Spanning the Atlantic (1931) by F. Lawrence Babcock

F. Lawrence Babcock, Spanning the Atlantic, © 1931 Alfred A. Knopf, New York, First Edition, Hardcover, 227 Pages, History of the Cunard Steam Ship Company Limited.

The uninterrupted progress of the Cunard Line, without retrogression and almost without mishap, stand, beyond the possibility of envy, as a matchless human achievement. When we consider that hardly a skyscraper is built without loss of life, and hardly a railroad, laid on solid earth, has not known disaster, we must acknowledge the feat of transporting across a dangerous ocean more people than inhabit some of our states with the loss, in time of peace, of but four lives, especially as these four lives were only the toll of an predictable caprice of the waves.

Contents

• Preface V
• I. Samuel Cunard, Merchant 3
• II. The Development of the Steamship IS
• III. The Foundation of the Line 36
• IV. The Ocean Ferry 50
• V. Early Cunarders and Boston 68
• VI. Competition by Sail and Steam 78
• VII. The Struggle with the Collins Line 91
• VIII. The Great Migration 107
• IX. The End of the Paddle Wheelers 124
• X. Ocean Travel in the Seventies 136
• XI. The Mauve Decade 155
• XII. Twentieth Century Liners 174
• XIII. Cunarders in the World War 188
• XIV. Reconstruction and the Tourist Trade 199
• XV. The Tenth Decade 210
• Bibliography 219
• Index Follows page 227

List of Illustrations

• Samuel Cunard Frontispiece
• Skips of Columbus Facing Page 4
• Halifax Harbour in 1840 8
• John Fitch’s Paddle Steamboat 16
• The CLERMONT 20
• The Docks at Liverpool 40
• The BRITANNIA 50
• Charles Dickens’s Cabin on the BRITANNIA 54
• Old-time Travel 58
• The First Day
• The Second Day
• The Britannia in the ice 72
• Fashion in Captains’ dress 78
• The Clipper-ship WESTWARD HO 88
• An Early Cunard Advertisement 92
• The Broadway Site of the Present Cunard Building 96
• The Jersey City Docks 100
• C id-time Travel 108
• Shuffle-board
• A Gale
• The GREAT EASTERN 112
• The PERSIA 116
• The RUSSIA 130
• The BOTHNIA’S Menu 136
• The S E R V I A 148
• A Deck Scene in the Eighties 156
• The MAURETANIA 186
• The AQUITANIA at Southampton 190
• The Mauretania in Camouflage 194
• The BERENGARIA at Cherbourg 202
• “Number 534” as she will look against the Lower New York Sky-line—Scale Drawing of the BRITANNIA in the Foreground 212

SPANNING THE ATLANTIC
F. LAWRENCE BABCOCK

New York ALFRED A-KNOPF MCMXXXI

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