Third class Syrian or Lebanese dining room

[schara01]

In the biography of Shawneene George Joseph, she mentions that the Syrian/Lebanese immigrants in 3rd class had their own dining saloon. Was it just a section of the dining saloon that they had, or did they really have their own separate dining saloon? I'm assuming they wouldn't have been served anything different than the other 3rd class passengers, but this is just something interesting I had come across and I didn't know the validity of her claims.

I watched a recreation video online that did a sort of "tour" through the various decks of the ship, and in the 3rd class dining saloon there did appear to be a few enclaves within the 3rd class dining saloon where it would be easy to kind of claim one particular space for a group.

Thank you for reading, and if anyone has any sources please advise.

 

[Michael Hinz]

Hello, i will try to answer your question as good as I can

If we look at the deck plans of the Titanic, we do not find any other suitable space apart from the third-class dining room that would have allowed third-class passengers to enjoy meals in large groups. So the passengers must have eaten, just like the other european and american passengers, in the large dining room on the F-deck.

There were 709 passengers in the third class of the Titanic. According to my knowledge, about 130 of them came from the Syrian/Lebanese cultural circle.

The dining room of the third class was divided into two parts by watertight doors. As on the rest of the ship, families and unaccompanied women were separated from unaccompanied men. The entire dining room could hold about 400 passengers, which means that not all third-class passengers could eat their meals at the same time. Under these circumstances, I cannot imagine that the Syrian/Lebanese passengers were assigned their own dining room. But I think it is possible that the syrian/lebanese families had their own corner in one of the parts of the dining room where they sat at several tables.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

In the biography of Shawneene George Joseph, she mentions that the Syrian/Lebanese immigrants in 3rd class had their own dining saloon.

IMO, one has to be careful with such "claims". In the first place, have Mrs Joseph's words been translated correctly, especially if she was speaking with a local dialect? She might have meant exactly what Michael says below - that the Syrian/Lebanese passengers had simply "reserved" a section of the Third Class dining room for their group, understandable because of the alien environment and communications limitations. But that would not have meant that the area was "theirs" or anything. In fact, depending on the day they might have sat more or less together but in different parts of the dining room.

I cannot imagine that the Syrian/Lebanese passengers were assigned their own dining room. But I think it is possible that the syrian/lebanese families had their own corner in one of the parts of the dining room where they sat at several tables.

Exactly. The same thing probably applied to the Irish, Scandinavian and other groups of passengers for the same reasons. For example, very little is known about the on-board movements of the 38 Bulgarian passengers, all travelling in Third Class, but they too must have congregated and eaten their meals somewhere. If there had been even a single survivor from among them (unfortunately, there wasn't), we would have had more information and related stories.

After reading a certain badly written book about the Syrian-Lebanese passengers on board the Titanic, I got a strong impression that the author did not really bother to verify statements made by descendants of the survivors or, in some cases recorded statements of the the survivors themselves. There are all sorts of improbable claims including several people being shot etc.....but we've been though all that before.

I have made the point before that the passenger demographics of East-to-West crossings of the Olympic class of liners - or indeed any large ship of that kind - could not be predicted and could well be highly variable even from one day to another. That would be specially true of the national origins of the immigrants in Third Class; if the Titanic had not sunk on its maiden voyage, its next Southampton-Cherbourg-Queenstown-New York trip could well have contained a lot of Italians, Spaniards and Egyptians in Third Class. Under such circumstances, it would not have been possible to even informally designate dining areas based on nationalities, especially since most of them aspired to become bona fide Americans sooner or later.

 

[schara01]

Hello, i will try to answer your question as good as I can

If we look at the deck plans of the Titanic, we do not find any other suitable space apart from the third-class dining room that would have allowed third-class passengers to enjoy meals in large groups. So the passengers must have eaten, just like the other european and american passengers, in the large dining room on the F-deck.

There were 709 passengers in the third class of the Titanic. According to my knowledge, about 130 of them came from the Syrian/Lebanese cultural circle.

The dining room of the third class was divided into two parts by watertight doors. As on the rest of the ship, families and unaccompanied women were separated from unaccompanied men. The entire dining room could hold about 400 passengers, which means that not all third-class passengers could eat their meals at the same time. Under these circumstances, I cannot imagine that the Syrian/Lebanese passengers were assigned their own dining room. But I think it is possible that the syrian/lebanese families had their own corner in one of the parts of the dining room where they sat at several tables.

Thank you Michael, this is an excellent response. I was kind of assuming that it was more of a “we all sat together in this particular area” more than “we had our own room”. This makes a lot of sense.

 

[schara01]

After reading a certain badly written book about the Syrian-Lebanese passengers on board the Titanic, I got a strong impression that the author did not really bother to verify statements made by descendants of the survivors or, in some cases recorded statements of the the survivors themselves. There are all sorts of improbable claims including several people being shot etc.....but we've been though all that before.

Thank you, Arun, for your always informative replies. I had heard about that book you mentioned and even considered purchasing it, but your reviews have convinced me otherwise.

 

[Magnar Vikoeren]

The only liners I know had separate dining rooms in 3rd class for non-western travellers were on the Canadian Pacific-ships crossing the Pacific between Vancouver and Japan and China. I have copies of cabin plans for some of the Empress-ships serving that route.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Interesting - for lack of another word, I guess. Can you tell me till which year that arrangement prevailed?

I wonder if it was for the "benefit" of the Western passengers on board or the Oriental ones themselves.

I know that I am looking at this from a contemporary viewpoint, as far as Third Class passengers westbound from Europe to the USA and Canada were concerned on the big Cunard, WSL, Hamburg-Amerika and such liners in that era, mixing with other nationalities offered a great opportunity to start to be part of the melting pot that America was becoming. After all, most of those immigrants aspired to become bona fide citizens of the "Land of Opportunity" sooner than later and 6 days of rubbing shoulders with like minded strangers might have had a positive influence, communication limitations notwithstanding.

 

[Magnar Vikoeren]

A detail from a deckplan for "Empress of Australia" issued in 1923, and an Asiatic dining room is shown on D-deck.
On another CP-liner I have also seen Asiatic kitchen on the plan, unfortunately I can't remember which ship.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Thanks Magnar. I noted that it says "Asiatic Steerage Dining Space"; sounds like an unwanted relative. I wonder if they had proper tables and chairs?