Customer Reviews

The New England Steamship Company: Long Island Sound Night Boats in the Twentieth Century

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Edwin L. Dunbaugh tells the story of overnight steamships between New York and ports in southern New England at the Long Island Sound from 1907 to 1942, a business that was dominated by the New England Steamship Company. 49 historic pictures, 66 pages of comprehensive listings and descriptions of the ships, technical and economic history, lively, reportage-like description of live on the ships. Total of 406 pages, hard cover.
Dunbaugh takes you directly on the ships, let you smell the steam, see the luxurious interior as much as the small, spartanic staterooms, gives you a great impression of this long gone time period. Two observations especially fascinated me when reading this book:

1) It's interesting to compare these overnight steam lines with the river packet boats, what they had in common and what was totally different. The New England Steamship Company e.g. also owned railroad lines, offering combined service ship and rail. What a difference to the competition between boats and railroads in the Midwest.

2) The analogy between the steamship lines and airline commuters today: The steamship lines ran between New York and some New England cities like Boston in a way that people arrived at their destination in the morning, doing business the whole day and taking the ship back home by night. How many business travellers today complain about these one-day-trips being a new phenomenon of modern times. This started as early as in the 1900s, with the steamship lines!

The book is actually the third part of a trilogy, covering the time between 1907 and 1942, but you don't necessarily have to read the first two books (" Night Boats to New England " and " The Era of the Joy Line ") before reading this one as the author also gives a brief overview of the time before 1907.

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