From Dream to Reality: SS United States

A lifelong dream of designer William Francis Gibbs, the passenger liner SS United States was an engineering feat unequaled in history. Gibbs incorporated into the ship’s design every possible refinement of naval architecture and technology.

Although her design phase had occupied five years, with the cooperation of the United States Navy, the United States Lines, and the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, the United States was completed in twenty-eight months and twelve days. Traveling at a remarkable 35.9 knots (nearly 42 land miles per hour) on her maiden voyage, she became the fastest liner ever to cross the Atlantic, reducing the Atlantic crossing time by more than ten hours.

The SS United States ruled the North Atlantic seaway until the late 1960s, when less expensive air transportation and rising operating costs began to render her operation uneconomical. In 1969, after her four hundredth voyage, the liner was berthed at Newport News and, following a variety of financial problems, was sold in 1992 to a Turkish interest. She is currently docked in Philadelphia.

The photographs in this exhibition document the SS United States’ construction, interiors, sea trials, and arrival in New York Harbor.

Contents -24 black-and-white framed photographs, two mounted photographs and one mounted photo mural (3 sections 3' x 8'), one introductory title and text panel, individual labels
Frame sizes: 17" x 22", 24"x 28", 32"x 27", 28" x 39"

Space required - Approximately 150 running feet

Exhibition period - 8 weeks

Exhibition Fee - $1,000