Did white star line make most money with immigrants

Unlike the other ships in the class, Olympic had a long career spanning 24 years from to This included service as a troopship during the First World Warwhich gained her the nickname «Old Reliable». She returned to civilian service after the war and served successfully as an ocean liner throughout the s and into the first half of the s, although increased competition, and the slump in trade during the Great Depression aftermade her operation increasingly unprofitable. The Olympic was withdrawn from service and sold for scrap in ; demolition was completed in Decorative elements of Olympic were removed and sold at auction before she was scrapped, and now adorn buildings and a cruise ship. By contrast with Olympicthe other two ships in the class, Titanic and Britannichad short service lives: in Titanic collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage and sank; in Britannic struck a mine and sank in the Kea Channel in Greece. Britannic never served her intended role as a passenger ship, instead serving as a hospital ship during the First World War.

From its inception thirty years earlier up to the turn of the century, it was probably the most successful of the British transatlantic carriers. During a period of competitive turbulence and rapid technological advances, White Star earned an enviable reputation under his personal guidance not only for the quality of its steamers which became prototypes for the modern ocean liner, but also for consistently profitable operations and regular dividends. The shareholders were happy. When Ismay died in just prior to the maiden voyage of his ground-breaking design Oceanic II the White Star Line was at its zenith. It can be argued that its second thirty years, twenty-five of them under IMMC ownership, was a period of gradual decline followed by a precipitous plunge into the abyss of the Great Depression. What part did the IMMC play in this turn of fortune? What was the IMMC and what was its genesis? Much has been written about the omnivorous Morgan Combine, some of it misleading. The neologism to Morganize became synonymous with ruthless business practices by aggrandizing robber barons out to corner whole industries for the sole purpose of maximizing their fortunes. His less sanguine venture into ocean shipping was viewed in the same light by contemporary critics. Later commentaries were somewhat kinder. John G.

It was a great step forward in the development of the American Merchant Marine. Unfortunately the opposite proved true. Since the Civil War the American Merchant Marine had been in a perpetually depressed state, a victim of higher costs relative to its competitors, technological lag and the absence of a consistent national maritime policy.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

At the turn of the twentieth century, major advances in transatlantic travel were being made. Ismay decided to focus on providing shipping services in the North Atlantic. This spurred competition between shipping lines. The Cunard Line, at the time, was known as the most innovative and respected line in the world. It was the first to introduce electric lighting and wireless communication onboard. When White Star Line launched its first ship, Oceanic, in , Cunard Lines already had two dozen passenger and cargo vessels and held the Blue Riband. As early as , Cunard held the Blue Riband with its ship Britannia. The Blue Riband was an honor for ships; it allowed the ship that achieved the fastest crossing of the Atlantic to fly a blue pennant from her mast. It was a matter of great prestige for any shipping line that held the Blue Riband ship.

.

.

As a lasting reminder of the White Star Line, modern Cunard ships use the term White Star Service to describe the impeccable level of customer care expected of the company. The first company bearing the name White Star Line was founded in Liverpool, England by John Pilkington and Henry Wilson, and focused on the UK—Australia trade, which had increased following the discovery of gold.

The company acquired its first steamship inthe Royal Standard. This did not prosper and White Star broke away. White Star concentrated on the Liverpool to New York service. Heavy investment in new ships was financed by borrowing, but the company’s bank, the Royal Bank of Liverpool, failed in October Ismay established the company’s headquarters at Albion House, Liverpool.

It has long been customary for many shipping lines to have a common theme for the names of its ships. White Star gave its ships names ending in -ic, such as Titanic. The line also adopted a buff-coloured funnel with a black top as a distinguishing feature for its ships, as well as its distinctive house flag, a red broad pennant with two tails, bearing a white five-pointed star. The company suffered a massive early disaster in with the sinking of the SS Atlantic and the loss of lives near Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The crew were blamed for serious navigational errors by the Canadian Inquiry, although a British Board of Trade investigation cleared the company itself of wrongdoing. In Thomas Ismay commissioned one of the most beautiful steam ships constructed during the nineteenth century, the Oceanic II. She was the first ship to exceed the Great Eastern in length although not tonnage. The building of this ship marked White Star’s departure from competition in speed with its rivals.

