Steerage

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File:Alfred Stieglitz - The Steerage - Google Art Project.jpg

The Steerage by Alfred Stieglitz. Taken in 1907 on the Kaiser Wilhelm II The middle-class passengers on the upper deck are looking down on steerage passengers below.

Steerage is a term for the lowest category of passenger accommodation in a ship. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, considerable numbers of persons travelled from their homeland to seek a new life elsewhere, in many cases North America and Australia. Many of those people were destitute in their homeland and had the minimum of resources to procure transportation. The term later widened to imply the lowest category of accommodation on a passenger vessel.

Steerage class travel

File:"Steerage Emigrants" (The Graphic) MET MM15333.jpg

Steerage immigrants

Steerage refers to the lowest possible category of long-distance steamer travel. It was available to very poor people, usually emigrants seeking a new life in the New World, chiefly North America and Australia. In many cases, these people had no financial resources and were attempting to escape destitution at home. Consequently, they needed transportation at an absolute minimum cost. In many cases they provided their own bedding and food. Steerage was very cramped and there was hardly any room for fresh air to get there. The poor conditions and the very long voyages could contribute to en route deaths of passengers in steerage. The word likely comes from the fact that these accommodations were originally located near the ship's rudder.

File:Chinese steerage passengers, on board the S. S. China en route to Hawai'i in 1901,eating their meals on deck.jpg

Chinese steerage passengers, on board the S.S. China en route to Hawaii in 1901

The term steerage was used to refer to the lowest category of accommodation, usually not including proper sleeping accommodation. In the United Kingdom, it was often referred to as third class, but there were instances where steerage was effectively fourth-class. In time, the designation came to refer to the lowest category in general, and in modern times is sometimes used sarcastically to refer to any uncomfortable accommodation in an airliner, ship or train.<ref name = collins>Collins English Dictionary and Thesaurus, HarperCOllins Publishers, Glasgow, 1993, reprinted 2010, ISBN 978 0 00 780782 6</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Beds were often long rows of large shared bunks with straw mattresses and no bed linens.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

A commentator described conditions in steerage aboard the Template:SS in 1906:

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External links

• "Steerage - Immigrant Journeys to Their New Home", GG Archives
• "Steerage Class - The Immigrant Journey: The Fellowship of the Steerage (1905)", GG Archives
• {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }} – Special Collection of Rare Steerage Souvenir Passenger Lists produced by the German Steamship Lines Hamburg-Amerika and Norddeutscher Lloyd.