Titanic stops off in France and Ireland to pick up more passengers, and wine. Economic migrants from Sweden and the Middle East come on board, setting out for a new life in America. Dinner is served, as Titanic’s very own ‘ice man’ helps out with cocktails and desserts. And the passengers settle down to their first night at sea. But one woman - wracked with dread - has no intention of sleeping… A Noiser podcast production. Narrated by Paul McGann. Featuring Josyann Abisaab, Stephanie Barczewski, Ray Hanania, Veronica Hinke, Clifford Ismay, Tim Maltin, Claes-Göran Wetterholm. Special thanks to Southampton Archives, Culture and Tourism for the use of the Eva Hart archive. Visit SeaCity Museum for an interactive experience of the Titanic story (seacitymuseum.co.uk) Written by Duncan Barrett | Produced by Miriam Baines and Duncan Barrett | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design & audio editing by Miri Latham | Assembly editing by Dorry Macaulay | Compositions by Oliver Baines and Dorry Macaulay | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw | Recording engineer: Joseph McGann | Nautical consultant: Aaron Todd. Get every episode of Titanic: Ship of Dreams two weeks early, as well as ad-free listening, by joining Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who were the Lebanese migrants boarding the Titanic at Cherbourg?
It's March 1912. We're in Thoum, a village in rural Lebanon, 30 miles north of Beirut. It's a serene spot, dotted with olive and almond trees. The village is perched on the easternmost edge of the Mediterranean. There are spectacular views across the sea towards Cyprus. But the four men and two women gathered in Thun today are looking a lot further west than that.
They're at the start of an epic 6,000 mile journey. A journey only some of them will survive. It begins in time-honored fashion. On the back of a donkey. Trekking slowly up the coast by day. Sleeping in tents by the side of the road at night. In Beirut, they board a freighter that will take them across the Mediterranean, all the way to the south coast of France.
It's a five-day voyage and conditions are basic. This is no luxury liner. But eventually, after almost a week at sea, the travellers arrive in Marseille. Next comes a train journey from one end of the country to the other. They reached the northern French port of Cherbourg in early April.
By now they've joined up with fellow countrymen and women, more than 150 Lebanese travellers, ready to begin their voyage across the Atlantic. At Cherbourg Harbour, the migrants are bundled into a small boat. Its name is SS Traffic, and it does what it says on the tin, ferrying passengers a couple of miles out to sea, where the real deal will be waiting for them.
But there's a delay, an hour of bobbing up and down by the harbour side, waiting for their ride to come in. The Grand Ocean Liner is en route from Southampton, they're told, currently running behind schedule. Eventually, the little boat sets off. It's a half-hour journey to the meeting point. Finally, the migrants get their first glimpse of the new state-of-the-art vessel they'll be travelling on.
It's big, bigger than they could ever have imagined. As they approach this leviathan, gazing up at the looming black hull, they can just about pick out the name emblazoned on its starboard bow. Titanic. The name means nothing to the Lebanese travelers. Most of them don't speak a word of English. As far as they're concerned, this ship is just a means to an end.
The final leg of a month-long journey from their rural villages to the bustling metropolis of New York City. As the weary migrants traipse along the gangplank, they can have no idea what awaits them. Least of all, the sobering fact that of 154 Lebanese men, women, and children on board Titanic, only 29 will make it to America. From the Noisa Podcast Network, this is Titanic Ship of Dreams, Part 3.
They'd never seen anything as large as this. There were two immigrants from South Sweden, Neda and Edvard Lindbl. They were third-class immigrants. And she wrote back to her brother saying, you can't imagine what a monster it is, what a beast it is. She uses that Swedish word best, which is beast in English.
Titanic's first-class ticket holders tend to be seasoned travellers. Many of them have made the voyage across the Atlantic several times before. Some, in fact, on Titanic's almost identical twin sister, Olympic. But down in steerage, as third class is colloquially known, a transatlantic crossing is often a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
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Chapter 2: What was the experience like for third-class passengers on the Titanic?
