FLEET, FREDERICK. TITANIC - Glass negative photogrpah. Public domain.

Titanic was the most luxurious and greatest steamship ever built. Among 2,435 passengers many were prominent figures. John Jacob Astor IV, a real estate millionaire, famous for marrying is his wife Madeleine on September 11th 1911, sailed on the Titanic with his pregnant 18-year-old wife. Astor went down with the Titanic on 15 April, 1912. His wife, Madeleine, survived. J. Bruce Ismay, the chairman and managing director of the White Star Line. He was the person who sketched the first plans for the Titanic on a napkin in 1907. Captain Edward John Smith, nicknamed the millionaires captain. Thomas Andrews, the designer of Titanic. Lady Duff Gordon, a top fashion designer, and the first English designer to achieve international renown. Lady Countess Rothes (Lucy Noël Martha Dyer- Edwards) who steered the lifeboat she was in, to safety. Isidor Straus, a founder of Macy’s department store who remained on the Titanic and was last seen sitting with his wife Ida on deck chairs waiting for the end to come. Margaret Tobin Brown was the wife of the Colorado mining kingpin J.J. Brown. Famous for taking control of lifeboat 6 when the crew in charge of that particular lifeboat refused to go back to look for survivors. Benjamin Guggenheim, a wealthy industrialist, heir to the Guggenheim mining fortune. The Band: Brailey, Bricoux, Hartley, Hume, Krins, Taylor and Woodward who played to keep the passengers calm as the ship was sinking.

The Harris & Ewing, Inc. Collection of photographic negatives includes glass and film negatives taken by Harris & Ewing, Inc., which provide excellent coverage of Washington people, events, and architecture, during the period 1905-1945. Harris & Ewing, Inc., gave its collection of negatives to the Library in 1955. The Library retained about 50,000 news photographs and 20,000 studio portraits of notable people. Approximately 28,000 negatives have been processed and are available online. (About 42,000 negatives still need to be indexed.)