Who travelled and why
Between the early 19th century and the 1920s, tens of millions of people left Europe, and a large share crossed the Atlantic to the United States, Canada and elsewhere. They left for many reasons, including poverty, famine, land pressure, religious or political troubles and the hope of work. Others emigrated to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South America, sometimes with assisted passages.
Most travelled in the cheapest class, known as steerage. The word refers to the lower part of a ship, below the better cabins, where the cheapest passengers were accommodated. It was a commercial arrangement: emigrants were a reliable cargo in a trade where outward freight was often scarce.
The sailing-ship years
On the packet ships and other sailing vessels, steerage passengers usually lived in the between-decks space, a low area below the main deck that could be fitted with simple wooden bunks for the voyage. Headroom was limited, light and air came mainly through the hatches, and in bad weather the hatches might be closed, leaving the space dark and stuffy.
Passengers were often expected to bring much of their own food, sometimes with a basic ration of water and provisions issued by the ship, and to cook it themselves on shared stoves or fires when the weather allowed. A crossing under sail could take from about three weeks to well over two months, depending on winds and direction. The westbound voyage was typically longer. The wider subject of shipboard provisions on long voyages shows that emigrants faced a more limited version of the same problems.
Famine, fever and the Passenger Acts
Conditions were frequently poor, and the worst episodes are well documented. During and after the Irish famine of the late 1840s, large numbers of desperate people crowded onto whatever ships were available, and outbreaks of typhus and other diseases, sometimes called ship fever, caused many deaths on board and in quarantine stations on arrival. Ships in this period were later described as coffin ships, a label that reflects the severity of the suffering even if it was not applied to every vessel.
Governments responded gradually. Britain and the United States passed a series of Passenger Acts that set limits on the number of passengers per ship, required minimum space and food, and in later versions regulated ventilation, medical provision and the presence of a surgeon on larger voyages. Enforcement was uneven, and the rules were often broken. Still, the laws were an early attempt at consumer and public-health regulation in shipping. Medical care at sea more generally is covered in the story of shipboard medicine.
Steam and the shorter voyage
Steamships, fully established on the Atlantic by the 1860s and 1870s, shortened the crossing to roughly one or two weeks, and later to under a week on the fastest liners. A shorter voyage meant less time for disease to spread and less need to carry provisions. Steamship companies also began to supply meals instead of expecting passengers to cook for themselves.
Steerage nonetheless remained basic for a long time. Large dormitories, with bunks for single men, families and single women in separate areas, were common into the late 19th century. Gradually, many lines replaced these with smaller cabins and public rooms for third class. The Titanic sinking of 1912 is a well-known case because the contrast between her upper and lower classes was documented in detail, and because the loss of life among third-class passengers has been closely studied.
Ports of departure and arrival
Emigrants gathered at ports such as Liverpool, Queenstown (now Cobh), Glasgow, Hamburg, Bremen, Le Havre, Rotterdam and Naples. Agents, boarding houses and railway connections grew up around the trade. German lines were especially prominent in carrying emigrants from central and eastern Europe.
On arrival in the United States, immigrants passed through inspection. New York used Castle Garden from 1855, and from 1892 the federal station at Ellis Island, which processed a very large number of arrivals over the following decades, commonly estimated at around 12 million. First- and second-class passengers were typically inspected on board, while steerage passengers were taken ashore to be examined, a distinction that reflected the attitudes of the time. Some passengers were turned back for health or other reasons. These stories belong equally to the wider record of Atlantic crossings.
The end of the mass steerage trade
The numbers fell after the First World War. The United States introduced immigration quotas in 1921 and 1924, and economic conditions changed, so the great era of mass emigration by sea declined. Some liners renamed the cheapest accommodation tourist class and offered it to travellers and students, though many people also continued to cross as migrants. Postwar migration to Australia, Canada and elsewhere continued by sea for some time, until air travel took over.
What the voyage meant
Accounts from emigrants are mixed. Some remembered hardship, seasickness, fear and loss; others recalled friendships made, music and dancing on deck, and a sense of adventure. Both versions were true. For many descendants, the ship’s passenger list remains a key family record, and the crossing is a defining moment in family histories on both sides of the ocean.