way of overcoming what was considered to be the feminism of the Carter administration and the loss in Vietnam. The failure to consummate the Titanic’s voyage stood for an imperiled masculinity. Finding the ship and possibly raising the wreck would combat this loss of masculinity. America needed all the testosterone it could get in the face of the Cold War.

Biel viewed Ballard’s discovery as a triumphalist story from Reagan’s America. Within this thesis, Biel worked gender into the equation by quoting from Ballard and publications. Such phrases as “an ending to the unfinished maiden voyage” and Ballard’s goal of “penetrating the ship” support the masculine desire of the consummation of a virgin. According to Biel, Ballard was a “disappointed lover” after seeing the state of decay of the ship during his 1986 expedition. Through masculine (American) intervention, men turned tragedy into triumph. Ballard as the “submarine cowboy” and “explorer” was the penultimate male hero and his efforts were an exploit of Reaganomics and capitalism. He was exploring a frontier and profiting from it. Ballard spoke volumes about conservation- of the Titanic and the oceans, but in his capitalist nature, he developed and sold his technology to the military and oil companies; the most exploitive of entities! Biel was the first to remark that this exploitation of the discovery simply followed the rhetoric to its logical conclusion. For Cold War America, the redemption of Titanic’s failure was also redemption of America through military technology. Ballard’s expedition of discovery was simply part of the Reagan-era defense buildup.

Biel demonstrated how Titanic’s meanings have been made and not found within a variety of historical contexts. After the discovery, the sobering narrative of tragedy and loss was morphed into a celebration of progress and victory. The morals of overconfidence in technology seemed to be reinforced by Challenger disaster, another result of technological failure and receiver of widespread media attention. In light of this, popular history sought to show that technological success had redeemed technological failure so that the story of Titanic could achieve a happy ending of sorts.

Biel sought to show how a historical event has been “worked and reworked in a series of presents- how its meanings are contingent and contextual rather than inherent or timeless.” The Titanic has permeated into cultural memory in a myriad of ways and has become not only a marketable commodity but also a figure of speech and a household name. It has been used in conversation, in sermons, and political debates ever since the first headlines made the newsstand. While explorations of the wreck reveal new facts and have changed some of the accepted accounts of the disaster, much of the original story developed in April 1912 has remained unchanged. Be it factual information, sworn affidavit, or outright lie, the story that developed has become fact through sheer repetition.

It is rumored that the three subjects most written about are Jesus, the Civil War, and the Titanic. While there may be only a granule truth to that rumor, the attraction and appeal of the Titanic are undeniable. The Titanic will remain in reach of America’s cultural memory as long as it remains relevant and as enthusiasts continue to refine their art. Perhaps the Titanic will remain imbedded in the cultural consciousness because, as Biel concluded, it “begs for resolution and always resists it.”

Nick McCormick
Roosevelt University
June 2004