Did Female Shipbuilders Sink the Titanic?

AsMaineGoes ^ | Apr 18, 2008 | CARLEY PETESCH

[NVDave]

This spelling is the same as a “Föcke.”

In German, when there is an umlaut (the two dots) over the vowels a, o or u, you pronounce it with your tongue flattened on the top of your mouth or towards the rear of your mouth.

The best approximation I can write is “Foae-cka.”

[Sapper26]

If any woman was responsible it would have to be Violet Jessop. She was a stewardess on the Olympic (Titanic’s sister ship) when it had it’s collision. She was a stewardess on the Titanic. She was also a nurse on the Britannic (Titanic’s other sister ship) when it was sunk during WW1.

The woman was cursed.

[OeOeO]

Rosie. Go rivet an iron,then iron my shirt.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Why link to a dumba** forum that changed the title of the original article? The photo is from WW2. The original article says nothing about women being involved.

[TheLion]

You got it! It was like a giant ice tray. Pretty stupid construction, if you ask me. Wonder where they thought that water was going to go.

[Strategerist]

Why link to a dumba** forum that changed the title of the original article? The photo is from WW2. The original article says nothing about women being involved.

The whole post was an abuse of truth with the titling and photo. I'm seeing a lot this sort of thing from people with axes to grind.

[wardaddy]

The ship was supposed to survive holing as I recall and folks were surprised when it failed.

i agree though it’s convenient to blame women....there is more to ship building rather than simply who rivets

[giotto]

I did not see any mention of the use of female riveters in building the Titanic.

Nor did I. I read it once, then searched for keywords. The article linked to the thread does not even contain the word "female," "woman," "women," "ladies," or "lady." Talk about a dishonest (and boneheaded) headline.

[HANG THE EXPENSE]

You are right.Had they hit the berg straight on it would not have caused the gash that ran past serveral of the water tight bulkheads which doomed the ship.I think this story on bad rivets is so much hooey.

[Caramelgal]

Did Female Shipbuilders Sink the Titanic?

First of all your headline has nothing to do with the article posted. There were no female shipbuilders during that time.

Secondly, those American women who took factory and industrial jobs during WWII, jobs traditionally held by men, men who were now serving in battle overseas, where not doing so out of some call to “feminism”, but out of a call to Patriotism. And there is nothing to substantiate any claim that those women didn’t do a “kick ass job”. I don’t recall any stories about inferior work performed by “Rosie” and her “sisters” that caused any WWII warship or airplane to fail because of her faulty workmanship or “workwomanship”.

[Westlander]

http://www.titanic-titanic.com/titanic_watertight_compartments.shtml

[stainlessbanner]

there is more to ship building rather than simply who rivets

Yep, like the flawed design --and-- perhaps the arrogance of design and safety engineers to not require adequate lifeboats.

[fight_truth_decay]

There were women in the workplace in Britain in the 1800's, and I thought many would be Irish. Finds I am correct and it is plausible or safe to assume, as there was pressure on the company to get this much publicized ship built,(Remembering the Unsinkable Molly Brown history) and the unexpected return of the aforementioned sister ship for immediate repairs; that the riveters could easily have been drawn from available for hire and for lower pay, "poor women already accustomed at being in the workplace".

Archives studied referenced (if you read the links in comment) suggested Riveters quickly hired may well have been composed of women, because of historical events in Europe which effected employment/the workplace at the time of the building of the Titanic.

"Until the first immigrant wave of Irish in the late 1830s, it was respectable for native born white single women to work in these factories. However, it was always understood that they would return to domestic pursuits after marriage. The immigrants changed the nature of the work force, while at the same time new technologies changed the types of jobs they performed. Mills became more structured and time-oriented, machines spun faster determining the pace of production, and employment was no longer seasonal. The Irish women saw factory work as a permanent job and so had a different outlook on their position."

RELATED:

The blight which devastated Ireland's potato crops in the late 1840's was not confined to Ireland alone. It also descended upon other countries, notably Belgium and the Netherlands. It is true that these countries also lost a percentage of their populations through famine-related deaths: the Netherlands suffered a death toll of 60,000 and Belgium lost 48,000 ‑ about 2% and a little over 1% of their respective populations. Yet at the same time Ireland, under the control of the British Government, lost a staggering 13% of its population to death by disease and starvation.

[goldfinch]

Somehow it seems that airframes would be less physically demanding on the riveters than ship hulls.

Rosie riveted a lot of ships...from liberty ships to submarines...as well as air frames. I do think the riveting process and equipment required less muscle in the 40s than when the Titanic was built...

[Calvin Locke]

Well, there's "holing", and then there's "ripping".

FWIR, and where the alleged shoddy rivets come in, is that the collision ripped (and flooded) along a number of compartments, more than what the design could stand, er, anticipated.

So, the rivets giving way more easily than they should contributed to the problem.

[Calvin Locke]

Violet Jessop was jinxed. Not even jinxed. More like the main character of Murder, she Wrote. People always dying around you, and you had nothing to do with it...

Now, Typhoid Mary was cursed - being a carrier of typhoid and her only skill/trade was cooking.

[cynwoody]

Riveter at work on Consolidated bomber, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, Texas.
October 1942

Not ship. Not British. Wrong time period.

[Gnarly]

I do believe that by the 1940s ships were mostly welded, not rivited. Both my parents worked in the Kaiser shipyards in Portland, OR......welding liberty ships.

[RayChuang88]

I think people forget that not only were the rivets sub-par in quality, but the structural steel was found to contain a fairly high amount of impurities, which made the steel very brittle in the low temperature waters of the North Atlantic at that time of the year in April 1912.

This meant that even if the Titanic successfully made its maiden voyage, the ship would probably have ended up back at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in a few years to repair the metal fatigue damage from the use of sub-par structural steel. Remember, after the Titanic sank the earlier sister ship Olympic underwent major structural upgrades to ensure the ship would stay afloat longer in case of another impact with an iceberg.

[goldfinch]

Archives studied referenced (if you read the links in comment) suggested Riveters quickly hired may well have been composed of women, because of historical events in Europe which effected employment/the workplace at the time of the building of the Titanic.

Lots of things 'could have' been. But there is NO evidence that women riveters were used on the Titanic. None whatsoever. The building of the Titanic is well documented. The newspapers of the time covered it well...and the company records have been studied over and over. And nowhere are woman riveters mentioned.

Poor women have always worked...and at that time, many worked in factories...they also worked in coal mines. It is not like women of the time were strangers to physical labor. But there is still absolutely NO evidence women were used as riveters on the Titanic. None.