Upon taking command of the SS Leviathan in the Spring of 1923, Captain Herbert Hartley wore the earliest known cap badge of United States Lines. The badge’s design was novel for the era; whereas most passenger lines opted for a flag flanked by laurels, United States Lines (USL) used an eagle’s bust in profile ringed in stars for its cap badge. This initial design lasted a few months, only to radically change in the summer before the SS Leviathan’s maiden cruise. A few years later, the cap badge changed again. For a student of any shipping line identifying which cap badge was in use at any specific period of a shipping line’s existence is a challenge due to the overall lack of corporate documentation; United States Lines cap badge identification is particularly daunting as with each change in the line’s ownership and corporate identity, so too changed the badge – in effect echoing corporate livery. Luckily, United States Lines throughout its existence has left behind a clutch of clues in the form of photographs and ephemera which informed this essay. This essay will trace cap badges from United States Lines’ 1921 inception up until the 1951 launching of the SS United States; it is primarily concerned with the stylistic changes in cap badges of United States Lines (USL) licensed officers, and Boatswains and Able Bodied Seamen.[i]
NB.: Please click on the bold text for external links or additional images.
Cap badges & maritime fashion
Before discussing USL’s cap badges, a brief sketch of maritime fashion trends and cap badge design is useful.
Functionally, cap badges offer a means to instantly identify a person’s role aboard a ship. It is safe to assume the more elaborate a cap badge, the greater one’s responsibility. In the United Kingdom, for example, a licensed officer in the Merchant Navy would have laurels flanking a central device, and a rating would not. In the United States, an eagle over the central device might suggest command responsibilities – but not always. USL straddled the line for how it used cap badges to denote shipboard position. And, when speaking of shipboard position, for the period up until the Second World War, USL followed traditional American Merchant Marine professional titles. These titles had analogs between the United States Navy and British Merchant Navy. By the 1930s, each of the positions coalesced into communities: officers, senior seamen, and junior seamen. Each had a distinct style of dress and associated headwear.
| USL | U.K. Merchant Navy | U.S. Navy |
| Master | Master | Captain |
| First Mate | First Mate | Commander |
| Second Mate | Second Mate | Lieutenant |
| Third Mate | Third Mate | Ensign |
| Boatswain | Uncertified Mate | Warrant Officer (un-commissioned) |
| Able Bodied Seaman (senior) | Mate/Boatswain’s Mate | Chief Petty Officer |
| Able Bodied Seaman | Leading Seaman/Able Bodied Seaman | Petty Officer |
| Ordinary Seaman | Seaman |
The United Kingdom was the undisputed leader in merchant shipping in the century leading up to the Second World War. The uniforms and garb worn by British mariners set the model for most other leading maritime nations. During the Victorian era, navies and mercantile marines freely borrowed British fashion and motifs; this is particularly evident by other countries’ appropriation of the “Elliot’s eye” (the “executive curl”) on officers’ uniforms in places as far afield as Portugal and Japan and all in-between.[i] British tastes continued to hold sway during the Edwardian and interwar periods. These eras saw the widespread adoption of the double-breasted reefer with two rows of buttons, some degree of cuff lace for cold-weather garments, and the high-collared white cotton or duck chocker-whites for summer and tropical wear. On this very British canvas, maritime nations sparingly placed autochthonic motifs and symbols on the uniforms of their military and commercial fleets. Headwear held regional flourishes; yet, the British continued to define the uniform’s vocabulary.[ii]
The professionalization of the British maritime trades began in the mid-1850s and continued through the 1860s with the certification of masters and mates,[iii] and engineers.[iv] Coinciding with certifications, so too came a movement to uniform those involved in the maritime trades: seemingly everyone wore a uniform or at least a cap, from dockmasters to lighthouse keepers, and pilots to ship quartermasters. For British merchant seamen, the similarity between their dress and that of their military counterparts was due to innovations set by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P. & O.).
P. & O. was the first sizeable British shipping company to adopt a standardized uniform for its shipboard employees. P. & O. was formed in 1837 when the company held an Admiralty contract to carry mail to the Iberian Peninsula and gained a royal charter three years later. At the time, it was standardizing uniforms in the 1860s, P. & O. was the premier British shipping concern. While considering uniforms to give its shipboard employees, it decided to mirror the dress of the Royal Navy. This costume not only paid homage to the foremost naval power of the world but also emphasized P. & O.’s role as the Crown’s proxy in support of Legitimists in the First Carlist War in Spain and the earlier Portuguese Absolutist crisis and Civil War. The company’s house flag recalls this history: triangles in blue and white of royalist Portugal, and yellow and red of Spain. In honor of the company’s support, the Crown granted P. & O. officers the privilege of wearing a sword – a right shared by no others in the British mercantile marine. Taking this status to the hilt, P. & O., in turn, gave its employees the impression of military smartness. This uniform came to represent the expertise of the wearer, and the rank insignia indicated one’s seniority aboard the vessel. In this fashion, P. & O. likened masters and mates to naval captains and lieutenants.[v] Given the prestige afforded by a position with P. & O., many ex-Royal Navy officers joined to the company’s senior ranks. P. & O. also followed the British military tradition of giving its members a cap badge. Military cap badges recalled a defining element from the unit’s arms[vi]; in P. & O.’s case, its cap badge was an elegant visual metaphor for the “Oriental” part of its name: the rising sun. These innovations pioneered by P. & O. spread throughout the British merchant fleet, and within a decade, other shipping companies large and small followed P. & O.’s lead. In time, these uniforms with unique caps became markers of professional pride among their wearers and symbolized the trust invested in them by their companies.
