The Young Photographer Who Captured The Tragedy

When Bernice “Bernie” Palmer Ellis received a Kodak Brownie box camera as a gift, she probably never expected to use it to document the wake of a maritime tragedy. But that’s what ended up happening. A passenger of the Carpathia, the then-17-year-old snapped photos of the Titanic survivors and the iceberg that caused the ship’s sinking.

Unfortunately, Ellis didn’t realize the extraordinary value of what she captured and gave her film to a newsman in exchange for the pictures’ prints and a mere $10. Later on, Ellis would leave her Kodak and the Titanic photographs in the care of the Smithsonian.