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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Greetings everyone, Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: where we learn a smidgen of history every day. Today

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Speaker 1: is April nineteen. The day was April fourteenth nine. Violet

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Speaker 1: Constance Jessup was working as a stewardess aboard the Royal

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Speaker 1: Mail ship Titanic when it crashed into an iceberg. Violet

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Speaker 1: calmly escorted passengers to boats, and eventually she escaped from

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Speaker 1: the Titanic on a lifeboat. But it wouldn't be the

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Speaker 1: last time Violet would survive a sinking ship. Violet's mother

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Speaker 1: worked as a stewardess and the Royal Mail Line, a

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Speaker 1: shipping company, for five years, but her mom's health deteriorated

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Speaker 1: and she was no longer up for the job. Violet

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Speaker 1: was working as a governess, but she wasn't making nearly

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Speaker 1: enough money to take care of her siblings and mother,

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Speaker 1: so Violet also decided to pursue a job as a

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Speaker 1: stewardess and the Royal Mail Line to support her family.

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Speaker 1: Violet's interviewer told her that she was too young and

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Speaker 1: too pretty to be a stewardess, but she got the

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Speaker 1: job anyway. She started on the Orinoco, traveling to the Caribbean.

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Speaker 1: It was a tough job and Violet didn't have any

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Speaker 1: experience in it, so she basically had to learn as

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Speaker 1: she went. She had to run passengers, errands, clean cabins,

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Speaker 1: and tend to stick passengers, among other taxing responsibilities. Being

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Speaker 1: stuck on a ship with passengers and crew who could

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Speaker 1: be bothersome and demanding while still having to complete difficult

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Speaker 1: work was a feat, but she acclimated, and she enjoyed

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Speaker 1: her time in port cities where she could get some

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Speaker 1: relief from her work and have a little leisure time.

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Speaker 1: But Jessup was fired from her job when a captain

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Speaker 1: who was romantic interested in her accused her of flirting

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Speaker 1: with officers. That's when she got a job as a

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Speaker 1: stewardess for the White Star Line, another British shipping company.

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Speaker 1: She'd heard that the roots its ships took were particularly treacherous,

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Speaker 1: and there was word that its passengers expected superior service

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Speaker 1: from crew. But since her exit from the Royal Mail

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Speaker 1: job wasn't on good terms, she ended up taking the

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Speaker 1: job at White Star anyway, and it went pretty well.

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Speaker 1: Her passengers liked her because she was a crowd favorite,

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Speaker 1: Violet was chosen to serve aboard the Olympic on its

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Speaker 1: maiden voyage in nineteen eleven. Violet was happy aboard the Olympic,

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Speaker 1: and she didn't seem phased by its collision with the

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Speaker 1: h M. S Hawk in September of that year. She

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Speaker 1: continued her work on the ship after it was out

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Speaker 1: of commission for a couple of months, but Violet's friends

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Speaker 1: convinced her to join the crew of the White Star

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Speaker 1: Lines Titanic when she was selected to work on its

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Speaker 1: maiden voyage. When the Titanic collided with the iceberg that

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Speaker 1: caused its demise, Violet was comfortably drowsy. As she put it, Violet,

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Speaker 1: like many other people aboard, didn't quite realize the urgency

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Speaker 1: of the situation, and she went back to her room

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Speaker 1: after helping passengers board boats. But as the ship tilted

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Speaker 1: to a dangerous angle, it became clear that the circumstances

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Speaker 1: were dire. She said in her memoir, I was ordered

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Speaker 1: up on deck calmly, passengers strolled about. I stood at

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Speaker 1: the bulkhead with the other stewardesses, watching the women cling

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Speaker 1: to their husbands before being put into the boats with

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Speaker 1: their children. Sometime after, a ship's officer ordered us into

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Speaker 1: the boat first to show some women it was safe.

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Speaker 1: As the boat was being lowered, the officer called here,

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Speaker 1: miss jessup, look after this baby, and a bundle was

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Speaker 1: dropped onto my lap. The people in her boat were

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Speaker 1: rescued by the ship the Carpathia after eight hours. The

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Speaker 1: Titanic sinking was a terrible incident, but Violet went back

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Speaker 1: to work. In nineteen fourteen, as World War One was beginning,

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Speaker 1: Violet began serving as a nurse with the British Red Cross.

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Speaker 1: Soon she was back aboard a ship, this time the Britannic,

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Speaker 1: the Titanic sister ship. Just four and a half years

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Speaker 1: after the Titanic incident, Violet was in another wreck, the

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Speaker 1: Britannic struck a Mind and the Aegean, but Violet again

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Speaker 1: made it out on a lifeboat. In her memoir, she

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Speaker 1: described being sucked under the ship's keel, hitting her head

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Speaker 1: and escaping, only to discover she had fractured her skull

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Speaker 1: years later when she went to the doctor for headaches.

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Speaker 1: Violet worked as a clerk during the war, then continued

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Speaker 1: her work as a stewardess during her later years. She

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Speaker 1: took more jobs as a clerk and in factories. After

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Speaker 1: a brief marriage and forty two years at sea, she

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Speaker 1: retired in Suffolk, England. Her memoir was published in nine

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Speaker 1: seven decades after her death. In May nineteen seventy one.

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Speaker 1: I'm Eve Stepcote and hopefully you know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd like

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Speaker 1: to learn more about Violet, listen to the episode of

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Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History class called the Unsinkable Violet Jessup.

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Speaker 1: Keep up with us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at

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Speaker 1: t d i h C Podcast. We'll be back with

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Speaker 1: more history tomorrow