Yes, an era of government subsidies for the purpose of national prestige.
That was a great read!
Great article. I spotted one mistake, though:
In 1915, Gibbs finagled an audience with J. P. Morgan, then owner of the world’s largest commercial fleet. At a time when the biggest ship in the world was less than 800 feet long
The Titanic’s elder sister, Olympic, had entered passenger service in 1911; and her younger sister, Britannic, saw service as a hospital ship in WWI before being sunk in 1916. Both were 882 feet long.
This is a great article.
I (vaguely) remember seeing my grandmother off in New York, as she boarded the Queen Mary for a trip to Europe. It was the early 60s, and I was a little person. The ship was gigantic, and I was frightened by it — then it blew it’s departure horn, and I was terrified. Never liked ships much after that, until my honeymoon.
Today, the technology and scale of cruise ships is breathtaking. What has mainly changed is our expectations. If we looked at things in a slightly different light, we might be tempted to say that back then was actually the “Age of Pretty Good Ships,” while today is the age of great ones. But back then, the ships men were creating were things that no one had ever seen or imagined. Today’s ships, while in fact vastly superior, are mundane because we are used to the standards set by those pioneers.
That’s something for space geeks to consider. The “space race,” culminating in Apollo, captured our imagination to the extent it did in part because it was novel — just as the first Great Ships were. Today, people are “used to” having landed on the moon, and having a Space Shuttle that became boring after a short time. In addition, we have a bar set artificially high by a combination of the fact that many of us seem unable to separate fact from fantasy, and a torrent of movies which depict space fantasy in such a convincing manner that the young are bored by the real frontier that lays ahead.
Yes, an era of government subsidies for the purpose of national prestige.
That was a great read!
Great article. I spotted one mistake, though:
In 1915, Gibbs finagled an audience with J. P. Morgan, then owner of the world’s largest commercial fleet. At a time when the biggest ship in the world was less than 800 feet long
The Titanic’s elder sister, Olympic, had entered passenger service in 1911; and her younger sister, Britannic, saw service as a hospital ship in WWI before being sunk in 1916. Both were 882 feet long.
This is a great article.
I (vaguely) remember seeing my grandmother off in New York, as she boarded the Queen Mary for a trip to Europe. It was the early 60s, and I was a little person. The ship was gigantic, and I was frightened by it — then it blew it’s departure horn, and I was terrified. Never liked ships much after that, until my honeymoon.
Today, the technology and scale of cruise ships is breathtaking. What has mainly changed is our expectations. If we looked at things in a slightly different light, we might be tempted to say that back then was actually the “Age of Pretty Good Ships,” while today is the age of great ones. But back then, the ships men were creating were things that no one had ever seen or imagined. Today’s ships, while in fact vastly superior, are mundane because we are used to the standards set by those pioneers.
That’s something for space geeks to consider. The “space race,” culminating in Apollo, captured our imagination to the extent it did in part because it was novel — just as the first Great Ships were. Today, people are “used to” having landed on the moon, and having a Space Shuttle that became boring after a short time. In addition, we have a bar set artificially high by a combination of the fact that many of us seem unable to separate fact from fantasy, and a torrent of movies which depict space fantasy in such a convincing manner that the young are bored by the real frontier that lays ahead.
I’m not sure we can undo that…