ABSTRACT

Deep ocean pleasure cruising became a mass phenomenon only during the latter half of the twentieth century, commensurate with the widespread practice of flaggingout ships to open and second registries. Its origins, however, can be traced to the nineteenth century when ‘packet ships’ carried cargo and passengers to and from distant lands (especially overseas colonies) separated by vast oceans (Cartwright and Baird 1999; Coons and Varias 2003; Mancini 2000; Maxtone-Graham 1985). Steam engines later would increase the speed and comfort of oceanic passenger transport. Ship building at that point was a matter of national pride encompassed by competition between Europeans and Americans for ‘The Blue Riband’ award given to the fastest and biggest ship (e.g., those belonging to Cunard Line, White Line, Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company) in transatlantic crossings. These ships were considered a primary mode of transportation rather than the site of, and for, pleasure per se even though elite passengers travelled in first class accommodations that segregated them from poor immigrants: ‘while pleasure cruising was already evident by the 1880s and 1890s, for the masses of people traveling on ships, necessity was the main impulse’ (Coons and Varias 2003, xvi).