Titanic Reveals Her Secrets in Traveling Exhibition: Why are We so Intrigued?

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 4, 1999--

There is an enduring fascination with the 87-year-old luxury ocean liner Titanic, which currently resides 2.5 miles below the surface of the chilly North Atlantic. Books have been written and Oscar-winning movies have been made about her.

And now, a public exhibition of artifacts recovered from the famous wreck is drawing millions of visitors to see, hear and feel what it must have been like on the night of April 14, 1912, during one of the most famous shipwrecks in history.

"Titanic - The Exhibition" drew 500,000 visitors to the Union Depot in downtown St. Paul, Minn., during its run from January through April. The exhibition has moved to Atlantic City, where it is now showing exclusively at the Tropicana Casino and Resort through September 7, 1999. The traveling exhibition has already been attended by four million people worldwide.

So what attracts us to see the worn bits and pieces recovered from a shipwreck more than three-quarters of a century old? It's not a gold pocket watch, worn luggage, or an intact bottle of champagne, which is so riveting to most. It's the story behind the people who were onboard the doomed Royal Mail Steamer Titanic.

"Actually, I think it's the more than 2,000 stories of love, devotion, sacrifice and survival, which continue to attract us to Titanic," says Kris Malmberg of Exhibitgroup/Giltspur, the company that installed the more than 200 artifacts in the exhibition in St. Paul and Atlantic City.

Exhibition Sections Demonstrate Feel of Fateful Night

Malmberg said the exhibition combines personal items from the passengers and crew, along with some unique items designed to allow the visitor to experience as well as view the exhibition.

"Imagine jumping or falling into the 28-degree water of the North Atlantic," he says. "One of the most powerful parts of this exhibition is the Ice Wall. Visitors can touch the wall and feel how cold the water really was."

Malmberg said the wall is 13 feet long and 8 feet high. A sign asks you how long you think you could swim in the freezing-cold water. Survivor Second Officer Charles Lightoller said in the book, "A Night to Remember," that the water felt like being stabbed with "a thousand knives."

Another particularly moving part of the exhibition is, according to Malmberg, the "Reflections" area, which is a memorial that lists all of the names of passengers and crew who perished and a display of fragile letters from a young vaudeville performer named Pearl Shuttle to her sweetheart, Howard Irwin. The letters were recovered from a trunk of his belongings.

The visitor starts as the passengers did in the "Passage" section of the exhibition, which shows an 18-foot-long model of Titanic along with passengers' luggage. A video wall and displays of vintage photos show "Life on Board."

As you enter a section of the exhibition called "The Striking," the Ice Wall looms ahead of you and you see dramatic displays depicting the "Last Moments" and the "Rescue" of survivors. A piccolo and a partition holder for a flute and sheet music remind us of the orchestra, which continued to play even as the ship went down. Hand-written letters and photos show the survivors picked up by the Carpathia. Especially haunting are the telegrams sent by Titanic's wireless operators with their increasingly desperate calls for help.

As you pass out of that section, you come upon a large model of Titanic as she lies today wrecked on the ocean floor. Video monitors play underwater footage of the real wreck and debris field.

A large display of newspapers, photos and government accounts of the sinking graphically demonstrates how dramatic the story was for the time.

The "Voices" part of the exhibition offers more clues as to the people actually aboard the ship. Children's marbles, hand-rolled cigarettes, and a bow tie create a link to these people through the simplest of personal possessions. Here is a display of the remarkable Violet Jessop, a White Star Line stewardess and, later, nurse, who not only survived the Titanic disaster, but also the sinking of sister ship Britannic after it struck a mine during World War I, and the Olympic's collision with the HMS Hawke. All three ships, Olympic, Titanic and Britannic, were owned by the White Star Line.

Visitors can see the 20-ton piece of the ship's hull - nicknamed "The Big Piece" - submerged in a pool of specially treated water to preserve the precious artifact.

Other sections of the exhibition describe the science of the recovery project, as well as the painstaking efforts being made to conserve the artifacts.

Lives and Loves Lost

Still, it is the stories of the people which captivate us.

Take the story of Walter D. Douglas, heir to the Quaker Oats fortune. Returning from a three-month vacation in Europe when Titanic hit the iceberg, Douglas put his wife, Mahala, into one of the lifeboats. As it was being lowered away from the broken ship she said, "Walter, you must come with me." He replied, "No. I must be a gentleman."

