The First Ocean Race—Passenger Traffic in the Old Clipper Days—State-rooms and Table Fare in Early Days—The First Ocean Mail Contract—Discomforts Fifty Years Ago—American Transatlantic Lines—Government Subsidies—Novelties on the Collins Line—When Steerage Passengers were Allowed on Ocean Steamships—Important Changes in the Comfort of Passengers Wrought by the Oceanic in 1870—The Present Era of Twin-screw Ships—Their Advantages—The Fastest Voyages East and West—Records of the Great Racers—Modern Conveniences and Luxuries—The Increase in the Number of Cabin Passengers from 1881 to 1890—How the Larder is Supplied—Electric Lights, Libraries, and Music-rooms—Customs Peculiar to the French, German, and British Lines—Life in the Steerage—Immigration Statistics—Government Regulations.

THERE are, undoubtedly, many men and women in New York to-day who went down to the Battery and cheered and waved their hands in greeting to the first steamship that entered this port from Europe. This important event took place on April 23, 1838, and it was doubly interesting and significant because not only the first transatlantic steamship came to anchor in the harbor on that day, but the second also; steam travel across the sea thus beginning with a race that was earnestly contested and brilliantly won. Furthermore, it was a race that attracted infinitely more attention than any of the contests that have succeeded it. Two steam-vessels had crossed the Atlantic in years previous, both having started from this side; the Savannah, from Savannah, in 1819;16 and the Royal William from Quebec, in 1831; but neither of these voyages had demonstrated the feasibility of abandoning the fine sailing packets and clippers for steamers when it came to a long voyage. The Savannah used both steam and sail during eighteen of the twenty-five days required for a passage to Liverpool, and more than one clipper overtook and passed her during the voyage. The Royal William had to utilize all her hold for coal in order to carry sufficient fuel to insure a completion of the voyage. The reasons for the commercial failure of such craft are, therefore, apparent; but they proved to be available and profitable for coastwise traffic, and meantime inventive genius was at work on plans and models and theories, all intended for the construction of a steamship capable of carrying goods and passengers between Europe and America, and of outrunning the packets. Public interest, accordingly, was deeply stirred on both sides of the ocean when, in 1837, it was learned that two steam-vessels were on the stocks, building for the American service. These were the Sirius, at London, and the Great Western, at Bristol. It was these vessels that made the first race; the Sirius making the trip, measured from Queenstown, in eighteen and a half days, and the Great Western in fourteen and a half days. The Sirius, having had nearly four days’ start, came in a few hours ahead of the winner. She brought seven passengers, and whether the Great Western had others than her crew on board cannot now be ascertained.

At this time there were several lines of sailing vessels in operation between America and Europe, among the most important of which were Williams & Guion’s Old Black Star line, afterward merged into the Guion line of Steamships; Grimshaw & Co.’s Black Star line; C. H. Marshall & Co.’s Black Ball line; and Tapscott’s line. All these concerns conducted a profitable business in carrying passengers, and the ships were provided with accommodations for the three classes into which travellers have been divided from early times. It is impossible at this day to determine with exactness the volume of passenger traffic in clippers, for no complete records were kept; but that it was comparatively light may be inferred from the fact that provision was made in the large ships for from ten to thirty first-cabin and twenty second-cabin passengers.

The steerage capacity varied from eight hundred to one thousand, and it was a long time after steamship lines had been established before immigrants ceased to come over in clippers. In fact, for ten years after the inauguration of the first steam line the immigrants had no choice—the steamships carrying none but cabin passengers. The rates were, £30 for first cabin; £8 for second cabin; and £5 to £8 for steerage. The appointments of cabins and state-rooms were meagre as compared with the great steamships of to-day, but the table fare was substantially the same that is provided now. The first-cabin passengers fared as they might in a good hotel; those in the second cabin, or “intermediates,” as they were called, had a plentiful supply of plain well-prepared food, and the needs of the steerage passengers were looked after by the British Government, which instituted an official bill of fare. These matters will be described in greater detail farther on.

In the Marine News of April 4, 1838, published in New York, the agents of the Sirius advertise her as a “New and Powerful Steamship, 700 tons burden, 320 horse-power.” The advertisement continues:

Commenting upon the arrival of the Sirius and Great Western, the New York Courier and Enquirer of April 24, 1838, said:

The “fate of the experiment,” as far as the Sirius was concerned, was decided by the initial voyage. She had taken on four hundred and fifty tons of coal at Queenstown, all of which had been consumed before passing Sandy Hook, and had it not been for the sacrifice of spare spars and forty-three barrels of rosin to the demands of the furnace, she would not have entered the upper bay under steam. Nevertheless there were people who trusted her capability to get back to Queenstown with the same quantity of coal, and among these confident, not to say venturesome, travellers, were the Chevalier Wyckoff and James Gordon Bennett, Sr. The Sirius made better time on the eastward trip, but she never again crossed the ocean. For many years she plied between Cork and Dublin.

