Dr. Lorenzo Dow Turner took these photographs as he crossed from Calabar, Cross River State to Oron, today in Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria in 1951.
Calabar was a major shipping port beginning in the 16th century. At first, it exported primarily palm oil, but by the 18th century, its primary export was people to go into enslavement. Its name in Efik, a local language, is Akwa Akpa and the Portuguese named it Calabar.
Oron is a coastal city in the Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. It is located in a highly fertile region. It produces palm oil and extracts timber and iron, glass sand, and gravel. The area is also rich in oil reserves.
Elder Dempster Lines, Ltd, a British company, opened its Calabar office in 1906. In 1951, when Dr. Turner used its services, it had two ferries, the MV Eket and MV Oron, providing prompt and regular water transportation service between Calabar and Oron both for passengers and cargo, including vehicles. This water line was the only reliable means of transportation connecting Calabar and the mainland. Elder Dempster ceased its operations in 1978. This transportation line existed under other management until the late 1980s, when it was abandoned.
A New York bookseller, Warshaw assembled this collection over nearly fifty years. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana: Accounting and Bookkeeping forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Subseries 1.1: Subject Categories. The Subject Categories subseries is divided into 470 subject categories based on those created by Mr. Warshaw. These subject categories include topical subjects, types or forms of material, people, organizations, historical events, and other categories. An overview to the entire Warshaw collection is available here: Warshaw Collection of Business Americana
Scope and Contents:
Minimally covers the terminus of the wind-powered (sail) era and more fully documents the peak of the engine (steam) era of commercial cargo and passenger vesselsk, including freight and dockage services, maintenance and provisioning, ferry service, navigation (tug and tow) assistance, plus leisure cruising and touring. There is not a significant amount of material on battle or war ships. Includes both short distance routes such as lakes, rivers, and islets, and longer trans-oceanic crossings.
Documents within the collection consist of handbills, broadsides, leaflets, books, business cards, advertisements, insurance forms, wreck reports, passenger lists, baggage tags, freight manifests, rate cards, correspondence on letterhead stationery, booklets, newspaper clippings, postcards, menus, periodicals, manuals, photographs, engravings, woodcuts, sketches, bills of lading, receipts, catalogues, ledgers, journals, purchase orders, broadsides, brochures, custom forms, schedules, shipping and receiving documents, early steam guides, timetables, lithographs, announcements, etc. There are no navigational nautical maps. There is very little in the way of international import/export records. However, domestic and North American freight services are well-covered through invoices, bills of lading, manifests, and receipts for goods and services.
Some materials cover the history and development of steamships, particularly in the latter half of the nineteenth century with the iron screw replacing the wooden paddle steamer in the 1850s. The late 1860s brought the compound engine, which led to the steamship, previously used for the conveyance of mails and passengers, to compete with the sailing vessel in the carriage of cargo for long voyages. The 1870s brought improvements in accommodation for the passenger, with the midship saloon, conveniences in state-rooms, and covered access to smoke rooms and ladies cabins.
Ownership of specific lines and vessels was very fluid throughout shipping history, including the renaming of vessels. Mergers, dissolution, and absorption of fleets were frequent. Thus, researchers should independently seek out a more detailed history for any entity of particular interest.
The general maritime business series focuses on good and services related to maritime operations such as repair, shipbuilding, parts, ticket agents, chandlers, groceries, coal supply, dockage, wharfs/marinas, etc.
Operation records of named vessels contains primarily bills of lading and similar receipts for the movement of material goods or in-water services such as tow and tug assistance.
The largest series covering shipping lines and conglomerates offers a wide assortment of miscellaneous, nonexhaustive operation records for cargo and passenger lines and corporations, typically those with multiple holdings. These documents may include receipts, bills of lading, correspondence, and financial ledgers, plus promotional material for services and routes offered. Passenger sailings and luxury cruise documentation may contain menus, passenger lists, itineraries, shore excursion information, souveniers such as luggage tags, ticket stubs, and postcards. See also the subject category Menus, for additional examples of passenger and cruise ship menus.
When not associated with any of the above, general examples of materials related to the industry have been by arranged by their material type such as images, reports, and serial publications. More formal documentation, especially legal and reports, can be found here.
