Edith Louise Rosenbaum Russell was an American fashion buyer, stylist and correspondent for Women's Wear Daily, best remembered for surviving the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic with a music box in the shape of a pig.
35 Facts About Edith Rosenbaum
2.
Edith Rosenbaum's story became widely known in the press at the time and was later included in the best-selling account of the disaster A Night to Remember by Walter Lord.
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Edith Louise Rosenbaum was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, into a wealthy Jewish family in 1879.
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Edith Rosenbaum was later influential as a cloak and suit manufacturer in his own right and an investor in garment industry real estate in New York, where he moved with his wife, the former Sophia Hollstein, and daughter Edith in 1902.
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Edith Rosenbaum was educated in Cincinnati public schools and a succession of finishing schools, including the Mt.
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Edith Rosenbaum provided fashion sketches for the Butterick Pattern Service and to a number of American clothing stores and textile suppliers.
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In 1910 Edith Rosenbaum was hired as a Paris correspondent for the newly established New York garment trade publication Women's Wear Daily.
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Edith Rosenbaum was involved in a serious automobile accident in 1911 in which her wealthy fiance, Ludwig Loewe, whose family owned a noted German arms manufacturing firm, was killed.
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Edith Rosenbaum was traveling with friends to the races at Deauville when the car, driven by Loewe, crashed near Rouen.
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Edith Rosenbaum suffered a concussion which caused some memory loss but no other significant injuries.
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Edith Rosenbaum advised several well-known entertainment personalities on their wardrobes such as Broadway actress Ina Claire and opera singer Geraldine Farrar, becoming one of the first known celebrity stylists.
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Between 1914 and 1919 Edith Rosenbaum was American press attache for the governing body of the French fashion industry, the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, now called Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture and a division of the Federation francaise de la couture.
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Edith Rosenbaum was a highly critical observer of the fashion industry, both in New York and Paris, and her opinions were frequently quoted in the press.
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Edith Rosenbaum continued as a correspondent for Women's Wear Daily until about 1917, although she contributed occasional articles thereafter.
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Edith Rosenbaum was in the trenches four times, according to the New York Herald, and in April 1917, while serving in a Red Cross hospital set up in a convent, was caught in the bombardment of the Chemin des Dames during the famous Second Battle of the Aisne.
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Edith Rosenbaum bred dogs for a number of famous clients, including Maurice Chevalier.
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Edith Rosenbaum claimed to have locked all her trunks, containing the valuable couture merchandise she was importing, before going out on the deck.
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Edith Rosenbaum told him she had heard the Titanic was going to be towed to Halifax while passengers were transferred to another ship, and she was worried about her luggage.
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Edith Rosenbaum had promised her mother she would keep it with her always.
20.
When Wareham came back with the little trifle, wrapped in a blanket, Edith Rosenbaum headed for the boat deck, ending up on the starboard side of the ship.
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Edith Rosenbaum admonished her for not having gotten into a lifeboat yet and directed her down a stairwell to the deck below where one was being loaded.
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Edith Rosenbaum later sued the White Star Line, for the loss of her luggage.
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Edith Rosenbaum remained active socially, befriending many celebrities during her stays in the south of France, Majorca, Lucerne and Rome, including the Duke of Windsor, Benito Mussolini and Anna Magnani.
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Edith Rosenbaum lived at London's Claridge's Hotel in the 1940s, moving eventually to a suite at the Embassy House Hotel in Queens Gate, London.
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Edith Rosenbaum seems to have been expatriated by the early 1950s.
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Edith Rosenbaum attended a special media preview of the movie Titanic in 1953, afterward giving interviews to Life magazine and the New York daily press.
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Edith Rosenbaum posed for photos carrying her famous toy pig and standing beside the dress she had worn on a fateful night.
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Edith Rosenbaum later served as an advisor on the 1958 British film adaptation of Lord's book, produced by William MacQuitty.
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In 1963, when the Titanic Historical Society was formed in the United States, Edith Rosenbaum was made an honorary member.
30.
Edith Rosenbaum Russell died at the Mary Abbott Hospital in London on April 4,1975, at the age of 95.
31.
On Lord's death in 2002, the toy was bequeathed to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, which received the floral-printed boudoir slippers Edith Rosenbaum had worn when she boarded Lifeboat 11.
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Edith Rosenbaum was portrayed in the accompanying documentary, released by Walt Disney Pictures.
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Edith Rosenbaum's story was extensively revisited that year in two well-received books about the Titanic: Hugh Brewster's Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage and Andrew Wilson's Shadow of the Titanic.
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Edith Rosenbaum was featured in a further 2012 title, The Osborne Titanic Sticker Book, geared to children.
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In 2014 an illustrated biographical account of Edith Rosenbaum was included in the digital book that accompanied Titanic by Sean Callery, part of Scholastic's "Discover More" children's series.