The child of Irish immigrants, she married a Colorado gold miner who struck it rich—very rich. When the family moved to a big house in Denver in 1894, she used that newfound wealth to help support her extended family, build hospitals, parks, playgrounds and to help found the Colorado juvenile court system. She campaigned for women to get the vote and supported striking workers.
But none of those accomplishments made her famous as did her actions one cold night in the North Atlantic in 1912. Brown was aboard the Titanic when the ship struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage. As Brown spoke five languages, she was able to help panicked women and children, many of them immigrants, into lifeboats before she boarded one herself, lamenting that the crew wouldn’t pick up any survivors even though the lifeboat was less than half full.
She hated that the policy of “women and children first,” tore families apart with many husbands and fathers perishing. Before the survivors had even reached New York, she had solicited thousands of dollars from wealthy survivors to help those immigrant families arriving with nothing. And once they did arrive, she worked hard to make sure all of those survivors had a place to go.
“God knows I can do little enough to save these pour souls … that are out of their senses. … How can you expect me to leave these suffering people when my life has been spared?”
We’re talking, of course, about Molly Brown—the Unsinkable Molly Brown—who was called by the popular press “The Heroine of the Titanic.”
Welcome to the Historic Denver’s Molly Brown House Museum where there is a new Titanic exhibit, “American Dreams.” Artifacts from Titanic and other White Star Line ships, including pieces from Titanic’s sister ship, the Olympic, are on loan from collectors Jason Schleisman and Evgueni Mlodik. Thanks to collector Mlodik, visitors will also find never-before-seen artifacts recovered from the Cap Arcona wreckage, a German ocean liner that became the set for a 1943 Nazi propaganda film, Titanic, and the location of one of the worst disasters in maritime history. The Cap Arcona artifacts bring to light the forgotten, horrific story of the Cap Arcona, which saw three times the loss of life as the Titanic tragedy.
Titanic memorabilia inside Molly Brown House. Andy Yemma/TNS
Wherever you travel this fall, seek out small museums like this one that can provide a window into a city, a region and the people who lived there.
For example, the free National Historic Trails Interpretive Center in Casper, Wyoming, through interactive exhibits tells the stories of those who made the harrowing journey west on the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Pioneer Trail and the California Trail. The Junior Ranger book asks kids if they’d rather be on a road trip today or on a wagon train traveling west in 1849. Would you rather eat fast food or antelope?
Also free, the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum has just reopened after an extensive renovation. It has a play space where young kids can practice camping, another about the Utes, the longest continuous Indigenous inhabitants of Colorado, and another about what Blacks found as they moved west and to Colorado Springs after the Civil War.
The Yosemite Climbing Museum in Mariposa, California. has also reopened after a renovation, chronicling the evolution of modern- day rock climbing from 1869 to the present.
At the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., a new exhibit, “Forces for Change: Mary McLeod Bethune and Black Women’s Activism,” explores the legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune and the National Council of Negro Women, as well as the strategies Black women have used to enact change through education, creativity and organizing. Bethune was a pioneering educator and college founder who set standards for today’s historic Black colleges and universities and served as an adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In New York Harbor, the National Immigration Museum at Ellis Island makes the immigrant experience real. It was the entry point to the United States for more than 12 million immigrants between 1892 and 1954. At the Family History Center, you can search for your ancestors’ experiences. And at the Tenement Museum in Lower Manhattan you can tour historically recreated 19th- and 20th-century homes where immigrant families lived. The newest exhibit, “A Union of Hope 1869” explores the story of a Black New York family.
In Denver, the Molly Brown House is set up as it would have been when the Browns lived there. Families can download the Titanic family guide. It encourages kids to look for things Brown brought back from her travels, like oil lamps from India. There are also popular special events, including teas.
As families move from room to room, the guide, with cartoon illustrations, explains how Brown held dinner parties—the dining room is set for one—to raise money and wrote newspaper articles and gave speeches on behalf of women, children, animals, as well as for women to get the vote. During World War I, she went to France to help with relief efforts there.
The third floor encourages visitors to ask themselves what you might learn about yourself by studying the lives of others, what legacy you would want to leave behind and how, like Molly Brown, you might champion causes that matter to you.
“I would do what anyone would do,” Brown famously said of her efforts to help Titanic survivors.
If only that were always the case.
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