Ocean Travel - Daily Life Aboard A Steamship
Discover what life was like on board the steamship through historical articles richly illustrated with photographs and illustrations. View our ephemera catalog collections to see all of the memorabilia produced on or for each voyage, ship, or steamship line.
Ocean Travel Archival Collections Quick Links
- Boutique Shops & Ship's Stores
- Ocean Travel Books
- Brochures - Steamships & Ocean Liners
- Correspondence, Shipboard
- Ships and Ocean Liners Collections
- Interesting Fun Facts and Factoids
- Journeys in Steerage
- Ocean Journeys
- Other Ephemera
- Passage Contracts and Tickets
- Passenger Ships Fleet Lists
- Postcards of Steamships & Ocean Liners
- Programs and Concerts
- Provisioning Ocean Liners
- Sanitation at Sea
- Ship Publications
- Shipboard Affairs
- Steamship Captains
- Steamship Crew
- Steamship Lines
- Ship Tonnage and Measurements
- Steamship Port of Calls
- Stowaways Onboard
- RMS Titanic
- Transatlantic Voyages
- Sea Captains
- Ship Crews
- Ship Passenger Lists
- Ship Publications - Newspapers, Newsletters, and Magazines
- Ship Tonnage, Weights, and Measures
- Shipboard Affairs
- Ships and Ocean Liners Archival Collections
- Steamship and Ocean Liner Ports of Call
- Steamship Lines Archival Collection
- Stowaways on Steamships and Ocean Liners
- Transatlantic Voyages
- Travel Guide (1910)
- Vintage Ocean Liner and Travel Brochures
- Vintage Ocean Liner Menus
- Travel Guide (1910)
- Vintage Advertisements
- Vintage Ocean Liner Menus
Boutique Shops and Ship Stores
How little shops on board ships plying between European and American ports, became an extremely profitable business well worth the investment to offer their passengers.
Steamships, Ocean Liners, and Ocean Travel Books
Discover Rare, Hard-to-Find Books about Steamship of our Ancestors, Ocean Liners the Sailed the World's Oceans, and Ocean Travel / Maritime Books.
Vintage Ocean Liner and Travel Brochures
Fabulous Collection of Ocean Liner and Travel Brochures from the latter 1800s through the 1950s. Many are not only rare but offer a unique glimpse of passenger accommodations for ocean travel, often profusely illustrated with photographs and other illustrations.
The GG Archives has a number of letters written by passengers on ocean liners from the late 1800s through the 1920s. Digitizing handwritten letters is a very time-consuming task.
Ships and Ocean Liners Archival Collections
Some of the most prized collectibles are ephemeral memorabilia produced on or for each voyage or ship. They include passenger lists, brochures, tickets and voyage contracts, luggage tags, postcards, sports and entertainment programs, and more.
Interesting Fun Facts and Factoids
All the fun and exciting facts and factoids about steamships and ocean liners. Topics covered include night signals, safety, time, ship barbers and barber shops, submarine signaling, aerial mail, classes of ships, guarding gold at sea, and much more.
On steamships, Steerage (or Tween Decks) and Third Class was the default choice of many immigrants from the 1850s through the 1930s. The conditions varied by steamship line and were likely to be relatively harsh compared to modern standards.
A new section added in the latter part of 2020 devoted to patrons of the GG Archives who offered photographs and stories of their ancestors' travels across the oceans.
A rare example of an Embarkation Notice from the 1920s for a transatlantic voyage of Cabin Passenger Miss McKellar, on the SS Laurentic of the White Star Line.
We have a superb collection of original passage tickets for Transatlantic and other destinations, dating from the 1880s through the 1950s. They were vital for immigrant passages to America unrivaled for their value as a primary source.
Postcards of Steamships and Ocean Liners
The GG Archives has many high-grade postcards in our Maritime collection. There is quite a variety, including black & white, colorized, photograph, watercolor, and oil paintings. They often capture ships and harbor scenes that otherwise would be lost to time. A number of these are works of art and are suitable for framing.
