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Transatlantic: Samuel Cunard, Isambard Brunel, and the Great Atlantic Steamships

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As the hours tick away on your transatlantic flight, noisy, cramped, and boring, you may want to remember the way they used to do it, by steam. Charles Dickens took one of the new-fangled Cunard steamers from England to Boston in 1842, and wrote a funny, famous article about how it was noisy, cramped, and boring. It was bad enough that on the return trip, he took the slow traditional sailing packet. Dickens's account is evaluated in _Transatlantic: Samuel Cunard, Isambard Brunel, and the Great Atlantic Steamships_ (HarperCollins) by Stephen Fox. It isn't surprising that with Fox's love of his subject (and his prodigious research) he has found that Dickens exaggerated for literary effect. Even so, the Industrial Revolution, finally applied to transatlantic travel, did bring more comfort to travelers, as well as much more speed. Fox has deliberately confined himself to the period from the birth of steam at sea to the climax, the _Mauretania_, the "greatest steamship ever built," launched in 1907. His history covers only in part the social whirl of cruising, which has been handled many times before. _Transatlantic_, a big book, covers in detail the changes wrought by engineering and the men who made them happen.

The changes were enormous. Sail gave way to steam via paddlewheels and then to propellers. Piston steam engines became turbines. Wooden ships became iron and then steel. Everything went faster, and the fascination for speed drove the innovation. The administrators of the passenger lines always virtuously denied having anything to do with racing, but everyone knew what ship was the current record-holder. The Owners of the lines denied involvement in races because speed was the enemy of safety. Originally, however, it was thought that the safest way to get through fog or nighttime gloom, even in an area threatened by icebergs, was to put on full speed and thus get out of there quickly. There were plenty of colossal disasters at sea, and many readers will find these the most interesting parts of this volume. Most surprising is how there was so little chivalry in these Victorian times. For instance, the 1854 sinking of the _Arctic_, a masterpiece of design from the United States Collins Line, occurred after it was rammed by another steamer in the Grand Banks. As the ship went down, there was chaos unrelieved by heroism; one fireman said, "It was every man for himself, and no more attention was paid to the captain than to any other man on board. Life was as sweet to us as to others." The not-full lifeboats discouraged further embarkations at gunpoint. 40% of the crew survived, and only 8% of the passengers. "Women and children first" was unheard of or unheeded; all the survivors were men.

Speed and safety were paramount for the owners, but the passengers remembered comfort, which also increased during the period. The upper class passengers could count on ten course meals and plenty to drink; a good deal of the crossing must have been spent drunk, perhaps as a way to feel less of the seasickness which is described here repeatedly. (Speed, therefore, in its way was a means to comfort, by cutting the voyage time.) Dining rooms and salons became monuments to the highest in Victorian taste. Fox describes them, and there are photographs in the book of very comfortable and luxurious surroundings, improbably but beautifully wrought in Renaissance or Tudor schemes. He also tells of the lesser conditions in steerage and the brutal work of the men who kept coal on the fires. He makes the analogy that the ships were like buildings (or even whole towns), and points out that the many Victorian buildings we have left are often retained or restored with respect and loving care. That has happened to none of the ships herein described. Every one is gone, a few lost in the deep and all the others lost to the wreckers for scrap. We have such ancient specimens as the _USS Constitution_ or _HMS Victory_, but even the most glorious examples of the age of steam are irrevocably gone. Fox's monumental book lovingly brings them back in the only way possible.

Perhaps the most interesting tidbit in TRANSATLANTIC, a book full of great tidbits, is that none of the great passenger liners celebrated in its pages are afloat today. Those that are in existence are rusting away quietly at the bottom of the North Atlantic --- the Titanic being the most renowned of the wrecks, but hardly alone. None of the others are left, being victims of time or of sinking or of the knacker's yard. The genius of historical preservation stretches back to the age of sail --- USS Constitution, USS Constellation, HMS Victory --- and forward to the age of flight --- the Wright Brothers' Flyer, a contemporary of many of the great transatlantic ocean liners, is extant at the Smithsonian --- but seems to have skipped the age of steam.

If the great liners are remembered at all, they will have to be remembered in the pages of TRANSATLANTIC, and the book is certainly monumental enough for that.

Author Stephen Fox has written a thick book but an immensely valuable one. TRANSATLANTIC begins at the dawn of its era, when steam engine technology and metalworking knowledge became advanced enough to imagine a great ship, powered by steam, independent of wind and tide, crossing the cold and forbidding distances of the North Atlantic and linking the Old and New Worlds. TRANSATLANTIC is the story of Samuel Cunard and Isambard Brunel, one a hardheaded businessman, the other a pioneering engineer, who built competing lines for the transatlantic traffic.

