In March 1910 Hart returned to Washington for a day that he ever after considered the luckiest in his life. On the 30th of March, at the Brownsons’ sizable new home, Caroline Robinson Brownson was married to Thomas Charles Hart by Chaplain H.D. Clark, who was Naval Academy chaplain during Brownson’s and Hart’s duty at Annapolis. The best man was Lieutenant Commander Leigh C. Palmer (class of 1896), and the groomsmen were Lieutenant Hugo W. Osterhaus (class of 1900), Lieutenant Commander Robert “Jock” Crank (class of 1892), and Lieutenant Commander Luther Overstreet (class of 1897) of battleship gunnery competition. It was a simple, but elegant, noon affair with some one hundred guests present. Navy predominated, but enough government officials and “cave dwellers” were sprinkled in to make it quite “social.”13
The bride, who wore a gown of white satin trimmed with old lace, deserves our careful attention. Caroline Hart was five feet six and one-half inches tall, very slender, and portraits reveal dark brown eyes and an abundance of brown hair. She was not beautiful but was quite striking in the strength and character she exuded. Although not vivacious, neither was she shy, perhaps “reserved” would be a better word. In some ways she was the typical, upper-class, well-mannered, protected lady of the day. Her father did not believe in formal higher education for women but she had the gentlewoman’s knowledge of music, foreign languages, literature and, departing from the norm, history. She was a good dancer, a good horsewoman, a fair ice skater, and for that era, played a good game of tennis; the tennis champion, Bill Larned, was one of her best friends. Her familiarity with sports such as salmon-fishing was the result of her father’s interest in the vigorous life. To say that she was better-rounded than the typical lady would be no exaggeration, nor would it be stretching the point to suggest that she was a person of exceptional strength, intelligence, and determination. She was a distinct asset as a naval wife. Caroline Hart knew the territory, so to speak, and was just the person to polish off any rough edges that might remain on her husband’s exterior. There would seem to be little question that she and Tommy were beginning a marriage, love affair, and partnership in which they were willing to invest everything they had.
Lieutenant Commander Thomas C. Hart, photographed, at the request of his future mother-in-law, before his marriage to Caroline Brownson in 1910. Courtesy of Mrs. T. C. Hart
In Tommy’s case there was not much other than his career and himself that he could contribute to the bargain, but of himself he was willing to invest without measure. The career, insofar as possible, would stay at the office and take care of itself. What Tommy was looking for, and found in Caroline, was a wife who would devote herself fully to him, who would provide stability and guidance to their children when they came, who would maintain a gracious home and haven to which he could return, who could hold her own with him in outdoor activities and at dinner parties, who had grace and style. In Caroline he had found someone who came closer to that ideal than he could really know in 1910. He was, as he later said so often, truly lucky in his choice of a mate.
While admitting the significant role that luck or fate played in the union, it is intriguing to speculate on what attracted Tommy to Caroline. Leaving aside all the important, but in the final analysis, superficial things like physical beauty, one comes down to several speculative, but rather safe factors that probably explain why he was drawn to her. For one thing, winning her must have seemed quite a challenge. As already mentioned, Caroline’s world was far different from Tommy’s and, at least in her father’s view, which he made rather generally known, Hart was marrying out of his class. That naturally posed another challenge, that of proving her father wrong, at least regarding his promise within his chosen profession. Another factor influencing his attraction to Caroline must have been his respect for her good sense and stability. A man capable of violent outbursts of temper, or at least of invective, he generally held himself in rigid self-control. He wanted a woman with self-control and strength because he knew he would not be able to continue to love someone he could walk over. But in fact he had no interest in walking over her—he wanted an ideal love in which competition did not play a role. And, while everyone to a greater or lesser degree wants ideal love, Tommy was absolutely determined to be successful in his quest. It was the one big thing missing in his life and, when he thought back, he realized that it had always been missing. In Caroline he saw a chance to have the things he had never really had: a home, a family, and the warm, emotional glow that comes from knowing that you have created something permanent in the midst of a changing world. Caroline looked to Tommy like his kind of fellow architect.
After a short honeymoon at The Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia, it was back to sea for the bridegroom. It may not have been luck but it was surely welcome when the chance arose to cut short his cruise. The navy was establishing a torpedo factory at what had been a small experimental plant in Newport, Rhode Island. Harry Yarnell, whom Hart highly esteemed, had done the initial work at Newport and had been asked to pick his successor. Apparently the regard was mutual, for Yarnell picked Hart to replace him as head of the Division of Maintenance and Repair. This meant returning to shore a year early, picking up where Yarnell left off; in short, completing and running an industrial plant charged with turning out and maintaining an extremely complex product. Despite the potential problems, Hart jumped at the chance.
Not only was it an opportunity to be with Caroline, it also was a challenge. Yarnell had done much toward developing the actual plant; production was going to be up to Hart. If dealing with new, challenging situations was what the navy was about, then it surely was good experience which Hart later said added a significant dimension to his professional development. For one thing, there was the torpedo itself—probably the most complicated weapon of the day. To produce it required precision of a high order even though the U.S. Navy was building the British-designed Whitehead torpedo. Hence Hart’s engineers started with British specifications and drawings and added modifications to suit American requirements.
Early in 1911 orders were received for ninety-five torpedoes, twenty Mark V, Model 3s, and seventy-five Mark V, Model 5s.14 It took until September to complete the first part of the order because the article being manufactured was novel. When they had finished, however, they had produced a weapon equal to or better and cheaper than any that could be bought elsewhere. Success only brought more orders; it was estimated that the workload increased almost 60 per cent over that of 1910.
Within one year after Hart arrived, most of the problems of propulsion and steering had been worked out; he next turned his attention to other matters. Warhead design, for instance. That required even more specialized skills with plenty of room for experimentation; this meant improvisation and it was here that Hart excelled. There were fuses to compare, different metals to test, and even new designs to consider, while at the same time completing other necessary items like the 105,000 primers manufactured in 1912. One thing he worked on was designing a cutting device to be attached to warheads so that they could slice through submarine nets. And, of course, there was always the matter of explosives.
And, as if dealing with a very persnickety weapon were not enough, there were more mundane, but equally sensitive, aspects to the job. The factory was quite a large operation; in 1913 the total value of its manufactures was $973,491. To produce torpedoes and other items successfully, the station had to build up a civilian labor force. Relations between the navy and various groups of skilled workers, most particularly the Machinists’ Union, were strained in the early decades of the century. At Newport, as at other naval manufacturing plants, profit was not involved, but great care was expended to ensure that costs were kept in line with comparable civilian operations. Hart was also supposed to reduce expenditures where possible, and he did. His plant reduced by 20 per cent the labor costs related to primer production. The obvious ways to accomplish such savings were to cut the labor force, keep wages down, or adopt the controversial Taylor system of scientific management. That system, which relied heavily on the time and motion concept complete with involved record-keeping, particularly aroused the ire of the labor unions,