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.
Oil Painting, Black Ball Packet Ship Isaac Webb
- Description
- Operating out of New York, the Black Ball Line pioneered scheduled packet ship service to Liverpool, England in 1818, and the firm continued operating until it was dissolved in 1879. Its success resulted from focusing on the lucrative passenger trade, at a time when immigration to the United States was at its highest level.
- In 1851, the massive three-deck packet Isaac Webb was the seventh and last Black Baller launched from the shipyard of famous New York shipbuilder William H. Webb, who also owned a 1/16 share of the ship. Named after the builder’s father, the Isaac Webb measured 185 feet in length and 1,359 tons. It made about four round trips per year between New York and Liverpool, England from 1851–1879. The average length of a passage was 37 days, with the shortest voyage recorded as 25 days.
- In June 1863, while westbound from Liverpool to New York with 658 passengers, the Isaac Webb was captured by the Confederate commerce raider Florida. A bond for a $40,000 ransom freed the ship to complete the passage. In late December 1866, while westbound for New York, the Webb encountered a gale so cold that it killed three crew, and several others were badly frostbitten. On the same passage nearly two years later, another powerful gale killed the captain.
- The Isaac Webb continued to sail after the Black Ball Line closed. In late October 1880, while bound from Europe to New York, it was abandoned at sea by its crew of 24, who were rescued by a passing steamship bound for Boston. British marine painter Samuel Walters completed this oil painting around 1851, when the ship was new.
- Date made
- 1851
- ship was launched
- 1851
- ship made transatlantic voyages from New York and Liverpool
- 1851-1880
- ship was abandoned
- 1880-10
- shipping firm
- Black Ball Line
- shipbuilder
- Webb, William H.
- ship's namesake
- Webb, Isaac
- maker
- Walters, Samuel
- ID Number
- TR*317527
- catalog number
- 317527
- accession number
- 229943
- 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