SS Aller Archival Collection
Aller (1886) North German Lloyd
Built by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Co., Ltd., Glasgow. Tonnage: 5,217. Dimensions: 437' x 48'. Propulsion: Single Screw, 17 knots. Masts and Funnels: Four masts and two funnels. Note: First Atlantic express steamship with triple expansion engines. Fate: Broken up in 1904. Sister ships: Saale and Trave.
Ephemera for the SS Aller available may include Passenger Lists, Menus, Brochures, Sailing Schedules, Route Maps, Photographs, and more.
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All Digitized Passenger Lists For the SS Aller Available at the GG Archives. Listing Includes Date Voyage Began, Steamship Line, Vessel, Passenger Class and Route.
Route: Genoa to New York via Naples and Gibraltar
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North German Lloyd - Short Route to London - 1889
🎓 “A 19th-Century Ocean Travel Brochure Turned Educational Goldmine”
The 1889 North German Lloyd (NDL) brochure titled "The Short Route to London via Southampton and the Continent" is more than a promotional travel pamphlet—it is a remarkable cultural artifact that opens a window into late 19th-century transatlantic steamship travel. Created during the Paris Exhibition of 1889, this richly detailed guide was distributed by Oelrichs & Co., the line’s New York agents, and served as both a functional passenger handbook and a marketing showcase for NDL’s first and second cabin services.
Teachers, students, genealogists, and historians will find the brochure incredibly valuable for understanding the social, economic, and technological structures of the Gilded Age’s oceanic travel system.
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Senior Officers and Staff, Agents of Norddeutscher Lloyd, SS Aller Cabin Passenger List, 16 January 1901. GGA Image ID # 20ff6e310c
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Back Cover, SS Aller Cabin Passenger List, 16 January 1901. GGA Image ID # 20ffa2581f
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Majesty at Sea: The Four Stackers
The opulent and luxurious four-funnel passenger liners, of which only fourteen have ever been built, are unsurpassed in maritime history. Built between 1897 and 1921, these great vessels vied with each other in their standards of comfort, spaciousness, and speed, and great was the rivalry between their owners.
Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen 1857-1970, Volume One, History -- Fleet -- Ship Mails
🌍 Transatlantic Titans: The Rise of Norddeutscher Lloyd and the Transformation of Ocean Travel (1857–1918)
Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen, 1857–1970, Volume 1 by Edwin Drechsel is a meticulously researched chronicle of the origins and golden age of the Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL), one of the most important steamship lines in global maritime history.
The book covers:
- The founding of NDL in 1857 by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann
- The transition from sail to steam, paddle to screw propulsion
- The increasing demand for transatlantic mail and passenger service
- The NDL’s competition with British lines for speed, prestige, and the Blue Riband
- The line’s crucial role in transporting millions of emigrants to North America
- Its involvement in global mail and freight services
- The impact of World War I on German shipping and commerce
Volume 1 concludes just before or during the war years that halted NDL’s rapid rise.
Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen 1857-1970, Volume Two, History -- Fleet -- Ship Mails
Winds of Change: Norddeutscher Lloyd and the Final Era of Ocean Travel (1920–1970)
The second volume of Edwin Drechsel’s monumental work Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen, 1857–1970 picks up in the aftermath of World War I, tracing five tumultuous decades through:
🌊 Postwar decline and slow recovery
🚢 The interwar years and the Blue Riband triumph of the Bremen (1929)
📉 The Great Depression’s toll on ocean travel
🌍 The transformation of global shipping under the shadow of WWII
🧱 Postwar reconstruction and the decline of passenger liners
📦 The pivot to container freight and the 1970 merger with HAPAG
Drechsel, drawing on his personal ties (his father was a North German Lloyd captain), maritime journalism background, and deep expertise in ship mails and German liner history, delivers a book that is both richly detailed and profoundly human.
Passenger Ships of the World - 1963
🎓 “A Global Voyage Through Steamship History for Historians, Genealogists, and Maritime Enthusiasts”
Eugene W. Smith’s Passenger Ships of the World – Past and Present (1963) is a masterfully curated encyclopedic reference that charts the rise, peak, and transformation of ocean-going passenger ships through nearly two centuries. Expanding upon his earlier Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific works, Smith offers a global maritime panorama that includes ships serving the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Oceania, as well as Canal routes and California-Hawaii shuttle lines.
🧭 This book is an essential resource for:
- Maritime historians seeking design evolution and fleet data
- Genealogists tracing voyages and shipping lines
- Educators and students studying transoceanic migration and tourism
- Ship modelers, naval architects, and enthusiasts interested in dimensions, tonnage, and speed
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Advertisement (1893): Norddeutscher Lloyd German Express Mail Steamship Connections Promoting the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. | GGA Image ID # 227ffc1844
I. Bremen and New York via Southampton.
Sailing twice a week of the magnificent express steamers: Havel, Spree, Lahn, Trave, Aller, Saale, Ems, Elbe.
The express steamers of die Norddeutscher Lloyd, universally known for die comfort of their accommodations, elegance in their fitting up. as well as for die reputation of their excellent cuisine, compare in speed with those of any other line. The express steamers - Havel- and - Spree- make the trip from New York to Scilly Islands in 6½ days, the -Lahn-, - Saale-, -Trave- and - Aller- in 7 days, and the -Ems- and -Elbe- in 7½ days. Sailings: From Bremen: Tuesday and Saturday. From Southampton: Wednesday and Sunday afternoon. From New York: Tuesday and Saturday.
II. Genoa and New York via Gibraltar.
Regular sailing (2-3 times a mouth) of the express steamers: Werra, Fulda and Kaiser Wilhelm II between New York and Genoa via Gibraltar.
With the comfort and elegance of the steamers is combined on this line the comfort of travelling in the southern ocean and the beauty of the islands and coasts which the steamers pass on this trip. The voyage is first to the Azores, then along the coast of Portugal. southern Spain and Africa. In Gibraltar the passengers are given opportunity of going on shore for a few hours, or also to remain 8—14 days in southern Spain or Tangiers and then continue the voyage to Genoa by one of the following steamers of the Norddeutscher Lloyd without additional fare.
The quickest and most comfortable connection between New York and Europe for visiting the Riviera and Switzerland, as well as Florence, Rome and Naples.
From Genoa connections every fortnight to Egypt in the one direction and to London, Southampton. Antwerp and Bremen in the other direction per the imperial mail steamers of the Norddeutscher Lloyd.
Sailings: From New York: Saturdays. — From Genoa: Wednesdays.
III. Bremen and Baltimore.
Weekly by the comfortable mad steamers (about 5000 tons).
Dresden, München, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart Darmstadt Gera, Oldenburg, Weimar.
Extra steamers during the Exposition.
For passage apply to the Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen.
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