Prepaid tickets to the New World: the New York Continental Conference and transatlantic steerage Fares 1885–1895

Abstract

p. 95). 4 Sloan uncovered secret agreements between Cunard and Collins, fixing minimum rates and pooling revenues for both passengers and cargo during the 1850s. Hyde found indirect evidence that by 1868 a conference agreement, fixing freight rates and minimum passenger fares was reached between the Glasgow and Liverpool steamshipping companies. Hvidt found evidence that, as early as 1871, migrant brokers in Copenhagen organized themselves in a sub-conference regulating local business and reporting to the main body in Liverpool. See Aldcroft (1974, p. 289), Hvidt (1978, p. 193), Hyde (1975, p. 94), Sloan (1992.5 Sjostrom (2004, p. 82). ABSTRACTThis article surveys the situation of the shipping cartels (conferences) which regulated transatlantic migrant transport from the European Continent to the United States. The focus of the article is to identify the internal and external pressures underlying these agreements and the strategies employed to neutralize these pressures. The author reaches the conclusion that a pool agreement was essential for the effectiveness of the Conference, which was both a means of horizontal integration regulating the competition between shipping companies and a means of vertical integration to gain control over the transatlantic migrant agent network selling the ocean passage tickets. The author also correlates the efficiency of the agreements with steerage fares and migration costs.

Between the Public and the State: The Shipping Lobby's Strategies against US Immigration Restrictions 1882–1917

“…A third conference was established to regulate the traffic from the Mediterranean. Inter-conference agreements developed into a general pact for the entire North Atlantic migrant traffic involving 30 companies in 1908 (Murken 1922;Feys 2008;Keeling 2012). Records of passenger shipping companies have rarely been preserved or very poorly, except for the HAL.…”

Cartel Organization, Price Discrimination, and Selection of Transatlantic Migrants: 1899–1911

“…Cartels were the rule rather than the exception in ocean shipping from the last quarter of the 19th century. Transatlantic passenger shipping firms' first sustained effort to establish cartel agreements dates to the mid‐1880s (Mürken; Feys ). Under British law, shipping cartel contracts were not illegal, but were unenforceable (Marx ).…”

“… See the discussion in Feys (), as well as the testimony of agents in United States v. Hamburg‐American, the Report of the Commission of Immigration of the State of New York, pp. 38–40, and extant copies of prepaid ticket receipts (Gjenvick‐Gjonvik Archives, http://www.gjenvick.com).…”

Mechanising migration: Transnational relationships, business structure and diffusing steam on the Atlantic

“…Torsten Feys has worked to tie 3. Torsten Feys, The Battle for the Migrants: The Introduction of Steam Shipping on the North Atlantic and its Impact on the European Exodus (St. John's, Newfoundland, 2013), 11-66;Torsten Feys, 'The Battle for the Migrants: The Evolution from Port to Company Competition, 1840-1914', in Feys, et al, Maritime Transport, 27-38. 4.…”