Prepaid tickets to ride to the New World: the New York Continental Conference and transatlantic steerage fares 1885-1895

"As maritime historian Francis Hyde noted in Cunard and the North Atlantic: “the real point to grasp is that it was the steamship which changed the whole nature, organization and profitability of the migrant trade.” Only because of the increased organization and commercialization of this trade, based on a system which had been developing since the 18th century, was the transatlantic migrant movement able to attain the sheer volume it had. These high numbers allowed the steam shipping companies involved in migrant trade to become some of the biggest companies worldwide. Although maritime and migration networks have often been treated separately, the commercialization of migrant transport firmly connected both. These networks encompassed the whole Atlantic world connecting state authorities, business and labor interests and individual migrants, yet the key role of steam shipping companies in these networks remains relatively unexplored. This paper will examine how shipping companies tried to take control over the agent-network in the US where the market of return and prepaid tickets (bought in America for someone in Europe to make the crossing) expanded with the introduction of steam. By using the archives of the Holland America Line (HAL) running a service between Rotterdam and New York, the paper will take a closer look how these companies managed the migrant passage business through shipping conferences. The business was first entrusted to migrant brokers who had specialized in supplying ships with passengers through a network of migrant agents and subagents during the age of steam. The HAL took the passage business into own hands first in Europe in 1877 and in the US in 1886. Contrary to prior assumptions, this transition was slow to materialize. Migrant brokers remained important middlemen because of their ties with the agents and because fierce competition between the shipping companies for the trade enabled them to play the lines against each other to their advantage. The more intense the competition between the lines, the higher the commission of migrant brokers and agents, hence the latter had no interest in a stable market of controlled fares to the New World. This pushed the firms to collude, establishing shipping conferences to neutralize the competition among them, fix prices and take control over the agent-network. Based on the correspondence of the HAL head-agent in New York and the minutes of the New York Continental Conference uniting the biggest continental steamship lines this article analyzes how successful the conference agreements were. What were the internal and external pressures undermining the conference? What effect did the conference “pool agreements” of the early 1890s have? How did they influence the prepaid and return steerage fares on the North Atlantic?"