The history of the Titanic has a lot more historical significance than many people seem to realize. While the movie captured a lot of imaginations with its romance and imagery, there were actually numerous industry tycoons on board. Two of them being John Jacob Astor IV, and Isidor Straus.

Just the family history of the Astor family is astounding, the original John Jacob Astor was a major fur trader during early colonization of North America. And John Jacob Astor Jr. was the founder of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in NYC. All this big business history led to John Jacob Astor IV, a millionaire in real estate, who suddenly lost his life in a luxury cruise, on an "unsinkable ship".

Isidor Straus was a co-owner of the Macy's Department Store. The last reported sighting of him was with his wife, waiting to die, because they refused to be separated on the lifeboats. There were many other oral histories taken from survivors that simply make for very good stories about true love, and survival.

Imagine our modern world suddenly losing multiple business figures, such as this. I have a collection of oral histories taken from survivors of the Titanic, I can post its specifics when I get home from work. Many of them also relate to the abundance of court hearings done after the disaster. With so many lives lost, many of them crew, it was difficult to root out the source of who was truly responsible for this disaster.

Again, I can post the book later, but here is a quick link I found on John Jacob Astor IV, Isidor Straus, and an example of how many other significant people lost their lives in the disaster.

Edit: The book is Sinking of The Titanic: Thrilling Stories Told by Survivors composed by Jay Henry Mowbray 1912

My friend also told me that just after the sinking, books like this were mass produced and sold door to door for about $1, which certainly would have sparked a lot of conversation among the American public.

I would venture to say that part of it is down to the close proximity of traumatic events in that decade: the First World War following closely on the heels of the sinking of the Titanic means that we necessarily see the latter through the lens of the former. The ambition, stability, and security of late-19th century Europe suddenly came crashing down around the ears of Europeans (and Americans). In part, we remember the splendor of the Titanic as a metaphor for an entire way of life that disappeared during the First World War; the more you read about that period, the more you see that the trauma of that event cannot be overstated. Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, The Perfect Summer: England 1911 by Juliet Nicolson, and come to think of it Thomas Hardy's letters are very interesting on this period.