Thereafter White Star concentrated on comfort and economy of operation instead. For this reason, the White Star Line committed to comfort and reliability rather than to speed. These ships carried massive numbers of passengers: passengers in First and Second Class, and over 2, in Third Class. In addition, they had extremely large cargo capacities, up to 17, tons of general cargo.

IMMa large American shipping conglomerate. Morgan, who threatened a rate war. IMM was dissolved in In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, millions of people emigrated from Europe to the United States and Canada. White Star was among the first shipping lines to have passenger ships with inexpensive accommodation for third-class passengers, in addition to places for higher paying first- and second-class.

The Oceanic-class liners of — carried up to 1, third-class passengers, as did the vast majority of White Star’s ships. The White Star Line’s «Big Four», a quartet of revolutionary liners which had large passenger and freight capacities, had the largest carrying capacity for third-class passengers: the Celtic ofwith capacity for 2, third-class passengers; the Cedric of and Baltic of each had a third-class carrying capacity of 2,; the fourth ship, the Adriatic ofhad a third-class carrying capacity of 1, White Star advertised extensively for emigrant passengers.

When the Line began operations inthe majority of their business in the emigration trade was centred on Great Britain, and Irish emigrants remained a chief source of income for much of the company’s history. From the start, a great deal of their business also came from Scandinavia, with Norway and Sweden being the largest areas of success. As the years passed, the company expanded its services into continental Europe, eventually tapping into the massive streams of emigrants from Italy, from the Slavic regions of Central Europe under the control of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and such nations as Romania and Bulgaria in southeastern Europe struggling with problems of slowed economic growth and overpopulation.

Also included was Europe’s massive population of Ashkenazi Jews from several areas of Eastern Europe generally known as the Pale of Settlement a region within the Russian Empire designated under anti-Semitic governmental policies as the only area in which Jews were allowed to settle permanently, and which included primarily areas of far western Russia, the modern-day countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus, and the remnants of the former kingdom of Galicia, an historic ethnic region with a huge Jewish population, now divided between southeastern Poland and the western Ukraine.

The Line eventually expanded their services of travel across all regions of Europe, spanning from the Iberian Peninsula did white star line make most money with immigrants the Middle East.

No exact figures are available, but White Star liners may have carried as many as two million emigrants. They maintained a handful of shipping routes for passengers,including these most widely used ones:. As a means of competing with Cunard which had faster shipsWhite Star gave its third-class facilities modest luxuries. These included division of steerage passengers into two areas of each vessel.

In those days, most shipping lines Cunard, Hamburg-Amerika, and North German Lloyd among them housed their third-class passengers in large open-berthed dormitories usually located at the forward end of the vessel; but the White Star Line strictly kept to the policy of dividing their third-class accommodations into two areas on each ship. Quarters for single men, usually found in old-fashioned form of open-berth dormitories, were located in the forward areas of the vessel; these quarters differed greatly from those found on ships of other lines as they were much less crowded.

Single women, married couples and families were berthed in private two- four- and six-berth cabins in the after areas of the vessel. The reasons for doing so in such a fashion can nowhere else be better explained than within an investigation done in secret by the American Immigration Commission. During the years when immigration to the United States was at its peak, American agent Anna Herkner disguised herself as a Bohemian immigrant and made three trans-Atlantic crossings on ships of three different lines in order to carry out her investigation of the conditions of steerage in secret.

Although the actual report omits the names of the vessels she traveled on, records at Ellis Island reveal which ships she had included in her study: inshe made a westbound crossing in steerage aboard the North German Lloyd line’s Friedrich Der Grosse, followed in by the Hamburg Amerika Line’s Pennsylvaniaand finally, inshe sailed aboard the White Star Line’s Cedric. Third-class accommodations on the White Star Line included dining rooms with linens and silverware — and menu cards which had postcards on the back, so that emigrants could write to relatives back home and suggest that they, too, travel with White Star.

Additionally, each ship also had a reading room and smoke room allotted to passengers in steerage. The Cunard Line was the chief competitor to White Star. While Cunard was famed for the speed of its ships, the Olympic class were to be the biggest and most luxurious ships in the world. The Olympic was the only ship of this class that was profitable for White Star. Titanic sank on her maiden voyage, while Britannic was requisitioned by the British government before she was fully fitted, and used as a hospital ship during World War I.