As a business venture the Great Western was more successful, and she made in all thirty-seven round voyages between Bristol, or Liverpool, and New York. Sixty-six passengers sailed in her on her first voyage from New York. Enthusiastic reporters of that day record that at least one hundred thousand persons crowded the Battery and other points of view to see her off. She had been advertised as follows:

Other steamships made experimental voyages across the Atlantic after this, and several attempts were made to establish regular lines, that is, a service with stated times of sailing from one year’s end to another; but none of these succeeded until 1840, when the British & North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company was organized. The chief promoter of this concern was Mr. Samuel Cunard, of Halifax, and the name of the corporation was speedily forgotten in the popular adoption of his name to designate the line. Mr. Cunard and his associates had been keen observers of the various experiments in steam navigation, and naturally they profited by others’ failures. By no means the least important feature of their enterprise, by which it differed from previous ventures, and by which it secured a fighting chance for prosperity, was an arrangement with the British Government for carrying the mails. The first mail contract covered a period of seven years at £60,000 annually. This service was monthly in the beginning, afterward fortnightly, and the points touched were Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston. Eventually, with increased subventions from the Government, a weekly service was established between Liverpool and New York, as well as a semi-monthly service between Liverpool and Boston. The first fleet of the Cunard line consisted of four vessels—the Britannia, Acadia, Caledonia, and Columbia. Another steamship, the Unicorn, made what was probably a voyage of announcement for the company. The Unicorn was the first steam-vessel from Europe to enter Boston Harbor, where she arrived on June 2, 1840. Although Boston made as much fuss over this event as New York had over the arrival of the Sirius and Great Western two years before, regular communication with Europe was not established until the arrival of the Britannia, the real pioneer of the Cunard line. She left Liverpool on Friday, July 4, 1840, and made the voyage to Boston, including the dÉtour to Halifax and delay there of twelve hours, in fourteen days and eight hours. That Mr. Cunard was correct in believing that transportation by steam would stimulate travel between the continents is clear enough to us now; but he and his associates must have felt justified in the undertaking by the fact that the Britannia carried ninety cabin passengers on her first trip.

Although the passengers had “the run” of the entire ship, their accommodations were little, if any, better than those provided in the clippers. The saloon and state-rooms were all in the extreme after-part of the vessel, and there were no such things as comfortable smoking-rooms on deck, libraries, sitting-rooms, electric lights and annunciators, automatic windows to port-holes; and there were no baths to be obtained except through the kind offices of the boatswain or his mate, who vigorously applied the hose on such passengers as came dressed for the occasion when the decks were being washed in the early morning. “State-room” was much more of a misnomer then than it is now. On the most unpretentious modern steamship there is room enough in the chambers to put a small trunk, and even other articles of convenience to the traveller; and one may dress, if he takes reasonable care, without knocking his knuckles and elbows against the wall or the edges of his berth. Nowadays, too, the state-room is usually large enough to accommodate three or four persons, while some are arranged to hold more, if the ship is crowded. The pioneer steamship had chambers so narrow that there was just room enough for a stool to stand between the edge of the two-feet-wide berth and the wall—mere closets. There were two berths in each room, one above the other. By paying somewhat less than double fare a passenger given to luxury might have a room to himself, according to the advertisement of the Great Western. Within such narrow quarters, however, everything possible was done for the passenger’s comfort. A gentleman, now in business in New York, who crossed in the earliest days of the Cunard line, and who has since sailed on the modern racers, says that the difference is by no means as great as might be expected. He puts it this way:

“The table was as good then as it is now, and the officers and stewards were just as attentive. There is more costly ornamentation now; but that aside, the two great improvements over the liners of forty-five years ago are in speed and space. There is more room now to turn around in, and the service is somewhat better.”

This is a very good-humored view of the matter. It is not probable that latter-day travellers would be content to put up with narrow rooms, smoking lamps, low ceilings, and plain edibles, all of which are now entirely changed. The traveller to-day demands more than comfort and safety. Travelling is in the main itself a luxury, and as more and more Americans have found themselves with sufficient means to indulge in it, they have demanded more and more luxurious surroundings and appointments. It is in response to this demand and the growth of the traffic, that within the last few years there has been placed upon the transatlantic lines a fleet of steamships that surpass in every respect anything that the world has seen.