Narrative type materials related to lore, history, and building and design specifications have been sorted by subject. A scarce amount of material covers ships used for military service. Likewise, there are a few examples of maritime related material from the art world, mostly in the form of catalogues for exhibits or auction of paintings and scale models.
A note on vessel names: those used as contract carriers of mail and when in service, were entitled to unique prefix designations such as Royal Mail Ship (RMS.), otherwise, the ship name may be preceded by the more generic S.S. for single-screw steamer or steamship, SV for sailing vessel, PS for paddle steamer, RV for research vessel or similar type prefix. USS is the standard for the United States Navy commissioned ships while in commission, with HMS used for His/Her Majesty's Ship of the British Royal Navy.
Some of the major lines/companies represented in the collection include: American Line, American Steamship Company, Anchor Line, Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, Cunard-Anchor Line, Cunard Line, Cunard Steam Ship Company, Limited, Cunard White Star Line, Eastern Steamship Lines, Furness, Withy & Company, Hamburg American Line (HAPAG) / Hamburg Amerika Linie, Holland America Line (N.A.S.M. / HAL), Inman Line, International Mercantile Marine Company (IMM), International Navigation Company, North German Lloyd (Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen), Panama Pacific Line, Peninsular and Oriental, Red Star Line, Royal Mail Steam Packet, U.S. Mail Steamship Company, United States Lines, White Star Line.
Arrangement:
Ships, Boats, and Vessels is arranged in three subseries.
Business Records and Marketing Material
General Maritime Businesses
Operation Records of Named Vessels
Shipping Lines/Conglomerates
Miscellaneous Business Records and Marketing Material
Genre
Keepsakes
Images
Ledger
Legal
News Clippings
Regulatory
Reports
Serial Publications
Stamps/Cigarette Cards
Associations and Societies
Images, Artwork, Racing, Technical Literature
Subject
Battleships, Warships
Destination Guides
Employment and Licensing
Insurance
Maritime History
Maritime Models and Art
Revue Generale Des Sciences
Warshaw Administrative Records
Related Materials:
Several other Warshaw Subject Categories may have closely related material such as Submarines and Transportation. For casual and recreational boating see Boats and Boating Equipment and Yachts. Other subject categories that may have related materials include: Canals, Dredging, Engines, Menus, Railroads (point of common transportation transfer), and Tours. .
Forms Part Of:
Forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana.
Missing Title
Series 1: Business Ephemera
Series 2: Other Collection Divisions
Series 3: Isadore Warshaw Personal Papers
Series 4: Photographic Reference Material
Provenance:
Steamboats [Ships, Boats, and Vessels] is a portion of the Business Ephemera Series of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Accession AC0060 purchased from Isadore Warshaw in 1967. Warshaw continued to accumulate similar material until his death, which was donated in 1971 by his widow, Augusta. For a period after acquisition, related materials from other sources (of mixed provenance) were added to the collection so there may be content produced or published after Warshaw's death in 1969. This practice has since ceased.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Some items may be restricted due to fragile condition.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Ships, Boats, and Vessels, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
A promissory note of January 28, 1788 to Robert Stubbe for the sum of eighteen shillings and six pence, Pennsylvania currency.
See Rumsey's article, "A Short Treatise on the Application of Steam, whereby is clearly shewn, from actual experiments, that steam may be applied to propel boats or vessels of any burthen against rapid currents with great velocity. The same Principles are also introduced with Effect, by a Machine of a simple and cheap Construction, for the Purpose of rasing Water sufficient for the working of Grist-mills, Saw-mills, &c. and for watering meadows and other purposes of agriculture" (Philadelphia, 1888), 26 pp., in Dibner Library, NMAH (copies in Archives Center collection control file).
Biographical / Historical:
American machinist and inventor who developed an early steamboat which he successfully demonstrated on the Potomac (1788) and on the Thames (1792) before his death in England on December 23, 1792.
Provenance:
Immediate source of acquisition unknown.
Restrictions:
Unrestricted research access on site by appointment. Object is fragile and cannot be removed from its preservation mat.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
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