Please join the Penn Libraries and members of the Thayer family for a reception to welcome the John B. Thayer Memorial Collection of the Sinking of the Titanic to its permanent home in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. This unique collection, until now in private hands, documents the personal experience of John B. Thayer (Jack), a Penn alumnus who went on to serve the University as the Vice-President of Finance from 1939 to 1945, and his mother, Marian Longstreth Morris Thayer, both of whom survived the fateful shipwreck of 1912. Items in the collection include the manuscript of Jack's memoir published in 1940, contemporary newspaper clippings documenting Jack's tale of survival, and correspondence between Marian Thayer and J. B. Ismay, CEO of the White Star Line, which commissioned the Titanic.