For several years the Cunard line enjoyed what was substantially a monopoly of the steam carrying trade between England and America, although individual vessels made trips back and forth at irregular intervals, and various and unsuccessful attempts were made to establish a regular service. The first enterprise of this kind that originated in the United States was the Ocean Steam Navigation Company. In 1847 this corporation undertook to carry the American mails between New York and Bremen twice a month. The Government paid $200,000 a year for this service, and the vessels touched at Cowes, Isle of Wight, on each trip. Two steamships were built for this line, the Washington and Herman. When the contract with the Government expired both were withdrawn and the project was abandoned. About the same time C. H. Marshall & Co., proprietors of the Black Ball line of packet-ships, built a steamship, the United States, to supplement their transatlantic business, but the venture proved to be unprofitable. Then came the New York & Havre Steam Navigation Company. This line was also subsidized by the Government for carrying the United States mails between New York, Southampton, and Havre, fortnightly, at $150,000 annually. The two steamships built for this purpose were wrecked, and two others were chartered in order to carry out the mail contract, until the Fulton and the Arago, two new steamships built for the line, were ready for service in 1856.

The most important American rival which foreign corporations have encountered in transatlantic steam navigation was the famous Collins line. Mr. E. K. Collins had grown up in the freight and passenger business between New York and Liverpool, and in 1847 he began to interest New York merchants in a plan to establish a new steamship line. Two years later a company which he had organized launched four vessels—the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Baltic. They were liberally subsidized; the Government paying to the company $858,000 yearly for carrying the mails; conditions imposed being that the vessels should make twenty-six voyages every year, and that the passage from port to port should be better in point of time than that made by the Cunarders. The Collins line met the conditions successfully; its vessels making westward trips that averaged eleven days, ten hours, and twenty-one minutes, as compared with twelve days, nineteen hours, and twenty-six minutes by the British steamships. The vessels of the Collins line cost upward of $700,000 each. This was a great deal of money to put into a steamship in those days, and as the largest of the fleet was considerably smaller than the smallest of the steamships that now ply between New York and European ports, there was naturally a good percentage of cost in the appointments for the comfort of the passengers. Many features that have since come to be regarded as indispensable on board ship were introduced by the Collins vessels. Among them none attracted more comment when the Atlantic arrived at Liverpool, at the end of her first voyage, May 10, 1849, than the barber-shop. English visitors to the vessel, as she lay at anchor in the Mersey, saw for the first time the comfortable chair, with its movable head-rest and foot-rest, in which Americans are accustomed to recline while undergoing shaving. Another novelty was a smoking-room in a house on the after-part of the deck. In the predecessors of the Atlantic smokers had to get on as well as might be in an uninviting covered hatchway known as the “fiddley.” The Collins line vessels had not only a dining-room sixty feet long by twenty feet broad, but had a general saloon sixty-seven feet by twenty feet. These were divided by the steward’s pantry. Rose, satin, and olive woods figured prominently in the decorations; there were rich carpets, marble-topped tables, expensively upholstered chairs and sofas; a profusion of mirrors; all the panels and the saloon windows were ornamented with coats-of-arms and other designs emblematic of American freedom; all of which made, according to an English writer, a “general effect of chasteness and a certain kind of solidity.”

The Collins line obtained its share of a steadily increasing passenger traffic between the Old and New Worlds. It carried freight at from $30 to $40 a ton; it had the advantage of an immense subsidy; but to all intents and purposes the corporation was bankrupt at the end of six years. It cost too much to maintain the high rate of speed required by the Government. Moreover, two vessels were lost; the Arctic, which went down after a collision with a French steamer off Cape Race, in September, 1854, when two hundred and twenty-two of the two hundred and sixty-eight people on board were drowned; and the Pacific, which was never heard from after she left Liverpool on June 23, 1856.

Almost simultaneously with the inauguration of the Collins line another candidate for ocean business appeared, bringing with it two innovations of great importance to all travellers. This was the Liverpool, New York, & Philadelphia Steamship Company, better known, even in its own offices, as the Inman line. It was the original plan of this company to establish a line between Liverpool and Philadelphia, and for several years, beginning in 1850, no calls were made at New York. The Inman Company was successful in securing a contract from the British and Canadian Governments for carrying the mails via Halifax, and was the successor to the Cunard line on that route; the company then settled down, with a comfortable mail contract, to carrying passengers, freight, and mail between Liverpool and New York, calling at Queenstown on every trip.

