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DocsTeachThe online tool for teaching with documents, from the National Archives National Archives Foundation National Archives

The Titanic Disaster: One Survivor's Story

Finding a Sequence

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The Titanic  Disaster:  One Survivor

About this Activity

  • Created by:National Archives Education Team
  • Historical Era:The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)
  • Thinking Skill:Historical Analysis & Interpretation
  • Bloom's Taxonomy:Understanding
  • Grade Level:Middle School
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Please use a tablet or desktop computer to use this activity.
In this activity, students will follow the story of one Titanic survivor, Lucy Ridsdale. A fifty year old nurse from Great Britain, Lucy would survive the Titanic disaster aboard lifeboat 13.
https://www.docsteach.org/activities/student/the-titanic-disaster-one-survivors-story

Suggested Teaching Instructions

Learning Objectives
Students will analyze textual documents and photographs. They will identify contextual and specific dates for documents and put them in the correct sequence. This activity can be used during a unit on urbanization and immigration in the early 20th century to study class differences.

For grades 6-8. Approximate time needed is 20 minutes.

Instructions
As an opener to the activity, involve students with a K-W-L graphic organizer ("What we Know," "What we Want to know," and "What we Learned") concerning Titanic. Ask students to describe the different types of people on board the Titanic (e.g. classes, countries of origin, etc). Inform students they will be following the path of one Titanic survivor from her home in London to arriving in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Students can work individually or in pairs. Ask them to begin the activity by reading the introduction. Instruct them to analyze each document before placing them in the correct order. Tell students that, if needed, there are hints provided.

When students have finished sequencing, conduct a class discussion based on the follow-up questions:

  • What type of items did Lucy have with her? What does this tell about her journey to the United States?
  • How did Lucy describe her possessions?

Then, ask students to write a first hand narrative account using primary source documents and other sources about Lucy Ridsdale's journey.

For more information about Lucy Ridsdale's journey, visit Lucy Ridsdale and the Titanic Tragedy from our Pieces of History blog. For additional primary source documents related to the Titanic Disaster.

For more information about the featured documents, follow the links below.

Documents in this activity

  • Baggage Claim Coupon from the Titanic
  • Claim of Lucy Ridsdale
  • Daily Memorandum from the Hydrographic Office Reporting Titanic Disaster
  • Deposition of George Rheims
  • Exhibit C is an Excess Luggage Ticket from a TITANIC passenger who traveled from London's Waterloo Station to "Souton" (Southampton) on the London and South Western Railway
  • List of U. S. Citizens (For the Immigration Authorities), R.M.S. CARPATHIA
  • This uncaptioned photograph is presumed to be a TITANIC lifeboat being hoisted to drain it of water
  • Titanic Survivors in a Lifeboat After the Sinking

CC0
To the extent possible under law, National Archives Education Team has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to "The Titanic Disaster: One Survivor's Story".

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