The Race to Save the RMS Titanic - Attend virtually
About this event
Join William Hazelgrove as he discusses his book One Hundred and Sixty Minutes: The Race to Save the RMS Titanic.
A recorded version of this event will be available on the library's Virtual Event Recordings page April - May 5, 2022.
One hundred and sixty minutes. That is all the time rescuers would have before the largest ship in the world slipped beneath the icy Atlantic. There was amazing heroism and astounding incompetence against the backdrop of the most advanced ship in history sinking by inches with luminaries from all over the world. It is a story of a network of wireless operators on land and sea who desperately sent messages back and forth across the dark frozen North Atlantic to mount a rescue mission. More than twenty-eight ships would be involved in the rescue of Titanic survivors along with four different countries.
At the heart of the rescue are two young Marconi operators, Jack Phillips 25 and Harold Bride 22, tapping furiously and sending electromagnetic waves into the black night as the room they sat in slanted toward the icy depths and not stopping until the bone numbing water was around their ankles. Then they plunged into the water after coordinating the largest rescue operation the maritime world had ever seen and thereby saving 710 people by their efforts.
The race to save the largest ship in the world from certain death would reveal both heroes and villains. It would begin at 11:40 pm on April 14, when the iceberg was struck and would end at 2:20 am April 15, when her lights blinked out and left 1500 people thrashing in 25-degree water. Although the race to save Titanic survivors would stretch on beyond this, most people in the water would die, but the amazing thing is that of the 2229 people, 710 did not and this was the success of the Titanic rescue effort.
Presenter Bio: William Hazelgrove is the National Bestselling author of ten novels and ten nonfiction titles. His books have received starred reviews in Publisher Weekly Kirkus, Booklist, Book of the Month Selections, ALA Editors Choice Awards Junior Library Guild Selections, Literary Guild Selections, History Book Club Selections, History Book Club Bestsellers, Distinguished Book Awarrd. and optioned for the movies. He was the Ernest Hemingway Writer in Residence where he wrote in the attic of Ernest Hemingway’s birthplace. He has written articles and reviews for USA Today, The Smithsonian Magazine, and other publications and has been featured on NPR All Things Considered. The New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, CSPAN, USA Today have all covered his books with features. His book Madam President:The Secret Presidency of Edith is in development. He has two forthcoming books: The Brilliant Con of Cassie Chadwick and Writing Gatsby.
Information on William Hazelgrove's latest novel, Greed in the Gilded Age, is available here.
