336 Chapter 12 The Sections Go Their Own Ways
years earlier. Startling improvements in design, culmi-
nating in the long, sleek, white-winged clipper ships,
made possible speeds previously undreamed of.
Appearing just in time to supply the need for fast
transportation to the California gold fields, the clip-
pers cut sailing time around Cape Horn to San
Francisco from five or six months to three, the record
of eighty-nine days being held jointly by Andrew
Jacksonand Donald McKay’s famousFlying Cloud.
Another McKay-designed clipper, Champion of the
Seas, once logged 465 nautical miles in twenty-four
hours, far in excess of the best efforts of modern
yachts. To achieve such speeds, cargo capacity had to
be sacrificed, making clippers uneconomical for carry-
ing the bulky produce that was the mainstay of com-
merce. But for specialty goods, in their brief heyday
the clippers were unsurpassed. Hong Kong mer-
chants, never known for extravagance, willingly paid
seventy-five cents a cubic foot to ship tea by clipper to
London even though slower vessels charged only
twenty-eight cents. In the early 1850s clippers sold
for as much as $150,000; with decent luck a ship
might earn its full cost in a voyage or two.
Steam Conquers the Atlantic
The reign of the clipper ship was short. Like so many
other things, ocean commerce was being mecha-
nized. Steamships conquered the high seas more
slowly than the rivers because early models were
unsafe in rough waters and uneconomical. A riverboat
could take on fuel along its
route, whereas an Atlantic
steamer had to carry tons of
coal across the ocean, thereby
reducing its capacity for
cargo. However, by the late
1840s, steamships were cap-
turing most of the passenger
traffic, mail contracts, and
first-class freight. These ves-
sels could not keep up with
the clippers in a heavy breeze,
but their average speed was
far greater, especially on the
westward voyage against the
prevailing winds. Steamers
were soon crossing the
Atlantic in less than ten days.
Nevertheless, for very long
voyages, such as the 15,000-
mile haul around South
America to California, fast
sailing ships held their own
for many years.
The steamship, and especially the iron ship,
which had greater cargo-carrying capacity and was
stronger and less costly to maintain, took away the
advantages that American shipbuilders had held
since colonial times. American lumber was cheap,
but the British excelled in iron technology.
Although the United States invested about
$14.5 million in subsidies for the shipping industry,
the funds were not employed intelligently and did
little good. In 1858 government efforts to aid ship-
ping were abandoned.
The combination of competition, government
subsidy, and technological advance drove down ship-
ping rates. Between the mid-1820s and the mid-
1850s the cost of moving a pound of cotton from
New York to Liverpool fell from one cent to about a
third of a cent. Transatlantic passengers could obtain
the best accommodations on the fastest ships for
under $200, good accommodations on slower pack-
ets for as little as $75.
Rates were especially low for European emigrants
willing to travel to America on cargo vessels. By the
1840s at least 4,000 ships were engaged in carrying
bulky American cotton and Canadian lumber to
Europe. On their return trips with manufactured
goods they had much unoccupied space, which they
converted into rough quarters for passengers.
Conditions on these ships were crowded, gloomy,
and foul. Frequently epidemics took a fearful toll
among steerage passengers. On one crossing of the
shipLark, 158 of 440 passengers died of typhus.The American clipper ship, Red Jacket, off Cape Horn, sails from Australia to Liverpool, England in 1854.