Category: Red Star Line

Categories: Belgian Ships | Passenger Lines


The Red Star Line was was chartered in Belgium on September 27, 1872 as a joint venture between the Societe Anonyme de Navigation Belge-Americaine of Belgium and the International Navigation Company of Philadelphia, which had been founded with backing by the Pennsylvania Railroad the year before. Service between Antwerp and Philadelphia began in 1873, using three new liners built in England, supplemented by chartered ships. In 1874, Red Star began service from Antwerp to New York under a mail contract from the Belgian government. Clement Griscom in 1871.

In 1902, the International Navigation Company was reorganised with financing from J.P. Morgan, was renamed as the International Mercantile Marine Corporation, and acquired several more shipping lines. (It had already bought and merged two other lines.) International Mercantile Marine was forced into bankruptcy in 1915 when World War I caused cash flow problems, but was able to recover due to the higher demand for shipping capacity during the war.

The Red Star Line went bankrupt in 1934 during the Great Depression, and was sold to German shipping magnate Arnold Bernstein. Bernstein was Jewish, and in 1937 he was arrested, fined heavily, and had his company confiscated by the Nazi government. The Pennland and the Westernland were mortgages, and then sold to the Holland America Line.

The former warehouses of the Red Star Line in Antwerp were designated as a landmark and reopened as a museum on 28 September 2013 by the City of Antwerp.

Sources

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Subcategories (5)

SS Finland (1902) (1, 1, 1)
SS Gerolstein (1904) (3, 1, 0)
Kenilworth (1872) (1, 1, 0)
Pennland (1870) (1, 0, 1)
SS Westernland (1883) (0, 2, 0)




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