The Titanic Provenance Files

We know RMS Titanic struck an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, and sank at approximately 2:20 a.m. the following morning. But how do we actually know those times? And whose clock are we talking about? In this episode of The Titanic Provenance Files , host Damon Henrichs welcomes Titanic researcher and author Tad Fitch to investigate one of the surprisingly complicated questions surrounding...

What was it like to step aboard James Cameron’s Titanic—and what can the actors’ diaries reveal about the making of the film? Actress and filmmaker Alexandra Boyd joins The Titanic Provenance Files to explore Titanic (1997) from the inside. Boyd, who appeared as a first-class passenger, shares the research behind her audition, the experience of working on the recreated ship, and how costumes, sets...

What happens when a historical investigation takes on a life of its own? In this special midseason edition of The Titanic Provenance Files , host Damon Henrichs reflects on the surprising directions Titanic research can take, and how questions raised in one episode can lead to unexpected discoveries in another. What began as an exploration of Titanic's Collapsible Lifeboat A with historian Ma...

What can two small Titanic artifacts reveal about the people aboard the ship? In this episode of The Titanic Provenance Files , host Damon Henrichs speaks with Swedish Titanic historian, author, and ethnologist Claes-Göran Wetterholm about two remarkable objects featured in Musealia’s Titanic: The Human Story exhibition in Austin: Jacob Alfred Johansson’s diary and Gerda Lindell’s ring. Johansson’...

We have a name! In an earlier Case Note, The Titanic Provenance Files investigated the anonymous letter reproduced by Walter Lord in A Night to Remember , accusing an unnamed male Titanic survivor of cowardice and of escaping after disguising himself in women’s clothing. At the time, we could eliminate several possibilities, but we could not confidently identify either the sender or the recipient....

Eight Chinese passengers boarded RMS Titanic. Six survived. So why did their story nearly disappear from Titanic history? In this episode of The Titanic Provenance Files , Damon Henrichs talks with Steven Schwankert , author of The Six: The Untold Story of Titanic’s Chinese Survivors and part of the team behind the documentary The Six . The investigation begins with an extraordinarily simple artif...

A listener in Switzerland has reopened the investigation into Walter Lord’s mysterious letter about a man allegedly escaping Titanic disguised as a woman. His collection includes hundreds of copied documents from the Walter Lord archive—as well as years of personal correspondence with Lord himself. Damon also follows another thread from Case File 004: the double ring recovered with Collapsible A a...

What happened to Titanic’s Collapsible A after the sinking? Author and maritime researcher Mark Chirnside joins Damon Henrichs to follow the extraordinary provenance of one of Titanic’s most unusual lifeboats. Collapsible A was never launched in the conventional sense. As Titanic disappeared beneath the Atlantic, the partially flooded boat floated free, with survivors struggling aboard. But its st...

A newly uncovered letter from Walter Lord’s research files reveals another story of a man who allegedly escaped the Titanic disguised as a woman. In this Case Note from The Titanic Provenance Files , we return to our investigation of Lord’s mysterious anonymous letter and share an update from the archives. The original letter remains elusive, but a different piece of correspondence, written on beh...

What can a cocktail and shortbread tell us about Titanic? In this episode of The Titanic Provenance Files , Damon Henrichs is joined by Veronica Hinke, author of The Last Night on the Titanic: Unsinkable Drinking, Dining & Style , for the show’s first Sip and Ship . Together, they make a Robert Burns cocktail, pair it with shortbread, and follow the recipe as a trail into Titanic’s world: Edwa...

At the end of A Night to Remember , Walter Lord printed a vicious anonymous letter accusing a Titanic survivor of cowardice, claiming he had been stopped from entering a lifeboat by Major Archibald Butt and later returned dressed in women’s clothing. Lord removed both the sender’s name and the survivor’s name. So who were they? In this Case Note from The Titanic Provenance Files , Damon follows th...

Why does Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember still matter to Titanic history? Because few books have done more to shape how the world remembers RMS Titanic, and few guests are better equipped to explain why than Don Lynch. In this case file, Damon Henrichs speaks with Titanic historian Don Lynch, author of Titanic: An Illustrated History , historian for the Titanic Historical Society, and historical...

What happens between the major investigations? Welcome to Case Notes, a new short-form companion to The Titanic Provenance Files. Full Case Files will remain focused on Titanic history, artifacts, documents, eyewitness testimony, and the provenance trails that help us understand the disaster. Case Notes will provide a separate place for everything surrounding those investigations: corrections and...

You know the story of Titanic. Or at least, you think you do. But where did that story come from? Which details can be traced to testimony, documents, photographs, books, and recovered objects, and which entered Titanic history through memory, repetition, or popular culture? In the first case file of "The Titanic Provenance Files," host Damon Henrichs explores the question at the heart o...

Launching July 30, 2026. The Titanic Provenance Files explores the story of Titanic through the evidence she left behind. Each episode opens a specific case file: an object, book, document, artifact, relic, or contested piece of evidence connected to Titanic and the century of memory that followed. Why July 30? On July 30, 1912, Lord Mersey’s British Wreck Commissioner’s report on the disaster was...