One of the last photos taken on the Titanic before it sank in 1912.

Image from preview.redd.it and submitted by Pitouyou
image showing One of the last photos taken on the Titanic before it sank in 1912.

Pitouyou on April 2nd, 2024 at 08:07 UTC »

INFO : The boy seen in the photo is Douglas Spedden. He actually survived the disaster but sadly died three years later after he was hit by a vehicle.

Following his passing, his mother, Daisy Spedden, wrote the book ‘Polar the Titanic Bear’ for him.

fulthrottlejazzhands on April 2nd, 2024 at 09:12 UTC »

Immortalizing one of the favorite passtimes of the early 1900s... Poking things with a stick while other people point at said thing being poked.

Spartan2470 on April 2nd, 2024 at 11:42 UTC »

Here is a higher quality and less cropped version of this image. Here provides the following caption:

In this photo taken early in the Titanic's maiden voyage, passenger Douglas Spedden can be seen playing with his top on the ship's promenade deck. The photographer. Frank Brown, would disembark in Ireland and avoid the sinking.

According to here:

Spedden was aboard the Titanic at age six, travelling with his family back to their home in Tuxedo Park, New York, following a family trip through Algeria. On board the ship for the first leg of the trip, from Southampton, England, to Cobh, Ireland, was Jesuit priest Francis Browne; by chance, Browne captured a photograph of Spedden playing with a spinning top on the deck of the Titanic.

On April 14, the evening of the sinking, traveling in first class, Spedden was put to bed in his compartment. During the sinking he awoke briefly when his nurse Elisabeth Burns told him she was taking him "on a trip to see the stars". He is reported to have slept through the rest of the sinking, waking up in a lifeboat the next morning.

He died in 1915 at age nine, after being hit by an automobile.

Spedden was included briefly in the 1997 film Titanic, played by actor Thomas Fiss. Spedden's mother Daisy Corning Stone Spedden wrote the book Polar the Titanic Bear for Douglas. The book documents the family's travels, and includes a section on the family's survival of the Titanic's sinking.