1920s

The German shipping magnate was responsible for turning Germany into a world leader in ocean travel prior to World War I. With 25,000 employees, Hapag was the largest shipping line in the world for both freight and people (464,000 passengers in 1913). It was Albert Ballin who also invented the ... Read More »

The SS Yale and SS Harvard became known as “white Flyers of the Pacific”! The sister ships each made four sailings a week, carrying 565 First Class passengers at an average speed of 23 knots between the two major California cities. The fast coastal ships provided an overnight cruise on ... Read More »

Known as the “Queen of Sea,” the Merchants and Miners Transportation Company Steamship Line operated one of the finest fleets of passenger steamers on the Atlantic Coast and ranked foremost as one of America’s top tourist routes. It was said to be the only line plying between Baltimore, Savannah, and ... Read More »

The Pittsburgher was a premiere passenger train operated between New York City and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania over the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Main Line. The PPR’s overnight all Pullman service-connected the Steel City with New York via the railroad’s mainline. It was initially launched during the mid-1920s, for many years the train pampered ... Read More »

California’s famous overnight steamboats Delta King and Delta Queen operated first-class overnight passenger service between San Francisco and Sacramento from 1927 until 1940. The steamboats were called the “mail-order” ships because they were initially built in Scotland, shipped to Stockton where they were assembled. The new steamers replaced the Fort ... Read More »

When the Fox Theater was built in 1929, it seemed as if there weren’t enough adjectives to describe the movie theater’s magnificence. The San Francisco Chronicle called the opening “a spectacle of such beauty and magnitude that it seemed rather a fancy of one’s mind rather than the inaugural night ... Read More »

From 1914 to 1949 the RMS Aquitania crossed the pond between New York, Canada, and Europe carrying celebrities, tourists, businessmen, immigrants, and war brides. The RMS Aquitania was the longest-serving Cunard liner built in the 20th century and to survive service in both World Wars. ARRIVES IN NEW YORK AS WORLD ... Read More »

The Steamboat Gordon C. Greene cruised round-trip from Cincinnati to New Orleans on the Ohio and Mississippi with over a hundred passengers on a 21-Day river journey via Cairo, Paducah, Evansville, Memphis, Baton Rouge. When times were much different. The speed of the boat – was about that of the ... Read More »

Travel the past: The first SS Volendam served the trans-Atlantic route for Holland America Line HAL from the 1920s until the early 1950s. Travel the now: Peter Kengo, the travel critic, and historian take us on a tour of the third MS Volendam. We link to Peter’s article in USA ... Read More »