Clipper Ships

“Never, in these United States,” wrote historian samuel Eliot Morison, “has the brain of a man conceived, or the hand of man fashioned, so perfect a thing as the clipper ship.”
The word “clip,” which meant simply “to cut”, later came to mean “to move quickly”.” So a clipper ship was a fast-sailing one.

Clipper ships were the fastest and most beautiful sailing ships ever built. Between 1845 and 1859, American shipyards produced nearly 500 of them. The speediest were the giant Yankee clippers. With their masses of sail, these long, slender ships could travel up to 400 nautical miles a day.

Clippers were first built to carry goods to and from China. After the discovery of gold in California in 1848, they carried prospectors and supplies from the East Coast, to the gold fields. Earlier, this 15,000-mile trip around the southern tip of South America took five months. But by the early 1850s speedy clippers such as the Flying Cloud had cut the time to three months. Clippers set other records, too. In 1849, the Sea Witch sailed from Hong Kong to New York in 74 days. In 1852, the Challenger raced from Japan to California in 18 days. And in 1860, the Andrew Jackson sailed from New York to Liverpool, England, in 15 days. But by then steamships, which did not depend on wind, were replacing the clippers. The era of these “greyhounds of the sea” were coming to a close.

The Stagecoach

A stagecoach clatters into a western frontier town and pulls to a stop, sending up a cloud of dust. The excited townspeople crowd around it. They crane their necks to see passengers step off the coach, and they watch as mail and packages are unloaded. The stagecoach is their link to the outside world.

The stagecoach got its name from its long trip in stages, stopping at stations for fresh horses, food, and rest. Stagecoach lines were introduced in Europe in the seventeenth century. In the early days of the United States, they were important links between eastern cities.

As Americans moves west, stagecoaches did too. They were the only means of cross-country transportation in the West until the railroads replaced them in the late 1800s. Western coaches carried six to nine passengers and were pulled by four to six horses. The driver sat outside, and luggage was strapped on the roof. Sometimes coaches were attacked by bandits or Indians, so an armed assistant rode “shotgun” next to the driver. But on most runs, as the coach jolted along rough, dusty trails, a backache was a bigger risk than robbery.

The Overland Mail Company began to carry mail from St. Louis, Missiouri, to San Francisco, California, in 1857. It’s stagecoaches me the trip in 25 days.

Brooklyn Bridge

One of the greatest engineering feats of the 19th century, the Brooklyh Bridge opened with fireworks and fanfare on May 24, 1883. It connected New York State’s two largest cities, Brooklyn and Manhattan, which were divided by the East River. Before the bridge was built, the only way to travel from one city to the other was by ferryboat.

The Brooklyn Bridge was conceived by John Roebling, America’s leading engineer. Roebling envisioned a suspension bridge, the first to use steel-wire cables, that would be the longest bridge in the world. Unfortunately, he died of tetanus after a minor injury at the bridge site. His son, Washington Roebling, supervised the actual construction, which began in 1870. First, two great granite towers were sunk into the bed of the East River. Then, large steel cables were draped between the towers. Finally, the bridge roadway was suspended from the cables. The total cost of the project was nine milllion dollars.

The Brooklyn Bridge took 13 years to build. Soon after opening in 1883, it was carrying 33 million people a year between Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Today, Brooklyn and Manhattan are no longer separate cities; they are both boroughs of New York City. But John Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge still carries millions of travelers between them each year.

Inventions, Travel, New York, 1883, May 24

Clipper Ships

“Never, in these United States,” wrote historian Samuel Elliot Morison, “has the brain of man conceived, or the hand of man fashioned, so perfect a things as the clipper ship.”

The word “clip,” which meant simply “to cut,” later came to mean “to move quickly.” So a clipper ship was a fast-sailing one.

Clipper ships were the fastet and most beautiful sailing ships ever built. Between 1845 and 1849, American shipyards produced nearly 500 of them. The speediest were the giant Yankee clippers. With their masses of sail, these long, slender ships could travel up to 400 nautical miles a day.

Clippers were first built to carry goods to and from China. After the discovery of gold in California in 1848, they carried prospectors and supplies from the East Coast to the gold fields. Earlier, this 15,000-mile trip around the southern tip of South America took five months. But by the early 1850’s, speedy clippers such as the Flying Cloud had cut the time to three months.

Clippers set other records, too. In 1849, the Sea Witch sailed from Hong Kong to New York in 74 days. In 1852, the Challenger raced from Japan to California in 18 days. And in 1860, the Andrew Jackson sailed from New York to Liverpool, England, in 15 days. But by then steamships, which did not depend on the wind, were replacing the clippers. The era of these “greyhounds of the sea” was coming to a close.

Ocean Liners

You spend the day soaking up the sun, swimming in the pool, and playing shuffleboard. Then you join friends in the “Garden Lounge,” where tea is served among the towering palm trees and Greek statues. After changing into formal clothes in your stateroom, you make your way along the thickly carpeted corridors to the main dining room, where you have been invited to be a guest at the captain’s table. After a superb dinner, you dance to the romantic music of the ship’s orchestra.


No form of transportation has ever been more glamorous than the ocean liners that carried passengers between the U.S. and Europe. They heyday of those “floating palaces” was from 1900 to 1940. Aboard such ships as the Aquitania (which carried 4,000 passengers), the Normandie (pictured here), and the Queen Elizabeth, those who could afford the passage were treated like royalty. In 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank, killing 1,500 people. But on most crossings, seasickness was the only peril. During World War II many of the huge liners were used as troop transports. After the war, new ships like the United States kept transatlantic service alive. But gradually jet aircraft, which were faster and cheaper, replaced the queens of the sea. Today, ocean liners are used mainly for pleasure cruises.


In 1952, the United States won an award for the fastest ocean crossing: 3 days, 10 hours, and 40 minutes from New York to England.