Transportation

1955 Ford Country Squire

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.

Name: Cunard, Samuel

Oil Painting, Collins Line Steamship SS Atlantic

In 1840, Canadian Samuel Cunard inaugurated regular transatlantic steamship service from Liverpool, England to North America.
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 <I>Atlantic</I>
Dramatic Line of Atlantic Sailing Packets
maker
Louis Honore Frederick Gamain
ID Number
TR.336491
accession number
1978.0362
catalog number
336491

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