page_title: Margaret Brown
section_title: Passenger on the Titanic
hierarchical_section_title: Margaret Brown / Passenger on the Titanic
caption_attribution_description: Mrs. J.J. "Molly" Brown presenting trophy cup award to Capt. Arthur Henry Rostron, for his service in the rescue of the Titanic. The committee for the award was chaired by Frederick Kimber Seward.
context_page_description: Margaret Brown, posthumously known as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", was an American socialite and philanthropist. She unsuccessfully encouraged the crew in Lifeboat No. 6 to return to the debris field of the 1912 sinking of RMS Titanic to look for survivors. During her lifetime, her friends called her "Maggie", but even by her death, obituaries referred to her as the "Unsinkable Molly Brown". The reference was further reinforced by a 1960 Broadway musical based on her life and its 1964 film adaptation which were both entitled The Unsinkable Molly Brown.
context_section_description: Brown had spent the first months of 1912 traveling in Paris, France while visiting her daughter and as part of the John Jacob Astor IV party, until she received word from Denver that her eldest grandchild Lawrence Palmer Brown Jr. was seriously ill. She immediately booked passage on the first available liner leaving for New York, the RMS Titanic. Originally her daughter Helen was supposed to accompany her, but she decided to stay in Paris, where she was studying at the Sorbonne. Brown was conveyed to the passenger liner RMS Titanic as a first-class passenger on the evening of April 10, aboard the tender SS Nomadic at Cherbourg, France.
  The Titanic sank early on April 15, 1912, at around 2:20 a.m., after striking an iceberg at around 11:40 p.m. Brown helped others board the lifeboats but was finally persuaded to leave the ship in Lifeboat No. 6.  Brown was later called "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" by authors because she helped in the ship's evacuation, taking an oar herself in her lifeboat and urging that the lifeboat go back and save more people. Her urgings were met with opposition from Quartermaster Robert Hichens, the crewman in charge of Lifeboat 6. Hichens was fearful that if they went back, the lifeboat would either be pulled down due to suction or the people in the water would swamp the boat in an effort to get in. After several attempts to urge Hichens to turn back, Brown threatened to throw the crewman overboard. Sources vary as to whether the boat went back and if they found anyone alive. Brown's efforts sealed her place in history, regardless.
  Upon being rescued by the ship RMS Carpathia, Brown proceeded to organize a survivors' committee with other first-class survivors.  The committee worked to secure basic necessities for the second and third class survivors and even provided informal counseling.
caption: Brown giving Captain Arthur Henry Rostron an award for his service in the rescue of survivors of the Titanic.
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