George Washington (ship, 1909)
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The George Washington was a passenger ship of the North German Lloyd .
The George Washington was with 25,570 BRT one of the largest passenger ships before the First World War . The steamship was commissioned to the Vulcan works on the day of the 50th anniversary of North German Lloyd on February 20, 1907 and was launched on November 1, 1908 in the Szczecin Vulcan shipyard . The maiden voyage began on June 12, 1909 in Bremerhaven and ended on July 25, 1909 in the port of New York .
The 213 m long and 23.83 m wide George Washington was 2,679 passengers (including 568 passengers in first class, 433 passengers in 2nd class, 452 passengers in the third class and 1,226 passengers fourth class on the lower deck ) on board and drove the Bremerhaven – New York route into the First World War . On August 3, 1914, the steamer was interned in New York Harbor. During the war the ship served as an American troop transport. The ship sailed for the United States Lines after the war . In 1951 the George Washington was scrapped.
Within the Lloyd, the George Washington belonged to the “Bremen class” and was referred to as the “twin screw saloon mail steamer”. In contrast to this were the "twin screw high-speed steamers" (e.g. Kaiser Wilhelm the Great ) with which Lloyd had ushered in the age of the four-chimney steamers . The difference between these two classes, which all served the Bremerhaven-New York route, was mainly in the cruising speed and the loading capacity. Luxury and service, on the other hand, were very similar. In addition, the Lloyd still owned the steamers of the general class , which, in addition to the transatlantic voyages, also went to East Asia and Australia.
The saloon steamers needed two to three days longer to cross the Atlantic than the fast steamers, but wanted to offer a higher level of comfort and tranquility. In addition, emphasis was placed on increased loading capacity.
Like the Schnelldampfer, the saloon mail steamers also found their audience and enjoyed the favor of the international audience.
Facility
The ship was fully electrified. In the evening, passengers could stroll on the electrically lit promenade decks. Special wind protection devices on deck, which the head of the passage department of North German Lloyd, director of Helmolt, had invented, were highlighted in brochures.
In contrast to the neo-baroque splendor of most express steamers, the design of the rooms already showed the emerging, much simpler elegance, such as that used by the Wiener Werkstätten , for example . Paintings by well-known artists were hung in the salons, which were equipped with valuable concert grand pianos. There were also extensive ship libraries and lounges such as the smoking room.
The most luxurious way to travel on the George Washington was to book one of the Imperial Rooms. These had living rooms, breakfast rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms. As with all first class cabins, the furnishings included iron beds, sofa beds, wardrobes, vanities, chests of drawers and small tables. Each first class cabin was also equipped with an electric bell system and a fan. The additional sofa beds and cots were only used when necessary. The second most expensive rooms were the luxury cabins, which consisted of a bedroom and bathroom, followed by the first-class cabins, which, like the second-class rooms, consisted of a bedroom. The travelers there had to share abundant but separate bathrooms with other travelers. The facilities differed from class to class in terms of design and equipment. In addition to strictly separate lounges and dining rooms, which also reflected the class society of that time, each class had its own kitchens and stewards with very high standards.
The cheapest way to travel, which was mostly used by emigrants, was to buy a seat on the tween deck. There people lived in mass accommodation and dormitories.
As on every Lloyd steamer, there was also a licensed doctor on the George Washington who cared for all patients free of charge.
From the perspective of 1910
The marine engineering engineer Harald Nehbel dedicated a richly illustrated popular science article to the George Washington in the magazine Deutscher Hausschatz in 1910. First of all, he differentiated between speed and luxury in modern steamship construction. English express steamers would have taken the German speed record and received the coveted Blue Ribbon award. That is not a problem, says Nehbel, because the current increases in speed are bought at the price of extreme coal consumption:
“So it happens that the last 1.5 knots of our large express steamers require almost as much coal as the first 15 knots, and it also follows from this that a very large part of the ship's space is taken up by the huge boilers, machines and the enormous amounts of coal. Moreover, the increase in speed only has a purpose if so much time is gained that the passengers arrive at their destination a full day earlier, that is, again during the day. In any case, the passengers of the Lloyd express steamers find it very pleasant that when the steamers arrive in New York on Tuesday in the course of the day, they can go ashore immediately, while steamers that arrive late in the evening or at night only get on the other Your passengers can disembark tomorrow. "
Nehbel lists the material used in the George Washington : 14,500 tons of steel, 460 tons of iron, 750 tons of rivets and screws, 100 m³ of teak, 2,100 m³ of Oregon and pitch pine wood, 1,200 m³ of spruce wood. To add to the superlatives, he also lists the crew in detail. For example, the kitchen staff consists of “1 head chef, 9 second and 8 third cooks, 4 steam cooks, 4 pastry chefs, 6 bakers, 20 launderers, 4 butchers and 2 Israeli cooks”. The luxury equipment of the ship includes “electric light baths” and “darkrooms for amateur photographers”. 4,200 electric lamps provide artificial light, and two stills produce 20,000 liters of fresh water from seawater every day. If you put the 220.18 m long steamer vertically, it would be almost twice as high as the 33-story Park Row skyscraper on Broadway in New York City. The ship would tower 63 m above Cologne Cathedral.
Varia
On the George Washington from August 21 to 29, 1909, Sigmund Freud crossed the Atlantic on his only visit to America, which contributed greatly to the spread of psychoanalysis in the USA. Freud wrote in a letter to his family at the time: “The ship is wonderful. Accommodation and meals exceed all expectations. You don't notice anything about the overcrowding, which we feared with 2400 people […]. The cabin is small, but extremely elegant and complete. ”She also brought US President Woodrow Wilson to Brest from December 4 to 13, 1918 for the Paris Peace Conference , which took place in early 1919 after the First World War.
Captains
| No. | Surname | Life dates | On-board service | comment |
| Charles August Polack | (Born January 29, 1860 in Grimma ; † November 17, 1934 in Bremerhaven ) | until May 1913 | Polack received his captain's license in 1900 and was ship's captain in Aachen , Werra , King Albert , Princess Irene , and Kaiser Wilhelm the Great before he took over the ship's command on the George Washington . In 1913 he switched to Crown Princess Cecilie | |
| HA Cunningham | at least 1924 | From New York immigration papers |
The double screw saloon mail steamers of the "Bremen class" of the NDL before 1914
- Bremen
- Barbarossa
- Frederick the Great
- Queen Luise
- Princess Irene
- Princess Alice (1900, 1904 to the NDL)
- King Albert
- Great Elector
- Prince Friedrich Wilhelm
- Berlin
- George Washington
literature
- Bernd Graff: "In general, I am fortunate on my crossing". The German luxury liner George Washington ran the same route as the Titanic just a few hours earlier. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung No. 87, 14./15. April 2012, p. 13.
Footnotes
- ^ Deutscher Hausschatz, Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg, 36th year, issue 1, 1910.
- ↑ Deutscher Hausschatz, Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg, Volume 36, Issue 1, 1910, page 13 ff
- ↑ Sigmund Freud: Our heart points to the south. Travel letters 1895–1923 . 2nd edition, Berlin 2002, p. 281
- ↑ The New York Times, December 17, 1934, p. 19.
- ↑ Hartmut Bickelmann : Bremerhaven personalities from four centuries. A biographical lexicon . Bremerhaven City Archives, 2003, ISBN 3923851251 , p. 248.
- ^ Reinhold Thiel: The history of North German Lloyd 1857-1970 , Volume 3, Verlag HM Hauschild, 2004, ISBN 3-89757-166-8 , p. 128
- ^ The New York Times, March 15, 1914, p. 4