Margaret Brown (nee Tobin)

Socialite and philanthropist Margaret Brown is best known for surviving the Titanic disaster.

Margaret Tobin was born in Hannibal, Missouri to Irish immigrants. Magaret's father, John Tobin, was born in County Cork in 1823 and came to the USA as a young boy. Her mother Johanna Collins, was also born in Ireland. Maggie got her education in a school run by her Aunt Mary O'Leary, and left it at the age of 13 to work in the local tobacco processing factory until she turned 18, when she left Hannibal.

She married James Joseph Brown in New York City. The couple became fabulously wealthy when Brown's mining business struck ore. Brown became a well-known socialite with a penchant for dramatic hats and social activism on behalf of women and children.

Brown was returning from a voyage around Europe, having seen her daughter commence University at the Sorbonne in Paris, when she decided to return to the USA on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.

During the disaster, she reportedly helped to row the lifeboat and demanded that the group of survivors row back to the spot where the ship went down, in order to look for survivors. This earned her the nickname "the Unsinkable Molly Brown" — although her friends and family reportedly called her Maggie.

Brown's life was immortalized in the Broadway musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," which was later adapted into a Hollywood film.