Snazzy is as snazzy does
The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan is celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic by curating an exhibit which is on display until September 30th 2012. Tom Varitek, a charming Henry Ford employee, filled me in on crucial information regarding the conditions of the Titanic before, during, and after the disaster. Three hundred artifacts are on display that were recovered from the ocean floor. Everything from au gratin dishes to business cards to toiletries are on display. Two hundred and fifty of these have never been exhibited in Michigan.
The entrance of the exhibit mimics the entrance of a ship. The clock in the reconstruction of the grand staircase is stopped at 11:40 p.m., the exact time that the Titanic hit the iceberg. The iceberg is recreated, can be touched and is 32 degrees. Each visitor of the exhibit is given a boarding pass with the name of a passenger. In the final room you can see if your passenger survived. A perfumer and a few other select voyagers' stories are singled out and a list of passengers from Michigan is also exhibited. First and third class accommodations are shown. You can hear the steerage from the third class room. Often up to fifty people stayed in third class. Various weather updates from April 14th 1912 and a tribute to the Black Gang solidify the atmosphere of this tragic historic event.
