The Hemlington Nautical History Society

Cartoon’s today are thought of a sense of entertainment mainly for young children. But a drawn cartoon is still used to day to emphasize a part of news to poke fun at the person involved mostly politions.

But in the days of the Titanic sinking of 1912, Cartoons was used in a different way all together. The camera was still in its infancy and drawings where used to show people the same thing as a photo does today. The Titanic was no different to this. Newspapers employed them in order to illustrate aspects and points of news articles.  These where made by people who made a living out of artwork. They would be called on by the editor to draw a cartoon of a simple editorial in order to direct the public who where there readers to there paper. The same is used today but with the comic cartoon normally being run for many years as a standard part of the paper.

So it was noticed that a lot of the titanic story’s where intermingled with cartoon version of events. Even the hearings used a form of cartoon as a sketch to show who was being questioned at that time.

What is interesting to note is the amount of drawings or cartoons of the iceberg. It gave the iceberg a sense of reality and brought it to life in the same instance. Cartoons where made of the director of the White Star line Bruce Ismay with the heading Brute Ismay, this was to depict the fact that he escaped the sinking by leaving in a boat when so many women children and men where left to perish in the waters of the Atlantic. The iceberg like mentioned earlier became a character and started to get a face arms and body. 

Below is a selection of the cartoons used and there meaning as to which story it is depicting. Plus there class of editorial ship.

Figure 1 Before and after

Figure 2 The Burg

Figure 4 The Eternal Collision ( C Macauley)

Figure 5 Getting the Lesson (Indianapolis News)

Figure 6 The Tragedy Of The Titanic (St Louis Globe Democrat)

Figure 7 More Life Saving Boats (Cincinnati Post)

 Figure 8 Grieve Not The Spirit Of Manhood Still Lives (St Louis Globe Democrat)

Figure 9 Time To Get Busy (St Louis Republic)

Figure 10 Women And Children First (Cincinnati Post)

Figure 11 Wireless Anarchy (New York World)

Figure 12 Everything For enjoying Life, But Not Much To Save It (Detroit News)

Figure 13 Non Sinkable (Unknown)

Figure 14 The Lost The Saved (Unknown)

Figure 15 The Refuge (St Louis Globe)

Figure 16 Waiting (Detroit News)

Figure 17 The Tragedy Of The Titanic (Toledo News Bee)

Figure 18 The Steamship Owner Gambled With Death (Unknown)

Figure 19 A Grim Teacher (Unknown)

Figure 20 The Omnipresent Reaper (The News Leader)

Created by Graham Pickles & Carole Lindsay ã2002