Steam Titans: Cunard, Collins, and the Epic Battle for Commerce on the North Atlantic

by William M. Fowler Jr.

Overview

Winner of the Brewington Book Prize for Maritime History

The story of the epic contest between shipping magnates Samuel Cunard and Edward Collins for mid-19th century control of the Atlantic.

Between 1815 and the American Civil War, the greatest invention of the Industrial Revolution delivered a sea change in oceanic transportation. Steam travel transformed the Atlantic into a pulsating highway, dominated by ports in Liverpool and New York, as steamships ferried people, supplies, money, and information with astounding speed and regularity. American raw materials flowed eastward, while goods, capital, people, and technology crossed westward. The Anglo-American “partnership” fueled development worldwide; it also gave rise to a particularly intense competition.

Steam Titans tells the story of a transatlantic fight to wrest control of the globe’s most lucrative trade route. Two men—Samuel Cunard and Edward Knight Collins—and two nations wielded the tools of technology, finance, and politics to compete for control of a commercial lifeline that spanned the North Atlantic. The world watched carefully to see which would win. Each competitor sent to sea the fastest, biggest, and most elegant ships in the world, hoping to earn the distinction of being known as “the only way to cross.”

Historian William M. Fowler brings to life the spectacle of this generation-long struggle for supremacy, during which New York rose to take her place among the greatest ports and cities of the world, and recounts the tale of a competition that was the opening act in the drama of economic globalization, still unfolding today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620409084
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	08/08/2017
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

William M. Fowler is Distinguished Professor of History at Northeastern University in Boston and has lectured at the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Naval War College, and the Sea Education Association. A trustee of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Association, The Paul Revere Memorial Association, and The Rhode Island Historical Society, Fowler is an honorary member of the Boston Marine Society, as well as an editor of The New England Quarterly. He lives in Winchester, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 The New Nation 5

Chapter 2 From Cape Cod to New York City 19

Chapter 3 Liverpool 36

Chapter 4 Dramatic Line 53

Chapter 5 Samuel Cunard 64

Chapter 6 Steam 83

Chapter 7 The British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company 100

Chapter 8 Liverpool-Halifax-Boston-New York 115

Chapter 9 Collins and Congress 132

Chapter 10 Competition Begins: Collins versus Cunard 149

Chapter 11 Crossing the Atlantic: Life Aboard 167

Chapter 12 A Rising Storm in Congress 183

Chapter 13 Vesta 201

Chapter 14 The Arctic Disaster 217

Chapter 15 Commodore Vanderbilt 235

Chapter 16 End of the Line 255

Epilogue 272

Acknowledgments 277

Bibliography 281

Notes 297

Index 351

Editorial Reviews

"A vigorous account of the rivalry . . .With STEAM TITANS, Mr. Fowler has crafted an enjoyable book, with enough technical detail and colorful tales to appeal to the casual weekend sailor and skilled mariner alike." - Charles R. Morris, The Wall Street Journal

"[A] grand-scale chronicle of an era at sea like no other, written by a master maritime scholar, and with appropriate vitality. High ambition, ingenuity, the advance of technology, money, good luck and bad, and courage aplenty all play their parts here… [A] most refreshing reminder of how much more there is to history besides politics and war." - David McCullough

"[A] fascinating, informative account of the rivalry that pushed the efficiency of ocean transportation to new heights in the mid-nineteenth century… The narrative has all the thrust and drive of one of the steam ships William Fowler so vividly evokes. His account of the wreck of the Arctic is just one of the many set pieces that makes this book both a pleasure and a surprise." - Nathaniel Philbrick

"A powerful, sometimes cautionary, tale of a great transatlantic maritime rivalry, well-told from both human and commercial viewpoints." - Diana Preston, author of LUSITANIA: AN EPIC TRAGEDY

"Fowler takes us back to the shipping industry of Britain and the freshly declared independent American colonies to illustrate the formation and growth of trade routes and commodities, maritime law, and the U.S. merchant marine, as well as the often-prickly relationship between national politics and commercial interests." - Jennifer Bort Yacovissi, Washington Independent Review of Books

"Skillfully-written and well researched . . . It describes fascinating details without becoming too technical." - The Missourian

"Well researched and finely articulated, STEAM TITANS is an absorbing account of a decade-long struggle." - John G. Langley, Q.C., Cunard Steamship Society Chairman

"STEAM TITANS is a must read. Superbly written!" - William (Bill) H. Miller, lecturer and author of GREAT PASSENGER SHIPS 1950–1960

From the Publisher