The Molly Brown House Museum 
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​Margaret went to work for the Daniels & Fisher Mercantile in Leadville, where she worked in the carpets and draperies department. This store eventually became The May Company, then May D & F, and is known today as Macy's. During the early summer of 1886, she met James Joseph ("J.J.") Brown, a miner whose parents had also immigrated from Ireland. They married on September 1, 1886, at the Annunciation Church in Leadville, and lived in J.J.'s cabin in Stumpftown, a small, primarily Irish community east of Leadville. The Browns had two children: Lawrence Palmer, born in 1887, and Catherine Ellen ("Helen"), born in 1889. 

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After the birth of Lawrence, the Browns bought a house in Leadville and were eventually joined by members of both their families. While her children were young, Margaret worked in soup kitchens to assist families of Leadville miners and continued her education, taking lessons in French and piano. When the Sherman Silver Act was repealed in 1893, Leadville was thrust into a deep depression and the unemployment rate was 90 percent. J.J. Brown, who had a stake in the Ibex mining properties, worked with the other owners including his friend and partner John Campion for many years in the search for gold in the Little Jonny mine. While they struck gold in 1892 they didn't make a public announcement until 1893 giving them time to buy the surrounding claims. By October 29, 1893, the Little Jonny was shipping 135 tons of gold ore per day, and J.J. and his partners became incredibly wealthy men. Over the years he became one of the most successful mining men in the country.  

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On April 6, 1894, the Browns purchased a home on Pennsylvania Street in Denver and built a summer home, Avoca Lodge, in the foothills (on Wadsworth and Yale). Margaret became a founding member of the Denver Woman's Club, part of a network of clubs which advocated literacy, education, suffrage, and human rights in Colorado and throughout the United States. She led fundraisers to build the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception and St. Joseph's Hospital, and worked with Judge Ben Lindsey to help destitute children and supported Lindsey as he oversaw the growth of one of the first juvenile courts west of the Mississippi. She also attended the Carnegie Institute in Pennsylvania, where she studied literature, language, and drama - one of the first women in the country to do so. In addition to raising two children of her own, she helped raise the children of her brother Daniel: Grace, Florence, Helen and Frank Tobin, whose mother had died when they were young.

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In July of 1914, Margaret attended and hosted events as part of an international women's rights conference in Newport, Rhode Island, which was attended by human rights activists from around the world. In July of 1927, she went with a group of delegates from the National Woman's Party to appeal to President Coolidge for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. A lifelong advocate of human rights, Margaret also fundraised for the victims of the Ludlow Massacre in Trinidad, Colorado, in April 1914, a significant landmark in the history of labor rights in the United States. She sided with the striking miners, speaking out about their rights.

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By the time Margaret Tobin Brown boarded Titanic at Cherbourg, France, in April of 1912, she had already made a significant impact in Denver. She and her daughter Helen, who was a student at the Sorbonne, had been traveling throughout Europe. When Margaret received word that her first grandchild, Lawrence Palmer Brown, Jr., was ill, she decided to leave for New York immediately, and booked passage on the earliest ship: Titanic. At the last-minute Helen decided to stay behind in Paris, despite her mother urging her to join on her in mingling with an elite group of 1st Class passengers. Due to her quick decision, very few people, including family, knew that Margaret was on board.

 

After the ship struck the iceberg, Margaret helped load others into lifeboats and eventually was forced to board lifeboat six. She and the other women in lifeboat six worked together to row, keep spirits up, and dispel the gloom that was broadcast by the emotional and Quartermaster Robert Hichens. However, Margaret's most significant work occurred on Carpathia, where she assisted Titanic survivors, and afterwards in New York. By the time Carpathia reached New York harbor, Margaret had helped establish the Titanic Survivor's Committee, been elected as chair, and raised almost $10,000 for destitute survivors, namely Titanic's surviving crew members who were out of jobs and the immigrant survivors who had lost everything they owned. Margaret's language skills in French and German were an asset to the frantic immigrant survivors. She remained on Carpathia until all Titanic survivors had met with friends, family, or medical and emergency assistance. For her work helping the survivors, she was called "Heroine of the Titanic," a name that stuck with her through her lifetime. To the title of "Heroine," Margaret said, "I simply did my duty as I saw it... I am sure that there was nothing I did throughout the whole affair that any one else wouldn’t have done.”

