What was steerage class

What did it mean to travel in steerage? What does it mean to travel in "steerage"? How many immigrants passed through Ellis Island between and ? How much did a steerage ticket cost in ? Steerage was enormously profitable for steamship companies. The cost to feed a single immigrant was only about 60 cents a day! What was the consequence of traveling in steerage? The journey in steerage is nearly universally described as miserable.

Passengers experienced overcrowding, foul air, filth, intense seasickness, and inedible food. Many were treated like animals by officers and crewmembers, swindled out of their money, and deprived of basic human needs. What is the difference between immigrant and emigrant? Nineteenth-century passenger ships were like microcosms of Victorian society — complete with institutionalised class systems. They were not waited on hand and foot like cabin class passengers, but their meals were provided, and they had few shipboard responsibilities.

They had often received a subsidised or free passage from an emigration company or the British Colonial Office. They did not have cabins at all, and instead they lived out the voyage in tiny, dark bunkrooms below deck. They did all their own washing and cleaning, and were allocated plenty of shipboard chores. While cabin passengers had their meals cooked and brought to them, steerage passengers took turns to cook, and then gathered outside the galley to collect their meals.

There is not I believe a single young woman on board but scouts the idea of being a servant when they land: nothing less than a piano forte and crochet seem compatible with their ideas of their own dignity; on which account, it is so difficult to get any little service performed for you, presuming you have no servant of your own.

Surgeon and steerage matron were carried on each steamer. The Adriatic could accommodate about steerage passengers, and in addition she had accommodations for 50 1st class and 50 2nd class passengers. By studying the deck plan for the Adriatic and Celtic above, we can see that the steerage passengers on these ships were divided in 3 different categories and accommodated in 3 separate compartments.

This was quite common, and as on the Adriatic, the front compartment was usually reserved for single men, the middle for married couples and families, while the single women were in a compartment further aft as far away from the single men as possible. Note that there were no separate dining saloons, the meals were brought from the galley and served in the common space allotted to the passengers in each compartment where long tables were located, see the picture below.

The conditions for steerage passengers improved through time, as new ships were introduced by the great lines. On the White Star line ship Arabic 1 , built in , the steerage accommodation was in three sections, approached by separate entrances, and provided with separate lavatories, with an ample water supply kept in constant circulation by a pulsometer pump.

The single men were all quartered in the main and lower deck forward, and between them and the married people there was a saloon accommodation and engine space. The single women were still further aft, and had their quarters entirely to themselves, and as they were in charge of experienced matrons and fully qualified surgeon, they were thoroughly well cared for in every respect. A hospital replete with every requirement was provided for every section and in addition there were two on deck for infectious cases.

The steerage berths were of canvas. When not in use the berths could be compactly stowed away, the space vacated becoming available for tables and seats during the day.

The steerage was also provided with a pantry, from which the emigrants could be supplied with tea and coffee made on the same principal as in the saloon, and for the women who wanted to make their own there was an ample supply for teapots and hot water. The invalid and sea sick passengers were not lost sight of, beef tea, chicken broth, and arrowroot being freely provided for them.

The main deck, fore and aft, formed a promenade and recreation for the steerage passengers, while the saloon passengers had a special separate deck amidships, all mixing of classes thus being avoided. Around the turn of the century it became more common to use the term "3rd class" for the low price accommodation, some ships even had "4th class". The deck plan below shows the 3rd class or "steerage" accommodation on the Cunard Line steamships Saxonia and Ivernia built The accommodation for 3rd class passengers on these ships were almost as good as for those traveling on 2nd class, however, it was more crowded and the food was a little cheaper.

These ships could carry about 1, steerage passengers. Emigrants between decks steerage Support Norway Heritage: Purchase a copy. Newspaper announcement from "Den Vestlandske Tidende" March 30th ; announcing passenger accommodation from Grimstad to Quebec, with the ship Nordpolen , mastered by Capt. It was scheduled to sail from Grimstad to Quebec with passengers and there was still available space. The steerage was 7 feet high, and it had a permanent between-deck.

The ship also had cabins and a separate ward. It was fitted in the most comfortable way for the passengers and could take both cabin and steerage passengers. More information was obtained with Gardener J. At length his long-expected cry was heard, and at the same moment there shone out from the haze and mist ahead a gleaming light, which presently was gone, and soon returned, and soon was gone again. Whenever it came back, the eyes of all on board brightened and sparkled like itself, and there we all stood watching this revolving light upon the rock at Holyhead, and praising it for its brightness and its friendly warning, and lauding it, in short, above all other signal lights that ever were displayed, until it once more glimmered faintly in the distance far behind us.

Then it was time to fire a gun, for a pilot; and almost before its smoke had cleared away, a little boat with a light at her masthead came bearing down upon us through the darkness, swiftly.

And presently, our sails being backed, she ran alongside; and the hoarse pilot, wrapped and muffled in peacoats and shawls to the very bridge of his weather-ploughed-up nose, stood bodily among us on the deck.

And I think if that pilot had wanted to borrow fifty pounds for an indefinite period on no security, we should have engaged to lend it him before his boat had dropped astern, or which is the same thing before every scrap of news in the paper he brought with him had become the common property of all on board.

We turned in pretty late that night and turned out pretty early next morning. By eight we all sat down in one of its hotels to eat and drink together for the last time. And by nine we had shaken hands all round and broken up our social company forever. The country, by the railroad, seemed, as we rattled through it, like a luxuriant garden. The beauty of the fields so small they looked! From American Notes. After publishing Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickelby , Dickens went on vacation with his wife to America in , where he traveled as far west as St.

Louis and as far north as Toronto.