John Pillsbury Snyder (part of the famous Pillsbury family) and his new wife, Nellie, were returning from their European honeymoon and, like the Douglases, were traveling in the super-luxurious first-class quarters. The Snyders fortunately found their way to one of the first lifeboats lowered, despite Nellie's insistence that the couple return to their stateroom to retrieve a warmer coat and her jewel case.

William and Anna Lahiten were traveling second class, along with Anna's sister, Lylli Silven, when disaster struck. Despite being offered a place in a lifeboat, Anna refused to leave her husband behind. Lylli survived to tell the tale of Anna's devotion and preference for death over separation.

Moving the Exhibit

Installing and moving an exclusive exhibit with such priceless memories takes a massive amount of coordination and planning.

Malmberg says a team effort between Exhibitgroup/Giltspur and sister company, GES Exposition Services, took advantage of the specialized expertise of each company.

"This type of arrangement provides real value to the project because the people that are installing and dismantling the exhibit are also the ones moving it," he said. "It's like dealing with a highly specialized one-stop service."

Malmberg said the Logistics division of GES was able to leverage its transportation expertise into securing special climate-controlled trucks for an amount less than what is required for standard trucking.

All the artifacts - with the exception of "The Big Piece" - were carefully packed and crated in a special order for the trip to Atlantic City.

"Because we were operating under such an aggressive time frame, we had to have everything perfect," said Malmberg.

He said the exhibition was dismantled and staged for shipment in a reverse order in St. Paul so that it unloaded in order for setup in Atlantic City. After shipping there was only a three-day time frame in which the entire exhibition was reinstalled. Malmberg said it required almost 900 man-hours to complete the project in the short span.

According to Mark Liebrect at GES, 11 trucks were required to move the exhibit and artifacts, which tipped the scales at almost a quarter of a million pounds of freight.

Acting as Steward for Historic Ship

Malmberg said the work done for the exhibition was carefully overseen by RMS Titanic, Inc., a public company created to preserve the historical artifacts from the ship.

RMS Titanic, Inc., is the only entity legally entitled to recover objects from Titanic. During five research and recovery expeditions conducted in 1987, 1993, 1994, 1996 and 1998, RMS Titanic, Inc., has recovered nearly 5,000 artifacts from the wreck site. RMS Titanic, Inc., is a publicly traded company listed on the OTC Bulletin Board under the ticker symbol SOST.

More information on the preservation efforts of RMS Titanic, Inc., can be found on the company's Web site at www.titanic-online.com.

The Companies Behind the Installation & Shipping

Exhibitgroup/Giltspur's Minneapolis office completed the installation and dismantling for the St. Paul exhibition and supervised the installation in Atlantic City. The company, the largest exhibition company in the world, designed the floor plans for both the St. Paul venue and the Atlantic City site. Director of design Craig Boettcher, with coordination from RMS Titanic, determined placement of all of the cases of artifacts, as well as all of the exhibit components. The company's Web site is at www.e-g.com. Exhibitgroup/Giltspur has completed other prestigious museum projects like the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the NFL Hall of Fame.

GES Logistics is a division of GES Exposition Services, North America's largest exposition and event marketing company. GES produces a wide range of conventions, tradeshows and events including COMDEX, the Consumer Electronics Show, National Association of Broadcasters, and events for businesses like Home Depot and Bass hotels. More information on this company can be found online at www.gesexpo.com.

Both Exhibitgroup/Giltspur and GES Exposition Services are Viad Corp companies, a $1.6 billion company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol VVI. More information on Viad Corp can be found at www.viad.com. -0-

                        Sidebar: Titanic Facts

Length:                                            882 feet, 9 inches.

Cruising speed:                                         23 to 24 knots

Date of disaster:                                    April 14-15, 1912

Number of people on board:                                       2,228

Lifeboat capacity:                                               1,178

Number of survivors:                                               705

Number of casualties:                                            1,523

Maiden voyage:                       Apr. 10, 1912, at 12:15 p.m. from
                                                 Southampton, England.

Cost of first class ticket:                Equivalent of $50,000 today

Wreckage discovered:                                     Sept. 1, 1985

Captain:                       Captain Edward Smith. Ironically, Smith
                                 was scheduled to retire following the
                                             maiden voyage of Titanic.