1880 – Side view, section drawing and floor plan of the steamer ‘Frisia’ which served from August 1872 to 1885 the Hamburg-New York line of HAPAG. Scan: Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
Every now and then I publish a bonus post. I call it a ‘bonus’ because it’s not a photo (but a scan of an artwork) and may only be relevant for those who actively research a specific topic.
This is a beautiful drawing of the steamer Frisia which was owned and operated by the Hamburg-Amerikanischen Paketfahrt-Aktiengesellschaft (HAPAG). The ship served on the North Atlantic line. Wikipedia has more details (in German.)
One of my (distant) ancesters, my great-great-great-uncle Carl Friedrich Möller (1817-1899) sailed with his wife, Margaretha Maria Haar (1825-1896) in 1872 to the United States for immigration.
They departed Hamburg on the 9th July 1872 and arrived about two weeks later in New York, on the 22nd July. The records show that they boarded the middle deck (‘Zwischendeck’) which was designed to host up to 580 passengers (as opposed to 100 passengers in first class and 140 in second class.) This must have been a truly cramped experience, probably like a flight in a (tight) Economy Class today.
Carl Friedrich and his wife followed their daughter Benedicte Dorothea Wilhelmine (1850-1927) who had already immigrated in 1872 and got married to Hans Möller (1842-1905) in the same year. Like Benedicte, Hans was from Northern Germany. He was born in Barkenholm (Dithmarschen) in 1842 and came to the United States in 1866.
The Millers settled in the Morgan township and probably were among the settlers that co-founded the town of Schleswig, Iowa which was named after a city they knew from their past life in Germany.
In any event, I think it is amazing that Carl and Margaretha emigrated from Germany at the age of 62 and 53, and it is interesting to have such a close-up view of the circumstances of their trip.
Oh, the scan of this image is amazing, too. I scanned the left and right portions of the sheet at 1200 dpi and carefully stitched them together in Photoshop. The result: a whopping 155 Megapixel image, good enough even for very large prints!
Design ideas
The high resolution image
| Published | 1885 |
| Publisher | Bibliographisches Institut in Leipzig |
| Image Source | 30 x 24 cm Lithography |
| Digital Image Source | EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo |
| Digital Image Source Format | TIFF, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 13927 x 11173 Pixels |
| Copyright | This illustration is from the 4th edition of Meyers Konversationslexikon (1885-90). The copyright has expired; the contents are in the public domain. |
Zanzig.com Photo Hub 