The Carriage of Passengers Act of 1855 (full name An Act further to regulate the Carriage of Passengers in Steamships and other Vessels) was an act passed by the United States federal government on March 3, 1855, replacing the previous Steerage Act of 1819 (also known as the Manifest of Immigrants Act) and a number of acts passed between 1847 and 1849 with new regulations on the conditions of sea transportation used by passenger ships landing in the United States. The law was passed by the 33rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Franklin Pierce.
Historical context
Steerage Act of 1819
On March 2, 1819, the United States government passed the first legislation regulating the conditions of sea transportation for migrants. The legislation is known as the Steerage Act of 1819 and also as the Manifest of Immigrants Act, the latter name because one of its provisions was a requirement for ships to submit a manifest of immigrants on board.
Disease outbreaks attributed to migrants and overcrowding of migrant ships
As industrialization and urbanization took hold in both the United States and Europe, new, contagious diseases such as cholera, typhus, and typhoid began to rise in prominence in both United States and Europe.
The 1829–51 cholera pandemic that originated in India and reached the United Kingdom in 1831 arrived in New York City in the United States in 1832, likely via ships carrying migrants across the Atlantic, leading to a cholera epidemic in that year. Subsequently, cholera spread to Philadelphia and Detroit.Note: The second pandemic started in India and reached Russia by 1830, then spreading into Finland and Poland. A two-year outbreak began in England in October 1831 and claimed 22,000 lives. Irish immigrants fleeing poverty and the Great Famine, carried the disease from Europe to North America. Soon after the immigrants' arrival in Canada in the summer of 1832, 1,220 people died in Montreal and another 1,000 across Quebec. The disease entered the U.S. via ship traffic through Detroit and New York City. Spread by ship passengers, it reached Latin America by 1833. Another outbreak across England and Wales began in 1848, killing 52,000 over two years.
New York City, a hub of industrialization and also a landing point for many migrants from Europe, saw further disease outbreaks: a typhoid epidemic in 1837 and a typhus epidemic in 1842. The latter epidemic killed the four-year-old son, Frank Robert, of Franklin Pierce, who would later be President of the United States when the Carriage of Passengers Act would pass.Wallner (2004), pp. 241–44.
Starting around 1845, Ireland experienced a Great Famine leading to a huge amount of emigration. The migrants, many of them on the verge of death, with no money and no food, were packed very densely into ships headed across the Atlantic Ocean to the North America. The conditions on the ships were so bad that they came to be known as coffin ships.
The Irish emigration, and in particular the cramped and unhygienic conditions of transportation, were believed to be a major factor in causing the 1847 North American typhus epidemic. The epidemic primarily affected Canada but also spread somewhat in New York City.
Steps leading up to passage of the Act
In order to prevent the spread of diseases on board, a number of pieces of legislation were passed adding new regulations to the condition of travel in a piecemeal fashion, starting 1847. Some of the main Acts and amendments are listed below:
An act to regulate the carriage of passengers in merchant vessels (February 22, 1847) An act to amend an act entitled 'An act to regulate the carriage of passengers in merchant vessels' and to determine the time when said act shall take effect (March 2, 1847) An act exempting vessels employed by the American Colonization Society in transporting colored emigrants from the United States to the coast of Africa from the provisions of the acts of the twenty-second February and second of March, eighteen hundred and forty-seven, regulating the carriage of passengers in merchant vessels (January 31, 1848) An act to provide for the ventilation of passenger vessels, and for other purposes (May 17, 1848) An act to extend the provisions of all laws now in force relating to the carriage of passengers in merchant vessels, and the regulation thereof (March 3, 1849)
In 1853, Hamilton Fish, a Republican senator from New York, called for a select committee to "consider the causes and the extent of the sickness and mortality prevailing on board of emigrant ships" and to determine what further legislation might be necessary. With support from President Franklin Pierce, the 33rd United States Congress passed the Carriage of Passengers Act on March 3, 1855. The Act repealed and replaced the Steerage Act of 1819 as well as the five acts listed above, consolidating and expanding on the regulations in the various Acts.
