Ξένα υπερωκεάνεια για Έλληνες μετανάστες [Foreign liners for Greek Immigrants]
Alice
Alice was a small Austrian ocean liner that was used by many Greek immigrants to the United States.
She was built in 1907 by Russell & Co in Glasgow, Scotland. She had 6,122 tons and triple expansion engines with twin screws. She was 415 ft long and 49.5 ft wide. The attached postcard is from my personal collection and shows her in its glory in 1908.
But she was a rather small and not very popular ship. She was definitely an immigrant ship and carried 1,625 passengers, of which just 50 (!) in first class, 75 in second class and 1,500 in third class. She had just one funnel and two masts. The readers of this site recall that immigrants of those days were selecting their boats for transfer to the States based on the number of funnels as mor efunnels meant better ships! In fact, some ships of HAPAG and other companies had additional fake funnels to impress their customers.
Alice did not have a steerage class but rather huge rooms or enclosed areas with primitive bank beds, stationing typically 50 to 60 per room. She was part of the Unione Austro-Americana, known also as Cosulich Line. Old documents state that the Cosulich family was more "humane" in their treatment of these immigrants with respect to others, especially the French Messageries and Fabre companies.
Cosulich was based in Trieste (the Greek Tergesti) which along with Venice and Vienna were the three major European "Greek Centers" of the pre-1821 period. Trieste continued to have a significant Greek population as late as 1912. For those readers who visit this wonderful city, a "must" is their visit of the Greek Orthodox cathedral of Aghios Nikolaos (San Nicolò dei Greci (1787)) which is close to the center and the big square. This church by the architect Matteo Pertsch (1818), with bell-towers on both sides of the facade, follows the Austrian late baroque style. But please make sure you visit the Greek churchas the more impressive Orthodox church in town is the Serbian Orthodox church of Aghios Spyridon (San Spiridione)
Cosulich was established by Callisto Cosulich (many names in Friuli and Veneto have last names ending in -ich) and his wife Maria Elisabetta Zar. The family had ten children. They moved to Trieste in 1890 and started with some small ships used for various special assignments. One of them, the 2,095 ton Anna of 1899 (see attached photograph) was in fact used in one of the Greek upheavals in Crete, although I do not know exactly which one. When Unione Austro-Americana was established in 1903, two of its Greek managers insisted that at least on eof its ships stop in Patras. Thus, from 1907 on, Alice and her sisters Kaiser Franz Joseph I and Sofia Hohenberg (more on them later) were serving the route Trieste, Patras, Palermo, New York with stops also in Ragusa (Dubrovnik), Spalato (Split), Naples, Barcelona, or Las Palmas de Mallorca. And this is indeed the reason why Alice was a popular oceanliner for Greek immigrants...
She was slow, with a service speed of 13 knots and a maximum speed of 15 knots but was less expensive than the big German and Italian ocean liners. In fact, its Patraic agent was extremely active and was recruiting poor farmers from Peloponnese giving a run for its money to Moraitis, the first Greek oceanliner that started service to New York also in 1907.
After 1912 she served mostly the Mediterranean route (to Palerma and Algiers) but in the middle of World War I (see second photograph showing a truly dilapidated Alice) she was transferred to the South American route. There she was seized by the Brazilian government in 1917 and was renamed Asia. She was given to France in 1919 as reparations and was assigned to Fabre Line.
She was placed in the Marseilles-New York line but it was impossible to compete because by 1924 the immigration laws of the United States became very strict and she could not carry her typical poorest of the poor customers, plus she had to compete with the wonderful French vessels of the 1920s, vessel such as the legendary Paris.
Like many other wonderful ships in more recent times, she was transferred to various routes including carrying pilgrims from Algeria and Marocco to Mecca. There, she came to her end, destroyed by a fire on April 21, 1930. But Alice along with Kaiser Franz Joseph I and Sofia Hohenberg has a special place in the early Greek immigrants story...
NB: Alice should not be confused with Princess Alice. The passenger liner Princess Alice (1900) displaced 10,911 tons and was built by the A.G. Vulcan Shipyard in Stettin, Pomerania. She had been commissioned as Kiautschou by the HAPAG Shipping line of Hamburg in 1900, and was purchased and renamed by the North German Lloyd of Bremen in 1904. She was held an American port in 1917 upon their declaration of war.
Alice.jpg
Alice
Alice 2.jpg
Alice
Callisto Cosulich.jpg
Callisto Cosulich
Anna.jpg
Anna
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Αρχική Δημοσίευση από Nicholas Peppas
