Doctoral Dissertation Research: From Traveling to Cruising: British Ocean Liner Architecture and Technologies, 1870-1935

University Of Delaware, Newark DE

Investigators

Abstract

British transatlantic ocean liners of the late 19th century transported some bourgeois travelers, and many of the emigrants who fueled America's second industrial revolution; by the 1920s ocean liners catered almost exclusively to an expanding British and American middle class, the vanguard of consumer-driven economies. Throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, the ocean liner also remained an important example of sites in which architecture, sophisticated technologies, and modern, "efficient" work organizations mediated the experience of its inhabitants. This makes it an ideal site to view technological and architectural changes as passengers, crew, and ship designers transformed the vessel from a vehicle of transportation to a site of consumption. Beginning with the assumption that a mutually shaping relationship characterized the vessel's physical environment-its architecture and technologies-and the social and work relations it mediated, the researcher of this dissertation research project will examine the changing use and distribution of space and technologies among various categories of passengers and crew. A focus on technology and architecture can integrate a study of work relations with one of consumer behavior, building on the work of historians who separate these realms of inquiry in their examination of the transition from industrializing to consumer-driven economies. To facilitate an analysis of ocean liner architecture and technology, the researcher will create an historical typology of flagship ocean liners, charting the changing distribution, physical character, and experience of space among vessel inhabitants. The researcher will amass information about activities and interactions among crew and passengers into a database of records, tracking developments through such categories as ship size and compartment, "class" among passengers, department and rank among crew, and gender and age among all inhabitants. The database will draw on passengers' and crew members' written accounts of travel and work, published descriptions, and the activities companies prescribed in advertising and travel guides. Where possible, papers relating to ship design and operation will be used to analyze company managers' architectural and technological attempts to reconcile and harness developments among passengers and crew members in economic power, expectations, and use of space-the market of labor and passengers. The investigator seeks to illuminate connections among architecture, technologies, and experience in the transition from industrializing to consumer- and service-driven economies.