Fox describes the technological problems of building a ship that could, just for starters, carry enough coal to make the passage without refueling. Additionally, Cunard and Brunel had to build their ships strong enough to survive the buffeting of the North Atlantic storms, as well as building their enterprises strong enough to withstand the political storms of Washington and London. (The government contracts for carrying the transatlantic mail were crucial to building the great steamships.)

As the transatlantic steam traffic improved in its reliability, the new shipping lines faced a new and unprecedented set of problems. One was the need to balance competing interests on board with the new class of ship's engineers contending with captains and crew with vastly more saltwater experience. Another was the need not only to upgrade the experience of passengers but also to compete with ever-more lavish accommodations aboard competitors' ships. Most crucial, however, was the balance between speed and safety.

One feature of the age of steam, well documented in TRANSATLANTIC, was the frequent races between the great liners, with each ship on each voyage determined to break the New York-to-Liverpool record. The cost of such speed could be, and occasionally was, the safety of the ship, as captains raced through their fuel and took dangerous detours through iceberg country. And every so often --- described in harrowing detail by Fox --- there would be an accident or a significant loss of life, often under mysterious and unexplained circumstances.

The difficulty with TRANSATLANTIC is that there are not nearly enough shipwrecks in its 493 pages; there's much more focus on the growth of the steamship lines and the men who built them. For an oceangoing book, TRANSATLANTIC can be dreadfully dry at times, with too much emphasis on the genuinely uninteresting Cunard family and the changing fortunes of its competitors. Long passages on such things as engineering associations and ships' discipline certainly could have been excised with no appreciable loss.

Where TRANSATLANTIC shines, though, is in Fox's explanation of what it must have been like to sail on the great ocean liners. Fox is fortunate in that so many great writers of the period, including Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, sailed aboard these great ships, and wrote extensively about their experiences. Fox weaves their tales together with those of more prosaic passengers to present a complete and gloriously vivid picture of what it must have been like to sail the Atlantic in the nineteenth century, whether at the captain's table or down below in steerage.

Perhaps the only other possible complaint about TRANSATLANTIC is that there are not nearly enough photographs in the book illustrating the transatlantic liners. It could be, of course, that what photographs there were have passed out of history as completely as the ocean liners themselves. But what we are left with is a magisterial and majestic account, and the reader cannot, in good conscience, honestly ask for much more than that.

--- Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds

This new book is a massive history of American and British steamship travel on the North Atlantic, covering the period between 1820 and 1910. It focuses on the changing styles and engineering advancements that were made in these two countries over the decades, as well as on the powerful men whose rivalries drove the industry forward. The book highlights the entrepreneurs who built the ocean liner companies, but gives equal insight into the engineering specialists who made the rapid advancement in steamship technology possible.

It is a story about men, and about machines, and the ever increasing demand for speed that drove both to their limits, and sometimes beyond. The ships covered begin with the first vessel made expressly for an ocean crossing voyage, Isambard Brunel's daring steam driven, paddle wheeler Great Western in 1838. The story follows the advancements made through the decades as ships came and went bringing fame or, sometimes, folly, and ends with the innovative, turbine powered, Cunard liner Mauretania around 1910.

It is one of the most readable books on the subject to see print in quite a while. The text is interesting and informative, with a fluid, breezy style that reads as smoothly as a good novel. The introduction sets the scene of what is to come with Britannia's triumphant entrance into Boston harbor. The author then steps back with a short but detailed look at the Atlantic passenger traffic dominated by the American sailing packets just before the advent of steam. As he does throughout the book, Fox captures the experience of the sailing ships to perfection, buttressing his wonderful descriptions with excerpts from first hand accounts.

After this brief introductory chapter about sail, the book plunges into the heart of its subject matter, the ever increasing role and final dominance that the maritime steam engine played in transatlantic travel. The coverage of the many steamship lines, along with their respective achievements and flaws, is expansive, if somewhat erratic. Some of the more important lines don't get the attention they deserve. The importance of the White Star Line to the industry seems particularly lacking.

It's not just a book about steamship companies, though. It is a story of shipbuilding firms as well, and the engineers whose genius made the mechanical march of progress possible. The engineering works in Scotland, South Britain and Ireland are where the author focuses his attention for this aspect of the tale. He covers in detail the intense rivalries that existed between the shipbuilders, which could be just as fierce as amongst the shipping magnates. Entrepreneurs and engineers were critical in equal measure to the success of the ocean greyhounds, and rarely has a book so wonderfully interwoven the contributions both groups made to the advancement of Atlantic steamship travel.

