We think nothing of hopping on a jet airplane to cross the Atlantic Ocean for Europe and our choices abound in terms of available non-stop destinations. The incredible speeds of modern aircraft offer distinct advantages in terms of time with about the only downside being the inevitable jet lag which results as our bodies adjust to our accelerated arrival in different time zones. But, what was it like years ago? Before the advent of air travel, giant steam ships carried travelers between Europe and the Americas. Once aboard, your travel experience could vary drastically depending on your income and social standing, with First Class tickets providing access to then unimaginable luxuries.
Long before Orville and Wilbur Wright managed to take to the skies, people were traveling back and forth between Europe and America by ships. The commercial ocean travel industry emerged in the 1870s. Its development was spurred in part by the Civil War, which saw the introduction of new technologies to move men and military supplies across the country’s coastlines. These new ships were clad in iron and steel to improve upon the fragile hulls of wooden sailing ships. Vessels grew in size, strength, and safety to transport ever-increasing numbers of goods, immigrants, and tourists between America and Europe, as well as other distant parts of the world. Safety was perhaps the biggest concern for travelers. Prior to the Civil War, as many as one in seven vessels were lost at sea. By the end of the Nineteenth Century, the risk of getting shipwrecked decreased significantly, largely due to the invention of new technology. Aside from the introduction of steel hulls and cabins, ships were then fitted with gyroscopic stabilizers and anti-rolling tanks to prevent capsizing, and submarine signalers capable of detecting submerged hazards like icebergs.
These new technologies not only made journeys across the Atlantic Ocean safer, but also quicker. In 1838, the world’s fastest steamer, the SS Sirius, traveled from Cork, Ireland to New York City in just over 18 days. In 1863, a few years before the end of the Civil War, the RMS Scotia completed the same journey in eight days. One of the most extraordinary records was set by the RMS Lusitania. In 1907, the Lusitania traveled from Queenstown, Ireland to Sandy Hook, New Jersey in just four days and 19 hours. Companies of the day were always trying to set new records in order to attract and retain customers.
In the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, more people traveled from Europe to the Americas than the other way around. Crop failure, land shortages, unemployment, war, and persecution left many Europeans hoping to start a better life in the New World. A considerable majority of these immigrants began their journey in Liverpool, at the time the continent’s biggest harbor. Its granite docks served as headquarters for both the Cunard and White Star Lines, two of the biggest players in the commercial ocean travel industry of the day. Ships that left Liverpool usually set sail for New York. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, over 30% of the city’s population were immigrants or the children of immigrants. After passing the Statue of Liberty, travelers stepped onto double-decked piers where dockworkers unloaded cargo and merchants sold wares speaking Polish and Italian. While Europeans traveled to the Americas in search of work and a new home, Americans – albeit in smaller numbers – were also traveling to Europe, but for recreational purposes. Wealthy citizens went on world tours to “broaden their consciousness” and forget the hardships of the Civil War. Artists flocked to France in search of inspiration. Businessmen, policy makers, and academics trekked across the continent to meet with and strengthen international relations. The steamship lines were carrying Americans to Europe at the rate of four or five thousand persons per week.
While at sea, travel experiences varied drastically based on your wealth and social standing. Penniless immigrants on their way to the New World typically rode Steerage Class, where entire families were stuffed into small, windowless compartments. They slept in bunkbeds stacked atop each other and subsisted on gruel served in equally crowded mess halls. The differences between Steerage Class and First Class were striking, even by today’s standards. First Class passengers slept in spacious suites. They ate in marble dining rooms beneath domed ceilings made of glass. Many restaurants, like the Ritz-Carlton on the SS Amerika, allowed passengers to dine whenever they wished, rather than at fixed hours. After dinner, First Class passengers retreated into smoking rooms designed to look like Italian palazzos or bars resembling French mansions. The RMS Adriatic, owned and operated by Liverpool’s White Star Line, went the extra mile by fitting their ship with a Turkish bath and a floating swimming pool. As with commercial air travel in the late Twentieth Century, fierce competition between Cunard, White Star, and other lines gradually drove down the price of crossing the Atlantic Ocean, making it more affordable over time.
The commercial ocean travel industry, which had flourished after Union forces defeated the Confederacy, came to an end at the onset of the First World War, a time when governments on both sides of the Atlantic seized those ships and turned them into troop carriers or hospital ships using ports as military pickup points. Ocean lines that remained in business struggled financially as voyages became increasingly dangerous due to naval mines and German U-boats, one of which sank the Lusitania in 1915 killing nearly two thousand persons.
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), First Class journeys from Europe to America had fallen by more than 70% by 1913, while Steerage arrivals fell by over 90%. After the war, the commercial ocean travel industry never recovered, partly because the global economy had been too badly damaged and partly because the war had rendered people fearful of visiting foreign countries. Despite efforts from US President Woodrow Wilson and his League of Nations, the United States withdrew into cultural as well as political isolationism. The American people came to regard foreigners “with great suspicion,” as the WFE puts it, and called for restrictions on international immigration.
Travel back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean would not resume its former intensity and enthusiasm until after the Second World War and soon after, the airplane reigned supreme.
Until next time…safe travels.