The Titanic, Washington, D.C., and the WPA

Above: The Titanic, on April 10, 1912. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Above: The Titanic sunk on April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg. This depiction of the sinking was created by Willie Stower, shortly after the sinking. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Above: This Titanic memorial in Washington, DC, is located near Fourth and P streets, SW (it was originally located in Rock Creek Park, near New Hampshire Avenue). The memorial commemorates the lives of the male passengers of the Titanic who sacrificed their lives so that more women and children could be saved. The memorial was made possible largely through efforts of the women who survived the Titanic tragedy. The memorial is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia and used under the CCA-SA 3.0 license.

Above: This extremely well-made two and a half minute documentary tells the story of the Titanic Memorial in Washington, DC (and the narrator also reads the inscription on the statue's base). It was produced by Jerry Griffith, and the original YouTube address is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAtf9xYw2Zw.)

Above: In 1936, a flood hit Washington, D.C., and threatened the memorial. The memorial is towards the upper left, sitting on what appears to be an island. Photo from "Work: A Journal of Progress," a publication of the District of Columbia Works Progress Administration, September 1936.

Above: In this photo, WPA workers are repairing the flood-damaged setting around the statue. Photo from "Work: A Journal of Progress," a publication of the District of Columbia Works Progress Administration, September 1936.

Above: The completed job. The Titanic Memorial was one of 1,385 monuments and historic markers created, improved, or repaired by the WPA. Some people said (and still say today) that the WPA was a waste of money, and that the workers in the WPA were unworthy of help. Do you believe them? Photo from "Work: A Journal of Progress," a publication of the District of Columbia Works Progress Administration, September 1936. 

***Also see this web page, by the Great Lakes Titanic Society, for more photographs and information: http://www.glts.org/memorials/dc/womens.html***