During the Crimean War the transatlantic trade received a severe check, as more than half the steamships were withdrawn and placed in the service of the British and the French Governments as transports. During that time the Collins line and other American lines received quite an impetus by many of the vessels of both the Cunard and Inman lines being required for transport duty. At the close of the Crimean War, however, a reaction set in when these ships were again put in commission, with a decidedly disastrous effect on the American lines.

In 1855 Commodore Vanderbilt endeavored to get a subsidy from the American Government for a mail line to Europe, but, notwithstanding his failure to procure this contract, he placed three or four vessels on the route between New York, Southampton, and Havre, and later on the Bremen route. The venture was more or less profitable. Almost the last remnants of American enterprise in Atlantic passenger traffic disappeared with the steamships Fulton and Arago of the New York and Havre line, which were withdrawn in 1868. Mention should, however, be made of the American line, with four iron screw steamers, which began to run between Philadelphia and Liverpool in 1873, and ran regularly since its inception, without any Government subsidy.

Two innovations introduced by the Inman line became prominent features of ocean business, and it may be left an open question as to which was the more important. One was the use of the screw-propeller, and the other was the carrying of steerage, or third-class, passengers. Previous to 1850 all steamships built for transatlantic voyages had been side-wheelers, and even as late as 1870 there were steam-vessels that came into the port of New York with the walking-beam, familiar to patrons of modern ferry-boats and river steamers. The principle of the screw-propeller had been known and utilized for many years; but it was not believed that a steamship could cross the ocean in safety unless side-paddles were employed. The first iron transatlantic screw steamship was the City of Glasgow (except the Great Britain, which first arrived in New York on September 10, 1845, making but two transatlantic trips, and therefore not entering as a factor into this trade), built on the Clyde by Tod & McGregor. She made four successful voyages between Glasgow and New York before she was purchased by the corporation that afterward became known as the Inman line. This innovation, although it did not result at first in any marked increase of speed, soon found approbation in the policies of rival companies.

The other innovation was equally long in finding acceptance among oceanic steamship companies, but it eventually prevailed, even to the extermination of the clipper ship as a passenger carrier. It may be remarked just here that the introduction of the screw-propeller added to the discomforts of the cabin passengers; for in the first vessels of the Inman line the state-rooms and saloons were retained in the after-part of the ships, where the motion of the sea and the noise of the screw were most apparent.

Leaving this matter for the present, it is worth noting that the steady increase in passenger traffic between the two continents led to the organization of many other companies that tried to find a share in the carrying business. The Glasgow & New York Steamship Company was started in 1854 by Tod & McGregor, ship-builders; the service was fortnightly. In 1859 they decided to confine their business to ship-building, and the fleet and good-will were then sold out to the Inman line, who continued the service for a year or two, but finally withdrew the fleet from Glasgow and concentrated their entire business between Liverpool, Queenstown, and New York.

During the period from 1850 to 1860 many Atlantic lines were established, several of which are in successful operation to-day. The new-comers during that decade, as well as in the following decade, adopted generally the innovations ventured by the Inman line; but it was not until after 1870 that the side-wheeler disappeared from the ocean, and it was not until 1874 that clipper ships ceased to bring immigrants. It is said that the life of an iron steamship is unlimited; that time enough has not elapsed since the first iron ships were floated to determine how long they would naturally last under good usage. The importance, therefore, of the innovation introduced by the Inman line may be readily inferred when it is stated that the oldest steamship belonging to any of the regular lines now in the passenger service between New York and European ports was built in 1867. Within the last year or two steel has been almost entirely substituted for iron, it being lighter and more durable.

Although the transatlantic lines multiplied rapidly, and the business induced by foreign traffic increased steadily, there was no other marked improvement in the service until 1870, when the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company entered upon its career. In this case also the legal title of the corporation has been forgotten in the popular adoption of a short name to designate the line; and this new enterprise has been known almost from the beginning as the White Star line. Their first steamship was the Oceanic, and its model and appointments throughout became the pioneer of the great fleet that now plies regularly between this country and Europe. It was not so much that the proprietors of the White Star line endeavored to outdo their rivals in conveniences for passengers, table-fare, and the like, but that they heeded the complaints of the travellers who suffered from the noise and motion in their state-rooms in the after-part of the boat. In the old style of steamships the passenger who desired to sleep had to contend against the noise of the screw, the creaking of the steering apparatus, and the most extreme motion possible upon the vessel. The White Star line arranged its saloons and state-rooms so as to bring them as near as possible to the centre of gravity; placing them, therefore, amidships.

