The Titanic Memorial is a granite statue in southwest Washington, D.C., that honors the men who gave their lives so that women and children might be saved during the RMS Titanic disaster. The thirteen-foot-tall figure is of a partly clad male figure with arms outstretched. The statue was erected by the Women's Titanic Memorial Association.
The memorial is located on P Street SW next to the Washington Channel near Fort Lesley J. McNair. It was designed by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who won the commission in open competition, and sculpted by John Horrigan from a single piece of red granite furnished from Westerly, RI, by the Henry C. Smalley Granite Co. It was unveiled on May 26, 1931, by Helen Herron Taft, the widow of President Taft.
Originally located at the foot of New Hampshire Avenue, NW in Rock Creek Park along the Potomac River, the monument was removed in 1966 to accommodate the Kennedy Center. The memorial was re-erected without ceremony in 1968 on the south Washington waterfront outside Fort McNair in Washington Channel Park at Fourth and P Streets, SW.
A replica of the head of the memorial, carved in marble and exhibited in Paris in 1921, was purchased by the French Government for the Musée du Luxembourg.
In the 1997 film Titanic there is a scene in which Kate Winslet imitates the statue's pose on the bow of the Titanic.
TO THE BRAVE MEN
WHO PERISHED
IN THE WRECK
OF THE TITANIC
APRIL 15 1912
THEY GAVE THEIR
LIVES THAT WOMEN
AND CHILDREN
MIGHT BE SAVED
ERECTED BY THE
WOMEN OF AMERICA