Steamship Lines printed a wide variety of programs for onboard events including sporting, entertainment/variety shows, movies, social events, music concerts, charity concerts and fundraisers, and many more.
Provisioning Steamships and Ocean Liners
Learn about provisioning a transatlantic ocean liner with enough food, supplies, and other stock items for all meals and drinks for thousands of passengers.
Everything you ever wanted to know about sanitation, bathing, and facilities on the steamships and ocean liners of the past. You’ll learn about freshwater supplies, Turkish baths, electric baths, plumbing, swimming pools, sinks, toilets, and more.
The GG Archives has an extensive collection of these passenger records in our Maritime Collection. Our largest holdings of ship passenger arrival records are for the Cunard Line / Cunard White Star Line.
Ship Publications - Newspapers, Newsletters, and Magazines
Our travel-related newspapers, newsletters, and magazines encompass several steamship lines, including Cunard, CGT French Line, Hamburg America Line, and Norddeutscher Lloyd. Maritime publications include Sea Breezes, Steamboat Bill, The Shipbuilder, and more.
Shipboard Affairs can be any number of things, from the ship's crew's daily affairs in making the ship a perfect floating hotel for their guests to romantic affairs and other affairs of the heart.
Biographies of many transatlantic sea captains and commanders from the 1880s through the early 1900s. You’ll find steamship captains from Cunard, White Star, Inman, Guion, Anchor, American, Red Star, CGT French Line, and many others.
The crew of a ship are the heart and soul of the ocean liner. Topics covered include employment, organization, stewards, stewardesses, nurses, physicians, and life on board an ocean liner as a member of the crew.
Steamship Lines Archival Collection
View our extensive archival collection of ephemera produced by the various steamship lines that offered passenger service to immigrants, tourists, socialites, and others who crossed the vast oceans, dating from the 1800s through the 1960s.
Ship Tonnage, Weights, and Measures
Determining the tonnage of a ship is somewhat complicated, but likely more straightforward than you might expect. We break down this subject into cargo and carrying capacity, gross tonnage, net tonnage, along with a great explanation of deadweight, cargo, gross, net, and displacement tonnage.
Steamship and Ocean Liner Ports of Call
Ports of Call in the United States, Canada and Europe utilized by steamships during the peak immigration era of 1880-1954 including Boston, New York, Antwerp, Fishguard, Hamburg, Liverpool, London, Rotterdam, Southampton, and others.
Stowaways on Steamships and Ocean Liners
If you’ve ever wondered about stowaways found on the transatlantic ships, answers to many of your questions can be found amongst several articles. There is one reporter’s exposé that is quite a fascinating read on the subject.
RMS Titanic Archival Collection
The White Star liner Titanic, the largest ship ever built, bound from Liverpool for New York, collided with an iceberg, four hundred miles off the shore of Newfoundland, on the night of April 14th, and about four hours later sank in water two miles deep.
Covers the development of the steamship from early steamships, propulsion, food service, oceanic travel, rooms, provisions, meals, the immigrant trade and processing of immigrants on board the ocean liners, passenger comforts, evolution of the steamship and much more.
Superb Travel Guide from 1910 Offers general hints on how to adjust oneself to surroundings can prove so useful as on a sea voyage. This book prepares the traveler by informing him how to go, how much it will cost, how to amuse himself, and what to do on arrival at the coveted shore.
Ocean Travel Vintage Advertisements
From the 1880s through the 1950s, many exciting and colorful ads were produced by many steamship lines in support of their services, world tours, new ships, new ports of call, and other related marketing efforts. The GG Archives has an extensive amount of these ads that we will be adding throughout the remainder of 2020 and beyond.
Grand collection of vintage ocean liner and other menus covering breakfast, lunch, dinner, farewell dinner, special occasions, and specialty menus that provide an insight into the variety of foods served on the transatlantic steamships and ocean liners and restaurants from the 1800s through the 1950s.