It is not essential now to state what mechanical improvements this change involved further than to say that previous to this date the cabin quarters in sailing-vessels and steamships, both naval and mercantile, were located in the after-part of the ship, and this for the reason that it enabled the passengers to fully occupy that part of the ship which was not invaded by the crew for working purposes. The year 1870, therefore, marks an epoch in steam navigation, and the vessels of all the principal lines, built since that date have been conformed to the model set by the Oceanic, and the best ships of to-day are so arranged that the passengers who pay the highest rates are located in all their necessary movements in the central part of the vessel.

From year to year the speed has been improved, until so many steamships are classed as racers that the rivalry has come to be centred in appointments and luxurious accommodation. The inauguration of the Oceanic Company marked the beginning of what may be called the second epoch in transatlantic travel, and with the first voyage of the City of New York a third epoch was begun. This last period, into which we have hardly entered, is distinguished by the twin-screw steamship. There are now nine great vessels of this class in the passenger service between European ports and New York: the City of New York and the City of Paris, of the Inman line; the Majestic and the Teutonic, of the White Star line; the Augusta Victoria, the Columbia, the Normannia, and the FÜrst Bismarck, of the Hamburg-American line; and La Touraine of the French line. These new vessels are not remarkably superior to the best single-screw steamships in the matter of speed, and any advantage gained in this respect may be attributed to their having greater horse-power. As may be seen from the record of fast passages, the Etruria and the Umbria, of the Cunard line, are not only very close seconds to the best twin-screw ships, but are even ahead of several of the new type of vessel. The great merit of the twin-screw ship lies in the increased safety which its mechanism insures. It admits of avoiding obstacles that would surely wreck a single-screw vessel, of better handling in case of collision, and of surer progress in the event of the breaking of a shaft.

Such steamships as the City of New York and the City of Paris, of the Inman line (which is now controlled by American capital, and may in a sense be regarded as an American enterprise), are designed so as to carry about 500 first-cabin passengers each, and the Etruria and Umbria, of the Cunard line, about 600; but these vessels carry less steerage passengers than other ships, which adds greatly to the comfort of saloon passengers. It is not probable that the $700,000 expended for the construction of a vessel of the Collins line would much more than suffice to pay for the decorations and conveniences afforded to passengers on the Inman ships. In correspondence with modern ideas they are subdivided into twenty-four water-tight compartments, and this, with due allowance for the architect’s notions, has led to the supplying of bath-rooms about the ship, according to the number of passengers carried; several suites of rooms on the promenade and saloon decks are arranged with bath-rooms and toilet-rooms. The second-class passengers have also their own bath-rooms, smoking-room, and saloon dining-room. The steerage is so divided that the third-class passengers are not only away forward, but aft also; and they have the whole of one deck to themselves for promenading and getting glimpses of ocean view.

These are features that apply to so many of the best steamships now plying between New York and European ports, that it would be unjust to describe any one ship as against another; but as the City of New York in 1890 made the highest average speed of all the Atlantic “greyhounds,” and for that matter the highest average speed of any steamship in the world, it is but fair to mention her wonderful performance. During the year 1890 she made eight trips to the eastward, and the average of each trip from Sandy Hook lightship to Roche’s Point, Queenstown Harbor, was six days, four hours, and five minutes; the average of her eight trips to the westward from Roche’s Point to Sandy Hook lightship was six days, five hours, and forty-four minutes. On the four trips each way from August to November, inclusive, her average west-bound voyages were six days and forty-two minutes, and the east-bound voyages six days and fifty-three minutes. For the whole season on her trips to the eastward she averaged 19.12 knots per hour, and to the westward 18.91 knots per hour. She has made a slightly better average than her sister, the favorite City of Paris, and she beat her powerful rival, the Teutonic, seven times out of ten during the season of 1890.

The fastest westward trip on record is that of the Teutonic, her time of 5 days, 16 hours, and 30 minutes being made in August, 1891. Her best eastward trip was made in September, 1891, in 5 days, 21 hours, and 22 minutes, which is also the fastest trip on record to the eastward.

The following table gives the records of fourteen of the most important transatlantic steamships:

Best Records up to October 1, 1891.

Note.—For table of records in 1890, see page 45; for a comparison of records from the Sirius to the Teutonic, see page 78.

The trips of the first six vessels in the above table are measured between Sandy Hook lightship and Roche’s Point, the entrance to Queenstown Harbor; the North German Lloyd and the Hamburg-American lines measure the trips between Sandy Hook lightship and the Needles, near Southampton; and the French line, between Sandy Hook lightship and Havre.