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In a letter to her daughter shortly after the Titanic sinking, she wrote: "After being brined, salted, and pickled in mid ocean I am now high and dry . . . I have had flowers, letters, telegrams -- people until I am befuddled. They are petitioning Congress to give me a medal. . .  If I must call a specialist to examine my head it is due to the title of Heroine of the Titanic." Her sense of humor prevailed; to her attorney in Denver she wired: "Thanks for the kind thoughts. Water was fine and swimming good. Neptune was exceedingly kind to me and I am now high and dry.”

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On May 29, 1912, as chair of the Survivor's Committee Margaret presented a silver loving cup to Captain Rostron of the Carpathia and a medal to each Carpathia crew member. Later, she gave Captain Rostron the one item that survived the wreck in her pocket: a small souvenir called a ushabti, which she had picked up in Egypt just before boarding Titanic. 

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In the midst of the sinking, individuals and groups throughout the nation were campaigning for women's right to vote. Margaret was particularly upset by the unfair treatment of men being asked to stay behind on the sinking ship, stating, "Women demand equal rights on land - why not on sea?" She had many interviews after the tragedy and wrote her own account of her experience, which was published in newspapers and survivor Archibald Gracie's book, The Truth About the Titanic. She used her new fame as "Heroine of the Titanic" to speak out about issues that deeply concerned her: labor rights, women's rights, education and literacy for children, and historic preservation. 

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During World War I, she spent months in New York helping blind soldiers learn to function with loss of sight, including teaching them braille. Reports said she had the works of Mark Twain translated into braille for the soldiers. After the war, 

she worked with the American Committee for Devastated France to help rebuild devastated areas (the Chateau of Blerancourt, a French American museum outside of Paris, has a commemorative plaque that bears her name). Later in life she was recommended for the French Legion of Honor by Blerancourt and Captain Rostron of the Carpathia. She was awarded the Legion of Honor in 1932, just months before her death, for her work with blind soldiers during the war and her work helping rebuild France.

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In 1909, a difference in their personalities and lifestyles caused Margaret and J.J. to separate. Although Margaret wanted to patch things up, J.J. found the relationship "unbearable." Margaret called it a difference in "certain qualities of our natures" but she spoke very highly of him publicly. Being Catholic, they never divorced. J.J. died in 1922 without a signed will, after which the family attempted to work out a fair distribution of assets in the courts. At the end of the settlement, Margaret received $100,000 and Larry and Helen each got $50,000, all protected in a trust. In her later years Margaret returned to her earlier fascination with drama, particularly the works of famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt, and she studied in Paris in the Bernhardt tradition, performing to appreciative audiences in Paris and New York.

 

Shortly before her death, when she was suffering from extreme migraine headaches, she wrote, "I am a daughter of adventure. This means that I never experience a dull moment and never know when I may go up in an airplane and come down with a crash, or go motoring and climb a pole, or go off for a walk in the twilight and return all mussed up in an ambulance. That's my arc, as the astrologers would say. It's a good one, too, for a person who had rather make a snap-out than a fade-out of life."

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Margaret Tobin Brown died on October 26, 1932, at the Barbizon Hotel in New York City. The myth of "Molly" Brown has very little to do with the real life of Margaret Tobin Brown, although it speaks to her spirit. Margaret was never known as "Molly" during her lifetime. She was first called that name after she died by the sports reporter of the Rocky Mountain News who wrote her obituary, an entertaining piece in which the reporter made up all kinds of stories about her life. Denver Post reporter Gene Fowler elaborated on the fanciful RMN story in his 1933 folk tale book, Timberline. This story enjoyed various radio broadcasts during the 1940s and was the basis for the Broadway play, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which eventually became the MGM movie of the same name, starring Debbie Reynolds. Even James Cameron's well-researched movie Titanic has very little to do with the real story of Margaret Tobin Brown. ​After attempting to mitigate or correct the legend of "Molly," the Brown family eventually withdrew from the public and refused to speak with writers, reporters, or historians for decades.

 

Today, the museum staff continues to learn new facts and find new sources that reveal different details or provide nuanced new interpretation of the story of the life of Margaret "Molly" Brown, Titanic's unsinkable survivor.