Transportation - Overview
Americans have always been a people on the move—on rails, roads, and waterways (for travel through the air, visit the National Air and Space Museum). In the transportation collections, railroad objects range from tools, tracks, and many train models to the massive 1401, a 280-ton locomotive built in 1926. Road vehicles include coaches, buggies, wagons, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and automobiles—from the days before the Model T to modern race cars. The accessories of travel are part of the collections, too, from streetlights, gas pumps, and traffic signals to goggles and overcoats.
In the maritime collections, more than 7,000 design plans and scores of ship models show the evolution of sailing ships and other vessels. Other items range from scrimshaw, photographs, and marine paintings to life jackets from the Titanic.
"Transportation - Overview" showing 2 items.
Rigged Model, Philadelphia Packet Ship Shenandoah
- Description
- The packet ship Shenandoah was built in 1840 by John Vaugn & Son at Philadelphia, Pa. for Thomas P. Cope & Son, better known as the Cope Line. Wealthy Philadelphia Quakers, the Copes transported about 60,000 passengers—mostly Irish immigrants—from Liverpool to Philadelphia from 1820-1870.
- Measuring 143’ long and 738 tons, the Shenandoah spent nearly its entire career on the Philadelphia–Liverpool passage. It made 14 voyages for the Cope Line from 1839-44. In 1845 it sailed for the Dunham & Dimon Liverpool Line out of NY, but the following year it returned to Philadelphia for the Black Diamond Line. By 1847 it served the New Line, clearing Philadelphia on the 1st of the month and leaving Liverpool five weeks later, on the 8th of the following month. In the late 1840s, it lost its popular captain to the new Collins ocean steamship Atlantic. Many of the old sailing packet companies lost their captains to the newer and faster transatlantic steamship lines. The Shenandoah was abandoned at sea in August 1854.
- Date made
- 1963
- original ship built
- 1840
- Cope Line operated
- 1820-1870
- sailed with the Cope Line
- 1839-1844
- sailed for the Dunham & Dimon Liverpool Line out of New York
- 1845
- sailed for the Black Diamond Line out of Philadelphia
- 1846
- sailed for the New LIne out of Philadelphia
- 1847
- abandoned at sea
- 1854-08
- shipbuilders
- John Vaugn & Son
- ship owners
- Thomas P. Cope & Son
- ID Number
- TR*322426
- catalog number
- 322426
- accession number
- 247838
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Oil Painting, Collins Line Steamship SS Atlantic
- Description
- In 1840, Canadian Samuel Cunard inaugurated regular transatlantic steamship service from Liverpool, England to North America. Within a few years, he had two competitors, one of whom was American Edward Knight Collins (1802-1878), owner of the Dramatic Line of Atlantic sailing packets.
- Collins had been lobbying the U.S. government for nearly a decade for the subsidy of an American overseas steamship mail service, and in 1847 Congress authorized an annual transatlantic mail contract for $385,000. Won by Collins, the contract called for five steamships and bimonthly mail service from New York to Liverpool.
- Collins founded the New York and Liverpool United States Mail Steamship Company (known as the Collins Line) and commissioned the four sister steamships Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic and Baltic. When service started in 1850, the Collins ships were the fastest, largest, and most magnificently appointed steamships in the world, with stained glass skylights, steam heat in the public rooms and 3,500-bottle wine cellars.
- This painting shows the arrival of the Collins liner Atlantic in May 1850 after her maiden voyage from New York to Liverpool. Measuring 282 feet long and 2,856 tons, the Atlantic set a speed record on this passage, while consuming 87 tons of coal per day. Although the Collins line ceased operations in February 1858, the Atlantic was acquired by the U.S. Government for Civil War service. After the war it was operated by other owners until scrapped in 1871.
- date made
- 1800s
- US Congress awarded an annual transatlantic mail contract to Collins
- 1847
- Collins Line service started
- 1850
- Collins Line service ended
- 1858
- Atlantic acquired by the government for Civil War service
- 1858
- Atlantic scrapped
- 1871
- Collins steamship line
- New York and Liverpool United States Mail Steamship Company
- ship owner
- Collins, Edward Knight
- ship owner and Knight's competitor
- Cunard, Samuel
- built SS Atlantic
- Dramatic Line of Atlantic Sailing Packets
- maker
- Louis Honore Frederick Gamain
- ID Number
- TR*336491
- accession number
- 1978.0362
- catalog number
- 336491
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center