A ticket to America was very, very expensive. An ordinary third-class ticket from Scandinavia was around £8, which is 181 kroner. An ordinary working-class family paid for their flat in 1913 throughout the whole year, 179 kroner. So £8 is more or less what a flat cost throughout the whole year. And then you can compare with Helen Baxter who had this suite for which she paid 247 pounds.
We're speaking of different worlds, different universes.
Nonetheless, as far as Titanic's owners, the White Star Line, are concerned, the steerage passengers are an important part of the financial equation. Clifford Ismay, biographer and fifth cousin of White Star chairman Bruce Ismay.
It was the third class passengers that made the bulk of the profit for the White Star Line. Though they were paying the least amount of money for the tickets, they were in much larger numbers. And again, White Star Line was very popular because even with the third class, the facilities that were available on the Titanic were far superior for the third class than was available on any other ship.
Chapter 3: How did the White Star Line view and treat third-class passengers?
Everything was very much appreciated, I would say. One Swedish survivor, Agnes Sandström, said later on in interviews that we couldn't have had it better here in third class. Everybody looked after us well. The food was fantastic, the seating, the living conditions, it was clean, it was nice. So that was her impression.
Even so, not all Titanic's passengers are treated equally. Those travelling in steerage are subjected to medical inspections that are not required for first or second class ticket holders. Their hair is searched carefully for lice, and their eyelids peeled back to check for signs of trachoma. These intrusive procedures are not up to White Star, however.
They are mandated by the US authorities, as are the physical barriers between the classes that stop steerage passengers from mingling with their supposed betters.
Leonardo DiCaprio couldn't possibly have been able to come up to first class and walk around like that. He couldn't. There were guards, of course, sailors, making sure that nobody stepped over the borders. I know that quite a few people believe there were these enormous gates from floor to ceiling. I've never seen any sign, any written document about big gates dividing the classes. I haven't.
They were sort of half a meter high, but they said something like no trespassing or crew only or only first class or whatever. And so people did not pass. And if they did, they would certainly very soon be discovered by a steward or a sailor and then shown back to where they, so to speak, belonged.
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Chapter 4: What were the medical inspections and class barriers like on the Titanic?
Professor Stephanie Baczewski.
We don't want the diseased people communing with the healthy, the presumably healthy people, right, the healthy upper class people in first class. So we have to keep them away. That's why those barriers are there and they're still there.
I mean, if you've ever flown transatlantically, when they do that thing that always makes you feel when you're back in, you know, sort of cattle class, right, as most of us are, and they pull that curtain across from first class, right, that's a remnant of the same American laws.
Those physical barriers that are required to be between first class or business class and the rest of the airplane, that's the same, those locked gates that we talk about on Titanic, that's the same laws that created those.
Titanic steerage passengers have come from all over the world. The large Irish contingent are well known, thanks in part to James Cameron's hugely successful 1997 film, with its memorable depiction of a raucous party down in third class. But in fact, there are more Swedes on board than there are Irish people.
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Chapter 5: What were the demographics of Titanic’s steerage passengers?
The White Star Line was the second most popular shipping company in Sweden then. One must remember this is during the immigration times when 25% of Swedes left for America. There were more Swedes living in Chicago in 1912 than in our second largest city, Gothenburg. Actually, Chicago was Sweden's second largest city. The second largest language on the Titanic was Swedish.
The third largest language on the Titanic is Arabic.
Dr. Josiane Abisar is the great-granddaughter of one of the Lebanese migrants who boarded Titanic at Cherbourg.
His name was Jerios Yusuf Abisab. At age 45, he left his village, his wife Marta, and his six children to go on Titanic and come to the United States to work in the steel mills of Youngstown, Ohio. So he was traveling with Shaanine, his cousin, and a young girl called Banura Ayub. And Shaanine's brother, his name was Joseph Abisab, he was already established in Youngston, Ohio.
A lot of these immigrants at the time used to kind of come and go from Lebanon. to the new world, to America, kind of sort of like the economic migrants that we see today in the world. It was the same thing. You know, Mount Lebanon was extremely impoverished and there was also famine at the time. So a lot of people just left seeking a better future for themselves and for their families.
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Chapter 6: What kind of food was served to third-class passengers on the Titanic?