Provisions
Section 1: Density limits
Section 1 of the law dealt with limits to the density of passengers on the ship, as well as penalties for failing to abide by the limits. Specifically, the limits were as follows:
Proportion of passengers to tonnage: No more than one passenger for every two tons of ship burden. Children under the age of one year were to be excluded from the computation. The previous Steerage Act of 1819 had set a limit of two passengers for every five tons of ship burden (or 1 passenger for every 2.5 tons). Space to be allowed: Enough space needs to be maintained to allow for passenger movement. Specifically: On the main and poop decks or platforms, and in the deck houses, if any, at most one passenger for every sixteen feet of clear superficial deck. On the lower deck, if any, at most one passenger for eighteen such clear superficial feet. Penalties: In case of a ship found to contain passengers in excess of the proportions based on tonnage and space, the master of the ship shall be found guilty of misdemeanor, and upon conviction, shall be fined fifty dollars per passenger in excess of the limits. The master may also be imprisoned for up to six months. This penalty was less than the comparable penalty in the Steerage Act of 1819, which was $150 for each passenger in excess of regulations; however, since the limitations were on the whole stricter the effective penalty could be greater. Lockers or inclosures allowed: If necessary for the safety and convenience of the vessel, cargo could be placed on the decks, cabins, or in other places appropriate for passenger use. Any such cargo could also be placed in lockers or enclosures prepared for the purpose, on an exterior surface impervious to the wave, capable of being cleansed in a manner similar to the decks and platform.s Under no circumstances would such space be counted in the "clear superficial feet" counted as space available to passengers for the regulations. If occupying the deck or platform, the space used for such cargo needs to be subtracted from the total space to calculate the space available to passengers. Hospital: One hospital may be made available in the space appropriate to passengers, but separated from the rest of the space. The space used for the hospital can be counted as part of the space available to passengers. Space in certain two-deck vessels: On board two-deck ships, where the height between the decks is seven and a half feet or more, fourteen clear superficial feet of deck shall be the proportion required for each passenger.
Section 2: Berths
Section 2 of the law dealt with the number of design of berths:
No such vessel shall have more than two tier of berths. The interval between the lowest part and the deck or platform beneath shall not be less than nine inches. The berths shall be well-constructed, parallel with the sides of the vessel, at least 6 feet in length and 2 feet in width. Double berths of twice this width may be constructed to be used by two men of the same family, two women, husband and wife, a man and two of his own children under age eight, or a woman and two children under age eight. Violation of these rules would result in a penalty for the master of the ship of five dollars per passenger.
Section 3: House over passageway, hand-rail, and booby hatches
Section 3 of the law dealt with some miscellaneous design matters:
House over passageway: All vessels with fifty or more passengers should have a house over the passageway for the use of passengers below deck. For vessels with 150 or more passengers, there should be two or more such houses. Hand-rail: The stairs to the house should have hand-rails. Booby hatches: Boob hatches may be substituted for such houses.
Section 4: Ventilators
Any vessel used to carry passengers, with a legal capacity of hundred or more, must have at least two ventilators to purify the apartment or apartments occupied by passengers. At least one should be in the afterpart of the apartments, and at least one should be in the forward portion of the apartments. The ventilator capacity should scale in proportion to the legal capacity; for a capacity of 200, the capacity of such ventilators should be equal to a tube of twelve inches diameter in the clear. All ventilators must rise at least four feet six inches above the upper deck of the vessel, and be of the most approved form of construction. If it appears that the vessel is equally well-ventilated by other means, then the vessel shall be deemed in compliance.
Section 5: Camboose or cooking range
Any vessel carrying more than fifty passengers must have on deck, housed and conveniently arranged, at least one camboose or cooking range. The dimensions must be at least four feet long and one foot six inches wide for every two hundred passengers, and shall scale with the number of passengers. Nothing herein shall take away the right to make arrangements for cooking between decks, if that is deemed desirable.
Section 6: Provisions (food)
All vessels are required to have the following minimum amounts of provisions per passengers, well-secured under deck, all of good quality: 20 pounds of navy bread 15 pounds of rice 10 pounds of wheat flour 15 pounds of peas and beans 20 pounds of potatoes 1 pint of vinegar 60 gallons of fresh water 10 pounds of salted pork 10 pounds of salt beef, free of bone The following substitutions are allowed: At places where either rice, oatmeal, wheat flour, or peas and beans cannot be procured at good quality and reasonable terms, the quantity of any of the others may be used to substitute for it. In case potatoes cannot be procured at reasonable terms, one pound of any of the aforementioned items can be used to substitute for five pounds of potatoes. The captain shall deliver to each passenger at least one-tenth of the above minimum provisions weekly, commencing on the day of sailing, and at least three quarts of water daily. In case of "short allowance", i.e., the required provisions not having been distributed to the passengers, the captain must pay each passenger put on short allowance a daily amount of three dollars as long as the passenger is on short allowance. The amount can be recovered in a circuit or district court of the United States. It is the duty of the captain or master of the ship to make sure that the provisions are served well and properly cooked, at regular and stated hours, by messes or in other ways deemed conducive to the health of passengers. Wilful failure to furnish and distribute properly cooked provisions makes the captain guilty of misdemeanor, and upon conviction, can lead to a fine of up to one thousand dollars and a prison term of up to one year.
Section 7: Discipline and cleanliness, and privies
The captain must determine appropriate regulations and post them on the ship in a place accessible to all passengers prior to sailing