The White Star Line was built by the self-made Liverpool sharpie Thomas Ismay from the remains of a failed line that sent immigrants out to Australia in the mid 19th Century. Ismay made the move from sail to steam and launched larger and larger ships until he was well capitalized enough to build twin behemoths, Titanic and Olympic. By then, Thomas Ismay had lost control of the original company to the sharholders of International Mercantile Maritime (IMM) which was controlled by the significant presence of J.P. Morgan. Thomas Ismay's son Bruce Ismay (below) was the president of the Line, and, at 49, world prominent after 80 crossings of the Atlantic in his duties, Bruce Ismay was onboard the Titanic along with the stunningly weatlhy John Jacob Astor IV (then 47, a $100 Billionaire by today's collar) for the maiden voyage. I learn from Frances Wilson's new book, "How to Survive the Titanic: the Sinking of J Bruce Ismay," that Ismay chose to put himself into one of the last lifeboats lowered from B Deck.   The New York papers were immediately convinced that Ismay was a coward and rat, and the Congressional inquiry in the Ritz that followed within days put Ismay on the stand as if he was the criminal of the event.  The English press lords were sympathetic to Ismay and protected him when he arrived back in London for a British inquiry of what was in effect an American company's conduct.  Ismay spent the remainder of his life in seclusion, indifferent or deaf to the accusations that he left his post as owner of the ship.  The auction in New York is unlikely to offer any artifact that connects to the Ismay scandal.  It will show lots of evidence of the 400 first-class passengers on board.  However the White Star Line was built on the fact that it made money on the third-class passengers, and that Ismay's great genius was to build giant floating bins to take advantage of the immigrant push to America after the Civil War.  Note that Astor's body was recovered (funeral left), with a surprising amount of personal paraphernalia (below) that illustrates how the richest of men lived and died one century ago: Astor is said to have placed his 19 year-old bride (after a scandalous divorce to his children's mother) in a lifeboat, and then to have boosted two children into place beside her.  The anecdotes of Astor's conduct as the ship sank made him an immediate hero to the press.