Speed, Elegance and Luxury : 347 



in following the growth of the liner: the increase in size, the increase 

 in speed, the sport of watching a succession of blue ribbon records 

 established and broken. It is equally fascinating to regard the liner 

 in another aspect, namely, as a social institution. Thus the liner is 

 truly at once the cause, the instrument and the result of a series of 

 important social changes in transatlantic travel. 



As we have seen in the earlier sections of this chapter as far as 

 ocean ships were concerned there was a break with tradition in the 

 last decade of the nineteenth century. Then various countries built 

 and launched new ships which were much larger, more powerful 

 and faster than the ships of the past. One of the obvious results was 

 to increase the ease and luxury of ocean travel, but one of the under- 

 lying causes was the demand for mass transportation across the 

 Atlantic. The glamor was for the first-class passengers on the upper 

 deck, but the important social and economic consequences traveled 

 below decks in the steerage. 



In the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade 

 of the twentieth century people were both restless and free to move. 

 There was a long period of relative peace and prosperity. Under 

 cover of this peace and prosperity there was increasing restlessness 

 and tension in many European countries and in the Western Hemi- 

 sphere the decades of rapid industrial expansion were creating new 

 jobs at higher wages and the promise of an indefinitely extended 

 prosperity. Hundreds of thousands of European families were stirred 

 by this resdessness and made eager by these promises. They were 

 prepared to pay what for them were high prices and to accept all 

 manner of personal inconveniences, discomforts and sacrifices if only 

 they could reach the New World and have a chance to establish new 

 homes there. 



The new liners were built partly to accommodate the increasing 

 number of prosperous American families that wished to travel to 

 Europe for sightseeing, cultural development and a general good 

 time. Partly they were built to provide better and healthier transpor- 

 tation for the poor families of Europe who were coming to America 

 to fill new jobs in American agriculture and industry. 



In the decade 1891 to 1900 over three and a half million immi- 

 grants came from Europe to the United States. This was the begin- 

 ning of a new wave of westward travel and it coincided with the 

 development of a new kind of ocean vessel. 



The meaning of the migration of the period 1891 to 1900 did not, 

 however, rest in absolute numbers. The meaning was to be found 



