A few people came to my www.tighsolas.ca. website, about a Canadian family in 1908-1913, looking up 'fashions worn on the Titanic'.
Hmm. I thought. That's likely a school kid. Anyone else would write "Edwardian Fashion."
So it starts. As we approach the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking, teachers are beginning to use the event as a 'teachable moment.'
Now, this happened in 1997, with the release of the Cameron movie Titanic.
My youngest son was 8 and he became obsessed. As it happens, we visited Halifax that summer and he walked with his Dad to the Titanic cemetery, I remember.
The movie is still fun to watch and in large part because of the beautiful fashions. (Well, and the beautiful lead actors.)
The Tighsolas letters from 1912 mention the Titanic of course.
First Mother Margaret writes her husband Norman: "Isn't it dreadful, the Titanic?"
Norman writes back (and I paraphase, "Yes, so many important people to do down. but they'll all be replaced in time."
Then Norman writes, "I don't believe a thing I read about the Titanic. All the stories contradict each other."
Edith attends a memorial in the American Presbyterian Church for Charles Hays, the Montreal based American President of the Grand Trunk.
There's mention of this in my ebook Threshold Girl, along with many pictures of beautiful Titanic Era Fashions. www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf.
It's a draft and I think I will add a bit. In May 1912 Edith and Flo go to a meeting of the Montreal Council of Women to hear a suffragette speak at St. James Methodist.
I think I will have them sign a 'book of condolences' for Titanic victims as they leave.
Some other prominent Montrealers went down with the Titanic, including Harry Hartland Molson, who was considered a leading Canadian businessman.
The Molsons were Unitarians, I read. Some of them, anyway.
But also Hudson Allison, with McConnell, part of the Methodist Mafia. He went down with wife and child. Perfect!
So, I have an ideal question for teachers to give students on this anniverary of the Titanic sinking.
Calculate how many shirtwaists went down with the Titanic.
Shirtwaists were tailored blouses worn by mostly working class women.
Hmm.
A loaded question. A student would have to think hard and deep to answer it.
As it happens, there were middle class passengers on the Titanic, although the movie would have you believe there were rich and poor only. Second class you know.
Indeed, the McCoys, friends of the Nicholons, sailed for Europe on the day or the day after the Titanic sank. They brought Marion back a gift from Paris. Not a shirtwaist, but a blouse.
So Marion writes, "Imagine me wearing a real Parisienne blouse."
In my book about Marion (not even plotted yet) I think I will have them visit a little shop of rue de Cambon, run by Coco Chanel.
