Time on the crossing: emigrant voyages across the Atlantic, 1853–1913

Abstract

I provide a new series of the average duration of emigrant voyages from Liverpool to New York from 1853 to 1913. Time on the crossing fell by 80 percent, from about 40 days to just eight, most of which occurred in the first 2 decades and was associated with the transition from sail to steam. The standard deviation of voyage durations also dramatically decreased. Although average transatlantic fares did not fall, if foregone earnings during the voyage are included, the total cost declined until the early 1900s, and especially so when measured in terms of the number of weeks’ work.

Transoceanic pathogen circulation in the age of sail and steam

“…There is good reason to expect that transoceanic pathogen introduction under these conditions was far from assured -particularly for fast-burning respiratory infections such as smallpox, measles, and influenza. As late as the 1850s, a sail voyage from Liverpool to New York City could take 5-6 weeks [31], while journeys from the UK to Australia could take 3-4 months [32]. Between lengthy periods at sea, short infection generation times, and intense shipboard transmission, fast-burning "crowd diseases" could rapidly exhaust all susceptible people on board and go extinct long before a vessel reached port, leaving no pathogen to introduce.…”

“…Finally, we use port arrivals data from Gold Rush-era San Francisco, California, 1850-1852, to explore the implications of variation in journey length, ship size, and natural history for pathogen circulation in the specific context of the Pacific. As part of this, we explore the impact of the advent of steam travel in the nineteenth century -a technological revolution that routinely cut journey times by a factor of two or more [31][32][33].…”