SS Moltke

SS Moltke was a German ocean liner built by Blohm & Voss for the Hamburg America Line.[1][2] She was named after Helmuth von Moltke. Sister ship to the SS Blücher, she was launched in 1901, and sailed her maiden voyage in February the following year. According to the New Haven Morning Journal and Courier, she "was built for the eastern service of the line, but on nearing completion her interior arrangements were adapted to the New York service at Hamburg." Her first commanding officer was Captain Christian Dempwolf.[3][4]

History

Following the launch of the Moltke, newspapers reported that she would provide service on "the route between New York, Plymouth, Cherbourg, and Hamburg," operating in conjunction with other ships "to maintain a weekly service." She and her sister ship, the Blücher, were described as each being "12,000 tons, 525 feet in length, 62 feet in breadth, and 45 feet in depth," and were "equipped with two sets of quadruple-expansion engines, developing 8,000 horsepower, and capable of driving the vessels at sixteen knots' speed," which meant that the passages between Cherbourg and New York and between Hamburg and New York would take nine and ten days, respectively.

Notable passengers

On September 27, 1903, American sociologist Albion Woodbury Small, founder of the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago, returned from a trip to Europe with his wife and daughter, Lina, aboard the Moltke.[30]

In 1904, Maksymilian Faktorowicz, a "successful cosmetician and wigmaker [who] was appointed by Russian nobility to be the official cosmetics expert to the Royal Family and the Imperial Russian Grand Opera," and who would later become renowned in America as Max Factor, emigrated from Russia with his wife and children. Departing from the Port of Hamburg, Germany aboard the Moltke, he traveled with his family in steerage class, arriving at Ellis Island in New York City on February 25, 1904. After relocating to Los Angeles, California, he became a "pioneer of theatrical film makeup" in the Hollywood movie industry, and founded Max Factor & Company.[31]

In 1910, Francis (Frank) W. Wozencraft (1892–1966), then an undergraduate at the University of Texas, crossed to Europe on the "Moltke" to study there. After service in World War I, Wozencraft was elected youngest mayor of Dallas, Texas, 1919–1921. Wozencraft went on to a distinguished legal career, working as general counsel for Radio Corporation of America and on various international commissions. A letter on ship's letterhead informs his college English teacher, Leonidas W. Payne, that the 18-year-old Wozencraft has completed a writing examination in the "smoker" of the ship. The young man reports that, though the ship's "party is composed almost entirely of ladies," he has been enjoying the company of the "pullets among the hens". The letter is in the archive of Leonidas W. Payne's papers in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.

In 1913, sixteen-year-old Assunta Saltarini Modotti emigrated from Italy. Departing from Genoa aboard the Moltke on June 24, she traveled alone, according to Letizia Argenteri, author of Tina Modotti: Between Art and Revolution, arriving on July 8 at Ellis Island, where she "declared herself to be single, five feet one inch tall, in good mental and physical health, and a student." She carried with her "100 dollars and a train ticket for San Francisco, where her father and her sister Mercedes resided."[32] By the 1920s, Tina Modotti was well on her way to becoming an acclaimed photographer and documentarian.

country	German Empire
namesake	Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
owner	Hamburg America Line
builder	Blohm & Voss
launched	August 27, 1901
maiden voyage	February 22, 1902
in service	1902
fate	Seized by Italy, 1915
notes	Part of the Barbarossa-class ocean liner

History

Accommodations and amenities

Controversies

Notable passengers

External links

References