““The Night the Good Ship Went Down”” examines three final meals served aboard White Star's Titanic in order to reveal a complicated story about Anglo-American relations and consumerism on the eve of World War I. This article challenges the theory that the ship was a neat microcosm of life on land, complete with insurmountable class barriers. Rather than replicating a strict hierarchical social structure, White Star's newest ship was designed to encourage a degree of social fluidity and upward mobility unprecedented for its time. The Titanic was in part American financier J. Pierpont Morgan's attempt to keep White Star competitive enough to crush its rival, the British-owned Cunard. Food and dining call attention to this alternative narrative of the Titanic's cultural and economic importance.
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November 2009
Research Article|
November 01 2009
The Night the Good Ship Went Down: Three Fateful Dinners Aboard the Titanic
andrea broomfield
andrea broomfield
andrea broomfield is an associate professor of English at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas. She is author of Food and Cooking in Victorian England: A History, is coeditor of Victorian Prose by Women: An Anthology, and has written numerous articles and book chapters on culinary history and Victorian women.
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Gastronomica (2009) 9 (4): 32–42.
Citation
andrea broomfield; The Night the Good Ship Went Down: Three Fateful Dinners Aboard the Titanic. Gastronomica 1 November 2009; 9 (4): 32–42. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2009.9.4.32
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