"I suppose not"

I guess the same can be said about Fridtjof Nansen, arguably the greatest polar explorer of all. And a great man in most other respects.

But alas, he never crossed the north east passage and never reached the north pole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fridtjof_Nansen

I am bringing it up as an example because it is such a strange thing to say. He succeeded in so many other ways.

I'll also add a quote from Schackleton in a letter to his wife regarding turning back from furthest south with the pole 100 miles away.

“Better a live donkey than a dead lion.”

He repeatedly refused to monetise his name or experiences - he did lecture tours across Europe and the US and refused to charge money.

Much to his wife's dismay.

Kind sad sad how we have the tendency to equal success with wealth. There are way more ways to be successful than money, or fame (and hey Shackleton is one of the big four arctic / antarctic explorers, so fame-wise he did good).

And he achieved imoressive things in his life.

I would agree with you today but at that time his wife and family would have been reliant on his income in a way that isn't true now. If you consider her and his responsibility to her then this attitude becomes quite selfish. Keep in mind he accepted this responsibility when taking on the marriage.

Doesn't make him a failure so, does it?

And considering how little social.places like the US have, wel... Are you sure things a different today?

I wouldn't outright call him a failure, no, and I wasn't doing that. But I do believe it's healthy for us today to examine ways that women were disadvantaged in the past if we want to fight against such things in the future.

If his wife was dismayed by his unwillingness to fulfil his promises then we could in fact say he was a failure in that way. Whether you choose to look at it that way or not is of course up to you. At the end of the day he took on the responsibility of supporting other people in a material sense and then chose to prioritise his own good feelings over that support. The issue is of course systemic at the core, in that she was limited in her choices, but he understood this when agreeing to marry.

I agree with you that things in the US are not as good today as they could be in ensuring that people can live independently, but the freedom of women to support themselves is certainly much improved in the last 100 years. I also have to say that the US is not the whole world and Shakleton and his family were in fact normally based in British territories where the modern welfare system is significantly more developed.

> He successfully sailed one of the greatest and most perilous ocean journeys ever in recorded history, and rescued every member of his 28-man crew from certain death

It’s incredible feat of human survival. For all 28 men to survive the ordeal, is nothing short of fantastic. For months they were camped on floating sea ice, and then to tack on a 800 mile journey through open, stormy sea in a battered whaling boat, and finally a trek through the interior of a mountainous island to reach a whaling port and rescue, is incredible to say the least. I’d highly encourage people to read his own memoir of it.

> For months they were camped on floating sea ice, and then to tack on a 800 mile journey through open, stormy sea in a battered whaling boat,

Minor but important correction: it was a life boat, much smaller than a whaling boat.