There were 154 Lebanese immigrants on Titanic. They made up about 10% of the Titanic passengers.
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Did you know that the team behind Titanic Ship of Dreams makes other podcasts too? Discover them all at Noisa.com, the home of the Noisa podcast network. Real Dictators, also hosted by me, Paul McGann, returns on April the 30th with the story of Fidel Castro. Head to Noisa.com to find out more.
By the evening of April the 12th, when Gerios and his travelling companions board the ship in Cherbourg, the sun is beginning to set on the horizon. In fact, they've arrived just in time for dinner. They make their way along Scotland Road, the broad corridor that runs the length of the port side of Edek, named after one of my great-uncle Jimmy's old haunts in working-class Liverpool.
From here, the third class passengers descend a small stairwell to the dining saloon, taking a seat at one of the long communal dining tables. With white tablecloths and solid wooden chairs, the decor is basic. None of the elaborate ornamentation of the first and second class dining rooms up above. Down here the ceilings are low, with visible pipes running across them.
There's no fancy wood panelling on the walls, only painted steel. But the room is clean, light and airy. It even has portholes, so the passengers can glimpse the sky while they eat. All in all, it could be a lot worse. And as for the food? Well, it's hearty and plentiful, though what the Lebanese make of the stodgy English dishes on offer is anyone's guess.
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Chapter 7: How did first-class dining differ from third-class on the Titanic?
When I found a third-class menu and I saw what was on it, it's just very foreign to typical Lebanese Mediterranean cuisine. The breakfast consisted of oatmeal and porridge and smoked herrings, jacked potatoes, ham and eggs, and marmalade. And for dinner, they had roast beef, brown gravy, sweet corn, boiled potatoes, plum pudding, and fruit.
So I wonder whether they brought some of their own food with them. I'm sure they probably did, because even today, Lebanese, when they travel, they always bring with them either condiments or spices or, you know, typical foods from their home country. I know that I do it myself, so they probably did it back then.
The Syrian passengers, I would imagine, very likely brought with them things like tabbouleh, which is a very traditional meal for them and probably some breads they would have brought that they were familiar with. So I think they probably would have brought a few things with them to start the voyage off with something they're familiar with.
Chapter 8: What did the first-class dinner menu on Titanic’s first night include?
In fact, until very recently, only passengers traveling in first and second class on a transatlantic voyage would be catered for on board.
Before the Titanic sailed, people in third class on a ship would have had to bring their own meals. And not just for one day, but for many days. Enough food so that if the journey got delayed because of whatever, weather, you know, mechanical delay, coal strike, whatever it might be, they'd have enough to eat. And they'd have enough for their family to eat too.
So if you can imagine packing all that food. But they had to because there were not dining opportunities for third class prior to Titanic.
White Star, it seems, take customer satisfaction seriously. Regarding both the quality of the food itself and the behavior of those serving it.
At the bottom of the menu, it was spelled out very clearly, any complaint respecting of the food supplied, want of attention, or incivility should be at once reported to the purser or chief steward. For purposes of identification, each steward wears a numbered badge on the arm.
Almost all the notes, all the stories that I found afterwards from steerage passengers is that they were very happy, very comfortable. Those who wrote back about the ship, they were all in awe that it was a fantastic ship. So they felt very, very safe and secure on the Titanic.
Two decks above steerage, in the first class dining saloon, both the food and the decor are much more elaborate. The portholes here are hidden behind stunning stained glass windows. Exquisite cornicing covers the ten and a half foot high ceiling. Diners sit at private tables on tasteful padded green leather chairs.
It was supposed to make people feel a sense of warmth and coziness as well as elegance. There would have been flowers on the tables, lots and lots of beautiful, plump, fluffy roses. You would be watching your P's and Q's in here very carefully because everything about the way this space is laid out and designed, it's a very discreet space and it demands respect.
On Wednesday evening, Titanic leaves Cherbourg for the 300-mile journey to Queenstown in Ireland, the final stop before the real voyage begins. The ship's wealthiest passengers are just settling down to their first dinner on board, a sumptuous 11-course feast. The dining saloons on the upper decks are heavily indebted to French haute cuisine.
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