As mentioned above, this book does restrict its focus to American and British companies, with some of the German innovation entering into the picture only towards the end of the book. Of the achievements of other countries, like France, there is no mention at all. At its heart though, this is a book about Samuel Cunard and his Cunard Line. The prominently displayed Cunard funnels on the front cover are a not so subtle hint where Fox's admiration lies. Other important maritime merchants are mentioned to varying degrees, including Isambard Brunel (of Great Eastern fame), Edward Knight Collins (Collins Line), William Inman (Inman Line), Thomas Henry Ismay (White Star Line), and Albert Ballin (Hamburg-American Line) to name a few. Some companies get more attention than others, and not always in proportion to the importance of their contributions. Thomas Ismay, for example, gets very little coverage, and the achievements of the White Star Line ship innovations are mentioned briefly, then mostly glossed over.

Overall, however, if you are interested in the history of the first roughly 100 years of Anglo-American steamship progress, this lively, engrossing book will both educate and entertain in equal measure. I can only hope the author will consider penning a second volume taking up the story from 1910 until air travel finally made the majestic liners obsolete.

all the best, Michael (TheManInBlack) T

In common with several previous reviewers I thought this book's treatment was uneven. Specifically coverage of ships built prior to 1890, especially Cunard liners, was very comprehensive. Coverage after 1900 was limited to the "Mauretania", a ship he repeatedly describes as the greatest liner, but fails to place in the context of other contemporary ships, most conspicuously the "Titanic" and its sister "Olympic" of the White Star line. If quadruple screws and turbine propulsion were the state of the art for "Mauretania" and "Lusitania" in 1907, some explanation of "Titanic" being built with two piston engines and a single turbine, and three screws, in 1912 is needed for a complete picture. In addition, discussion of German ships ends with the "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse" (1897) and "Deutschland" (1900)...what of the "Vaterland", interned in the U.S. during WW I, then renamed "George Washington" and transferred to American registry? While 1900 would be a logical breaking off point as the end of a century, and 1914 as the end of an epoch, 1907 is completely without significance. Along with several other reviewers, I found the omission of ships from nations other than Great Britain, Germany and the United States a significant deficiency.

An appendix summarizing the major ships discussed would have been helpful, perhaps with data such as years built and retired, length, speed, fastest crossing, country, and passenger capacity by class. Even a tabluation of fastest crossings would have been a help.

The discussion of technological improvements during the 19th Century was an outstanding feature, particularly their interrelationship. Improved steels and improved lubricants made possible higher steam pressures and consequent improvements in efficiency, power and speed. Auxiliary "donkey" engines and later electricity made it possible to operate the greater ships without proportionate increases in crew.

When I was half way through this book I would have given four or even five stars, but the final chapters were a significant disappointment.

Alex Schneider

Bought this AFTER I bought the history of the White Star line. This is much more appealing, from the paper to the pictures, a quality work. The writing style is lively and easy to read. This book traces the history of transatlantic travel from the days of the sailing packet to the height of the glory of the first Mauretania. An entertaining and enlightening must read for the ocean liner or transportation buff.

I bought this book hoping to find pictorial information on the early transatlantic steamers, especially Brunel's Great Eatsren. So my initial reaction was one of disapointment when the book arrived...but then I started reading it, and Mr Fox has managed to write a compelling book, which gives a lively and yet technically interesting account of the history of the 19th Century transatlantic steamships and lines. All in all I enjoyed reading the book throughout...Where the dispointment comes is at the end, when the book enters the 20th Century. The part on RMS Mauretania is scarce, to say the least, and the book seems to ignore the White Star line endeavour altogether. On a more chauvinistic point of view, the book ignores radically the French line, or for that matter the Italian line. It is true that France was in a different position than say Ireland, Great Britain, Germany, Italy or Central Europe as far as emigration is concerned. Which is why the French line was not so much about transporting immigrants than tourists. But, in the time span covered by the book, the French line produced some very interesting ships (the Touraine for instance). A pity this is dismissed completely by Mr Fox...In conclusion, Mr Fox makes reading history enjoyable, and that is no mean feat. The book makes for compelling reading, but some choices of the author do not reflect a totally balanced view of the period (now which historian does?...). The title and more certainly the illustration on the cover are a bit misleading as to the true content of the book, but it is worth reading from the firts to the last page.

