Steerage


Steerage is the lower deck of a ship, where the cargo is stored above the closed hold. In the late 19th and early 20th century, steamship steerage decks were used to provide the lowest cost and lowest class of travel, often for European and Chinese immigrants to North America. With limited privacy and security, inadequate sanitary conditions, and poor food, steerage was often decried as inhumane, and was eventually replaced on ocean liners with third-class cabins.

Passenger accommodations

Traditionally, the steerage was "that part of the ship next below the quarter-deck, immediately before the bulkhead of the great cabin in most ships of war, the portion of the 'tween-decks just before the gun-room bulkhead." The name originates from the steering tackle which ran through the space to connect the rudder to the tiller or helm. "In some ships, the second-class passengers are called steerage passengers. The admiral's cabin on the middle deck of three-deckers has been called the steerage."
The steerage area of the ship was once used to accommodate passengers, often placing hundreds together in a single large hold. Beds were routinely long rows of large shared bunks with straw mattresses and no bed linens.
by Alfred Stieglitz. Taken in 1907 on the Kaiser Wilhelm II
Edward A. Steiner described conditions in steerage aboard the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II'' in 1906: