Resorts at Sea: August update

It may be finally time to get my ocean liner books out of storage. They’re not completely buried, but having a pretty good idea of what they contain, I’m not in any hurry to retrieve them. Mainly they’ll fill in and/or confirm some facts, and perhaps offer a few new avenues to explore.

I also grabbed images from The Library of Congress website, specifically the Gottscho-Schleisner Collection. They’re black and white. Ideally, I want color. It’s the only way to get the clearest look of the designs and art utilized in these spaces. Aside from brochures, the only color article I’ve found so far is from Fortune (June 1949) entitled “Modern Art Goes to Sea” and it’s packed with eye-popping color photos. For example:

This mural was in the cabin class lounge on board Moore-McCormack’s Argentina.

After World War II, she was completely stripped, and dressed with modern 
furnishings and décor such as this.

Summarizing descriptions of the principle rooms; colors, artwork, etc. is winding down. Out of the 25 ships under study, six will remain; three sets of twins, actually. For the general arrangements, I have in my collections deck plans of a good number of these ships as they were built and as they underwent refits. It’ll also be interesting to see changes as several ships changed hands over the years, with several ships changing hands several times.

Marine Log (originally Marine Engineering and later Marine Engineering/Log) published articles packed with just about every detail imaginable as these liners hit the scene. They are really the jumping point of my research. In addition to the technical details, there’s a lot of in depth discussion on passenger accommodations and public spaces. There are some prewar articles I still need to track down, to help flesh out sort of an evolutionary timeline. I know I’ve some in storage, too. If I'm remembering correctly, those should take care of the twins mentioned in the previous paragraph.

For general reference and a good look at company operations, I’ve identified close to 300 articles from The New York Times as worth a look. I need to block out a few days at a good library for a quick skim to decide what’s worth printing off for further reading. 

 Moore-McCormack's original Argentina. 

But before that, she was Panama Pacific's Pennsylvania. 

These will be good for back story, company operations, and proposed ships that didn’t come to fruition. I saw an early 1950’s sketch for a pair of Moore-McCormack liners that looked to be an updated version of their Argentina/Brazil/Uruguay with a more rounded and streamlined superstructure, but that was tabled. They went back to the drawing board and a few years later came the Argentina and Brasil. (No, that’s not a typo. The spelling reflected the traditional South American spelling.) 

The original configuration of the Argentina and Brasil. The wings on the dummy funnel

disappeared after a refit which saw the addition of a deck above the bridge. 

Part of this project involves detailing the art on board these ships. Tracking down the artisans has been interesting, and is taking more time than I anticipated. Local libraries have started charging for inter-library loans, and given the amount of books I need to access, it may be more cost-effective to go to grad school.

For previous posts on this topic:
Won't you let me take you on a sea cruise? (updated), Renderings and Reality,  
Resorts at Sea ... June update, Resorts at Sea: July update.