Portion of a ship registry with the signature of Margaret Brown, TITANIC survivor

passenger list fragment

Portion of a possible ship registry, signed by Margaret Brown ("the unsinkable Molly Brown"), a survivor of the TITANIC. Her name is followed by "NY Feb. 24th 1911, On Board." Margaret Brown, often called “the unsinkable Molly Brown,” is one of the best known survivors of the TITANIC disaster. Born to Irish immigrants in Hannibal, Missouri, Margaret Tobin left school at age 13 to work in a cigar factory. She later moved to the mining town of Leadville, Colorado, where she worked at a department store. In 1886, she married J.J. Brown, a mining engineer. She had two children but also became increasingly involved in charity work as well as suffrage activism. Her husband’s company struck gold a few years later, and the family became very wealthy and moved to Denver. Margaret became a leading social figure and philanthropist. Among many other things, she raised funds to build a Catholic church and a hospital, worked towards the development of the country’s first juvenile court, and even ran for the U.S. Senate three times. After her separation, she began travelling often and widely, and she increasingly spent time in Newport RI instead of Denver. While we do not know exactly where Margaret was going in February 1911, her daughter Helen was studying in Europe and Margaret made frequent trips during this time period. Her other travels in 1911 and 1912 included a trip to England for the coronation of King George V in June 1911 and a trip to Rome and then Egypt in 1912, from which she was returning on the TITANIC. There was also some family turmoil in this time period. Her 1909 legal separation from her husband had attracted unwelcome press attention, and then in 1911, both her son Lawrence and her niece Grace, who she was raising, eloped in 1911.