Britannic sank after hitting a mine on 21 November In the White Star Line gained Majestic and Homeric ; two former German liners which had been ceded to Britain as war reparations, ostensibly as a replacement for the war losses of the Britannic and Oceanic. Majestic was then the world’s largest liner and became the company’s flagship.

The two former German liners operated successfully alongside Olympic for an express service on the Southampton-New York route until the Great Depression reduced demand after The thousand foot long liner was to have been a motor ship propelled by the new diesel-electric propulsion system, but the ship was never completed due to the financial situation.

Oceanic’s keel was dismantled and the steel was used in two new smaller motor ships: Britannic III and Georgic. Both of these ships had entered service by ; they were the last liners White Star built. RMSPC ran into financial trouble, and was liquidated in In White Star and Cunard were both in serious financial difficulties because of the Great Depression, falling passenger numbers and the advanced age of their fleets.

Work had been halted on Cunard’s new giant, Hull later the Queen Maryinto save money. In the British government agreed to provide assistance to the two competitors on the condition that they merge their North Atlantic operations. The agreement was completed on 30 December White Star contributed 10 ships to the new company while Cunard contributed 15 ships.

A year after this merger, Olympic, the last of her class, was removed from service. Two years later, inshe was scrapped. All other ships flew the Cunard flag over the White Star flag until A painting depicting the Carpathia waiting to board survivors from Titanic lifeboats.

The building has a plaque commemorating the fact that the building was the head office of the White Star Line. Bruce Ismay, the owner of the line who sailed on the Titanichad his office in the building. They are just a street off Trafalgar Square, and one can still see the name on the building over the entrances. She has since been returned to Belfast, where she is to be restored under the auspices of the Nomadic Preservation Trust along with the assistance of her original builders, Harland and Wolff.

She is intended to serve as the centerpiece of a museum dedicated to the history of Atlantic steam, the White Star Line, and its most famous ship, the Titanic.

The company has also created the White Star Academy, an in-house programme for preparing new crew members for Cunard ships. Sign In Don’t have an account? Start a Wiki. As a lasting reminder of the White Star Line, modern Cunard ships use the term White Star Service to describe the impeccable level of customer care expected of the company Contents [ show ].

Categories :. Cancel Save. This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia articles view authors.

Founded out of the remains of a defunct packet companyit gradually rose up as one of the most prominent shipping lines in the world, providing passenger and cargo services between the British Empire and the United States. While many other shipping lines focused primarily on speed, White Star branded their services by focusing more on providing steady and comfortable passages, for both upper class travellers and immigrants. Despite its casualties, the company retained a prominent hold on shipping markets around the globe before falling into decline during the Great Depressionwhich ultimately led to a merger with its chief rival, Cunard Linewhich operated as Cunard-White Star Line until As a lasting reminder of the White Star Line, modern Cunard ships use the term White Star Service to describe the level of customer care expected of the company.

Account Options

It focused on the UK—Australia trade, which increased following the discovery of gold in Australia. Tayleurthe largest ship of its day, was wrecked on its maiden voyage to Australia at Lambay Islandnear Ireland, a disaster that haunted the company for years. Inthe company acquired its first steamship, Royal Standard. Heavy investment in new ships was financed by borrowing, but the company’s bank, the Royal Bank of Liverpoolfailed in October Ismay established the company’s headquarters at Albion House, Liverpool. Ismay was approached by Gustav Christian Schwabea prominent Liverpool merchant, and his nephew, the shipbuilder Gustav Wilhelm Wolffduring a game of billiards. Schwabe offered to finance the new line if Ismay had his ships built by Wolff’s company, Harland and Wolff. The shipbuilders received their first orders on 30 July The agreement was that Harland and Wolff would build the ships at cost plus a fixed percentage and would not build any vessels for the White Star’s rivals. Did white star line make most money with immigrantsWilliam Imrie joined the managing company. As the first ship was being commissioned, Ismay formed the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company to operate the steamers under construction. It had long been customary for many shipping lines to have a common theme for the names of their ships.