I haven't quite read the entire book yet, and I don't have time right now to write a comprehensive review, but I did want to say that this book is a great read and would be appreciated by anyone with the slightest interest in ships. It is also very impressively researched - Fox's in-depth research puts many so-called specialist historians to shame. I am almost ashamed of the fact that I only paid a dollar for a new copy of this book, which is far less than I've paid for many history books that aren't a fraction as entertaining or informative as this one. I see you can still get it for scarcely more than a buck secondhand and it's an absolute steal at that price, and indeed very good value for the hardback even at full price.

This is one of those books with a great beginning and a disappointing middle and ending game. Well written and full of details in a number of issues, it also has an uncredible number of holes. All in all, it seems to have been finished in a hurry as if after a leisurely previous writting, in a sudden the editor called the author and remembered him about the deadline.
In a book dedicated to transatlantic navigation it is simply unacceptable you does not get a word about France, that also was a player in it and even developped some revolutionary design technologies that culminated in the "Normandie". You cannot let this issue outside IF you precisely have written so long about technicalities as Fox did. Also, as a reader, you does not get a word about the parallel developpement of men' o war kind of ships. And what happened to the industry in the 30 and 40's, 50's and 60's and so on? Not a word. Not even the Titanic episode is mentioned. Yes, there are number of books about it, but nevertheless if you are talking of White Star line and its competence along all the book, or almost, you just cannot presume nothing.
So, full of holes and aparently finished in a hurry, the book entertains and teach you up to half of it, but then, first at an slow pace and then at an accelerated one, decline comes and sink the reader in certain boredom and disappointment
A pity.

Stephen Fox, the author, has done a masterful job in writing this well-researched book. His writing is lucid, engaging, and informative. Equally deft in vividly portraying personalities, describing technical challenges, and relating real-world business problems, Fox's history of the Atlantic steamship industry is guaranteed to please. The book is as much an economic history as it is a social history.

Fox starts the book by describing a typical sailing ship journey across the Atlantic in the early 1800's. A typical voyage is fraught with seasickness, stench, wetness, cold, monotony, and grave danger. But as the burgeoning populations of Europe seek a safety valve to America, the era of steamships and great steamship captains arrives. The book follows pioneering visionaries and their steamship lines; such as Samuel Cunard, Edward Collins, Isambard Kingdom Brunel (Great Western), William Inman, Thomas Ismay (White Star), Clement Griscom (American Steamship), Albert Ballin (Hamburg-American), and Hermann Meier (North German Lloyd). Fox gives us a short personal history for each captain and his role in shaping his line.

Fox also goes on to describe the most important technical innovations the Atlantic steamship industry took up (paddle wheels, reciprocating steam engines, condensers, steam turbines, and screw propellers being the most significant) and the renowned contractors that produced these masterpieces of Victorian engineering. But success was never guaranteed. Shipwrecks could, and did happen, with consequent loss of life, money, and prestige. Further, poor -and economically unrestrained - engineering could produce titanic boondoggles such as the 'Great Eastern' steamship.

Finally, the book has a great social element in describing life at sea for both passengers and crew. Passengers in the first half of this great era often freely rubbed shoulders amongst people of all classes - something unusual in highly stratified Victorian society. Fox compares the steamship as both a town (with all its diverse citizenry and occupations) as well as a functional building (with toilets, dining rooms, bedrooms, libraries, etc.). He finishes by closely detailing two of the last great steamships - Lusitania and Mauretania.

This is a really fascinating history with colorful characters and difficult engineering challenges. It has some great photos of these now vanished maritime colossae. I highly recommend this book.

When I first became fascinated with transatlantic steamers when I was about twelve (back in the late 70s), I yearned for a book like this--one that would cover the great history leading up to the later liners that are more familiar, such as the Titanic, Normandie, Queen Mary, S.S. United States, France, etc. The writer tells an epic story of people, technology, business, some tragedy, and adventure. It's got enough detail so that you can sink your teeth into it and understand such things as the changes in engine technology from the 1830s to the very early 1900s without getting bogged down. One of the transatlantic greyhounds Fox describes--a floating palace for its day--is beautifully recreated in the recent movie Hidalgo, and it made it much more meaningful to see it there after reading this book. The book stops with the Mauretania, which was completed in 1907. How great it would be if Stephen Fox would be willing to undertake the telling of the next hundred years of transatlantic (and even cruise ship?) history. I, for one, would very much like for him to create a sequel for this great book.