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, The Queen of the Ocean Going to the Rescue of the Ocean Monarch
- Description
- The Ocean Monarch was one of nine large packet ships built by the famous shipbuilder Donald McKay in Boston for Enoch Train’s White Diamond Line of Boston-Liverpool vessels. The Monarch measured 179 feet in length and 1,301 tons and was launched in July 1847. On August 24, 1848 the vessel cleared Liverpool for Boston with 396 passengers, including 322 Irish emigrants. Just a few hours later a few miles off the coast of Wales, a fire around the mainmast was reported, probably started by a passenger smoking. The Monarch stopped and dropped two anchors to gain control of the fire, but it spread too quickly, starting a panic among the passengers.
- Commander Thomas Littledale of the yacht Queen of the Ocean was first on the scene. Returning to Liverpool with a group of friends after the Beaumaris regatta, he managed to rescue 32 people from the burning ship, including Captain Murdoch. Other ships picked up another 188 persons; the ship and 178 passengers were lost when the ship sank at its anchors in 85 feet of water.
- The painting shows the middle stage of the fire, with one mast down and red flames at the stern and amidships. Panicked people are crowded forward of the smoke and flames, overflowing out on the bowsprit and to the very tip of the jib-boom. Some survivors can be seen in the sea clinging to the wreckage of the mizzenmast. To the right is the yacht Queen of the Ocean and a sailboat.
- This painting is believed to have been commissioned by Capt. Littledale to feature his heroic rescue. The Museum owns another Walters painting of the disaster that features another vessel in the foreground, and two other Walters paintings in different collections highlight still other vessels’ rescue of the passengers and crew.
- The dramatic loss of the Ocean Monarch and so many of its passengers so close to shore so soon after departure, as well as its thrilling rescue, touched off an international wave of sympathy and a media storm on both sides of the Atlantic.
- Date made
- 1848
- ship launched
- 1847-06
- ship burned and sank
- 1848-08-24
- shipbuilder
- McKay, Donald
- ship captain and possible patron of painting
- Littledale, Thomas
- ship owners
- Enoch Train's White Diamond Line
- maker
- Walters, Samuel
- ID Number
- 2005.0279.066
- accession number
- 2005.0279
- catalog number
- 2005.0279.066
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center