Posted on 04/19/2008 8:00:26 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
Never say never:
The Titanic, built in 1911 by Britain's White Star Line, represented both the best and worst in this age of prosperity and progress: We are talking Europe here, not America. There were women working in factories for decades before the construction of the Titanic ( the largest moving object ever built)..... See Post #33.
I did not write the headline, am just the messenger; and it's called read between the lines with recorded historical factors added in. You had the rich, rich Industrialists and in contrast the penny poor Irish immigrants who would make up the some of the passenger list. The immigrants (both male and female) worked to be able to afford to ride below deck to the land of opportunity-America.
Supposed to catch by hand.
An expert will also catch a rivet in his teeth and spit that rivet right into the hole.
There is none to say they did not.
It is a given we cannot blame women for the sinking of the Titanic, but there was strenght needed, if you read the application of metal process including riveting. It is also a given poor women (and it was socially accepted) worked in industry at that time and before. There was a thing called child labor as well even though not applicable in this case. The fact was the much publicized ship had a deadline for completion. The last survivor (99) of the Titanic died in 2006, I believe, and she was 5 yrears old at the time of the voyage. Actually, an estate Auction of her belongings, some related to the Titanic, took place today in England.
Because labor was cheap, women more than men were recruited into the factories that sprang up all over Britain in the decades before the building of the Titanic. Women worked in mines, textile industry,etc so why not work on the Titanic.
The rush to complete (dignitaries were to travel), the use of immigrants for labor and greed $$$$. Hmmm.... where have I heard that before?
Records of immigrant workers, especially young women and children, would not be as easy to document-a given; but doesn't mean women (acceptable cheap labor) were not in that designated workforce. But also, this article only offered up the question whether women were riveters: DID FEMALE SHIPBUILDERS......?
Discussion follows. You could be 100% correct.
There were some seriously rich folks on the Titanic. One of the men who died that night was the son and nephew of two of the richest men in the country.
I don’t think that Senator Clark, for whom Clark County NV is named for would have settled for a snow job.
Harland & Wolff was a bastion of the male, protestant working class of the north of Ireland, I simply cannot believe that somehow there were women recruited to work there in 1912, hell I don’t think women have ever worked in H&W.
If they needed cheap labour quickly there were hundreds of thousands of unskilled Catholic males available in the surrounding areas. But they didn’t because they didn’t want them working there, if they didn’t want their Catholic neighbours working alongside them trust me when I tell ya they certainly didn’t want their wives and daughters working there either.
Put simply so that this nonsense can be ended now;
THERE WERE NO WOMEN RIVETERS WORKING ON THE TITANIC!
I hope this clears things up for you.
Interesting related article of survivor estate auction-taking place today.
J.P. Morgan, whose company owned the White Star Line, was slated to make the trip, cancelled at the last minute.
“The woman was cursed.”
So said her husband. ;)
I researched it with links above should you want to check. Charts earlier on show where women out numbered men in factories, because of the low pay scale/cheap labor/. And you having Potato in your name, remember the great famine where many died (The Brits played it down in numbers) so couple that with an Industrial Revolution-more jobs that some people won't do (history repeats?). You've got the super rich or the very very very poor. There was a big class difference in haves and have nots.
Also, women had their duties at home which they had to return to after their jobs. There was always this stereotype that the Irish male was lazy and took too often to his drink.
The feminists, unions in this country were about politics. The women during the industrial revolution, before and after, gave their sweat and tears as much and often more than males. Women were never fully recognized even by these Feminists, who's names we are all familiar with.
Women/mothers did not have time to think what they were doing was anything more, than just feeding their family.
excerpt from a google reference:
Modern ships, since roughly 1940, have been produced almost exclusively of welded steel. Early welded steel ships used steels with inadequate fracture toughness, which resulted in some ships suffering catastrophic brittle fracture structural cracks (see problems of the Liberty ship). Since roughly 1950, specialized steels such as ABS Steels with good properties for ship construction have been used.
Modern shipbuilding makes considerable use of prefabricated sections; entire multi-deck segments of the hull or superstructure will be built elsewhere in the yard, transported to the building dock or slipway, then lifted into place. This is known as Block Construction. The most modern shipyards pre-install equipment, pipes, electrical cables, and any other components within the blocks, to minimize the effort needed to assemble or install components deep within the hull once it is welded together.
excerpt from a google reference:
Modern ships, since roughly 1940, have been produced almost exclusively of welded steel. Early welded steel ships used steels with inadequate fracture toughness, which resulted in some ships suffering catastrophic brittle fracture structural cracks (see problems of the Liberty ship). Since roughly 1950, specialized steels such as ABS Steels with good properties for ship construction have been used.
Modern shipbuilding makes considerable use of prefabricated sections; entire multi-deck segments of the hull or superstructure will be built elsewhere in the yard, transported to the building dock or slipway, then lifted into place. This is known as Block Construction. The most modern shipyards pre-install equipment, pipes, electrical cables, and any other components within the blocks, to minimize the effort needed to assemble or install components deep within the hull once it is welded together.
Believe what you wish or show factual evidence to say a woman (1-) never worked on the Titanic or any such related industry. The Brits also kept the numbers of deaths from the Irish potato famine, the blamed placed on them as well, from their citizens and other countries of the world. It was not in their best interest to claim unregulated cheap materials to save costs especially when the biggest ship in the world was to carry also meant to carry poor immigrants to the United states-that was a big part of the future for the Titanic.
Life was so good to the industrials that the U.S. Patent Office briefly actually reasoned that everything had already been invented. I have researched and regarding employment of those times (social and economical factors), the hand method of paying a wage, whereas no taxes were levied on the company/industry, self-regulation especially if you are JPMorgan, etc, no documentation required who temporarily hired whom. Skilled workers were pulled off the Titanic for the other ship, so was not really known who hired whom in their place in regard to -gender, age, equality a wage .. etc. There was no income tax on the new industrial-age millionaires -- so the rich were incredibly, un-fathom-ably rich.
The suggestion that they were, came from the rush to complete, a scheduled maiden voyage, the sister ship that needed immediate repairs, and a limited available labor source where there is always a little bow tied, spectacled numbers cruncher upstairs, working for JPMorgan in this case.
Show me proof and I will go away. ;)
YOU should prove that there were women riveters on the Titanic.
This is the most intellectually dishonest thread I’ve seen on FR in quite some time.
Interviewer: “Tell us about the time in WW I you shot down three enemy aircraft in one dogfight.”
Old Ace: “Well dem fokkers was coming at me from three directions, see. But I knew what they wuz gonna do, so I manoovered my plane in just de right way to get a shot at each one. Sure enuff, it worked and I got ‘em all.”
Interviewer: “For the benefit of our audience, the Fokker was a Dutch-built triplane.”
Old Ace: “No, dem fokkers was Messershmitts.”
I doubt the shipyards in northern Ireland used women as riveters prior to WWI.
The pictures at this post are all circa WWII.
My personal theory is she went down due to a failure to maintain bouyancey.
I thought the problem with Liberty Ships suddenly cracking in two during North Atlantic and Arctic passages was due to the steel becoming brittle at cold temperatures
The photo is also fairly recent and of an older plane that is having some new skin put on. The green primer is older zinc-chromate while the yellow is newer, and most likely epoxy-polyamide primer. The shop is using fluorescent lighting and the woman should be wearing hearing protection, eye protection, cushioned gloves, and less lipstick.
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