Although P. & O. derived its cap badge design from an element of its corporate arms, most British shipping companies did not rate the same privilege. Most companies opted to use their house flags flanked by a wreath of gold laurel branches; the design is reminiscent of period Royal Navy cap badges – but with a commercial slant. By the turn of the twentieth century, passenger liners – as opposed to cargo carriers – placed more of an emphasis on uniform appearance, and from them came a small constellation of cap badges. Nevertheless, not all shipping companies were strict with their uniform requirements. Since it was British custom for mates and wardroom officers[vii] to change ships between voyages, many officers did not invest in company livery. These individuals opted to wear a simple cap with an anchor flanked by laurels or some other generic, nautical-themed badge. By 1919, industry uniforms in the United Kingdom underwent a complete renovation.
Before the 1920s, a royal crown on the cap badge was the province of the Royal Navy or royally warranted companies. As such, a crown device was a badge of prestige within British maritime circles. With the passing of the British Mercantile Marine Uniform Act of 1919, all British merchant seamen had state-prescribed uniform instructions. A key concept in the Act was if a merchant seaman’s company did not have a cap badge, they had the option to wear a distinctive Merchant Navy cap badge created in the style of a Royal Navy badge. The officer’s cap badge comprised of a wreath of oak leaves in gold and silver bullion flanking a silvered bronze anchor on a padded maroon felt base in the shape of an oval with a gold bullion anchor. A cable of gold wire surrounded the oval itself. Surmounting the central device was a Naval crown (corona navalis); although not in legislation, in practice, officers placed swatches of felt under the crown denoting their shipboard department (see chart). All components were affixed to a black wool base reinforced with black cloth and a backer of black paper. Overall, the cap badge generally measured 78mm x 78.5mm. For seamen who were in the employ of companies that already had a cap badge, the Act’s first provision read:
“Provided that where, on the 4th day of September 1918, the Masters and Officers of the Ships belonging to any Company or Firm were accustomed to use a cap with a distinctive badge, that badge may, if the Company or Firm so desire, be substituted.”[viii]
Able Bodied Seamen also had a cap badge modeled after those of Royal Navy Petty Officers – theirs was the same as the officer’s cap badge except it omitted the laurel wreath.
In 1928, King George V denoted the British merchant marine, the “Merchant Navy” in honor of the heroic job it rendered in service of the United Kingdom during the First World War. The King’s action went beyond the honorific since the proclamation also actively militarized the British Merchant Marine. Since there was a spirit of professional pride and honor in being in the maritime trades, British merchant seamen took to the pomp and circumstance of their uniforms; being likened to the Royal Navy only increased their pride and cemented their allegiance to the Crown.
By the 1920s and reaching full elaboration in the 1930s, those countries who followed the British example and organized national merchant navies used the British uniform lexicon. Considering the British example, on the one hand, cap badges used in a country’s merchant marine identified the wearer as an officer or a representative of the company, and on the other, displayed authority vested in the wearer by the company – and by proxy, the state. The general international model of cap badge design was the company’s house flag or a device from the company’s corporate identity placed on wool backing and flanked by laurel or some other leaf of distinction. Some countries used national devices or a crown specific to their ruling family, while others used ancestral symbols; for instance, Portugal used an armillary sphere surcharged with a Portuguese Order of Christ Cross – a distinctive national emblem recalling Prince Henry, the Navigator. During the same period, the United States not only lacked a government-sponsored Merchant Navy but also lacked public respect for the maritime trades. Since the United States looked primarily inward, the country had minimal design elements specific to its maritime establishment. Since the public considered Britain and the European powers the paragons of shipping and passenger transport, Americans copied their cap badge designs, albeit without crowns or ciphers.
After the First World War, the United States government found itself with a fleet of ships it seized from the Central Powers as well as a mass of ships purpose-built for convoy duty. Unable to stop the industrial juggernaut it unleashed with over-subscribed ship contracts, vessels on the United States federal government’s account came off the ways long after the cessation of hostilities. By the end of 1919, the federal entity created to manage the fleet in peacetime had 1,261 ships at its disposal. At the same time in 1920, the number of ships fell to 1,183. Since never before had the country had such a large, government-owned fleet, the government turned to private businesses to run its ships and share profits from their operation. The number of managing agents or operators at this point numbered 187; they operated anywhere from one ship to a fleet of 59. In a decade, the industry stalled, and only 24 shipping companies managed 205 government ships. By 1940, three companies managed a pool of 37. Insignia houses based in the major port cities of San Francisco and New York, and to a lesser extent Providence, Rhode Island provided distinctive insignia made-to-order for many of the new companies – B. Pasquale Co. and Gordon, Elkies Military Supply Company (GEMSCO), being noted suppliers.
Many American shipping companies up to and immediately after the First World War were democratic in the issue of cap badges. The standard American cap badge in the 1920s was an embroidered house flag flanked by laurel branches on wool backing. If a company had a cap badge, it was worn on a cap irrespective of whether or not an individual was a licensed officer or an Able Bodied Seaman. On passenger liners, the position of the wearer may have been embroidered on the badge itself; e.g. “Surgeon,” “Quartermaster,” or “Master.” This trend was followed up until the eve of the Second World War. Other steamship lines did not issue cap badges for anyone except licensed officers; these caps looked like an unadorned U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer cap – a mohair band over the base of the cap and a white crown. Between the wars, American shipping companies appeared to follow the British precedent by having families of cap badges denoting the wearer’s position within the shipboard hierarchy. Recall, the British Merchant Navy used a reductive model of cap badge design to denote a wearer’s rank: a cap badge without oak leaves was prescribed for petty officers, and those who held an officer’s license wore cap badges with oak leaves.
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United States Lines Cap Badges 1921-1951
Over the period of thirty years, United States Lines had three distinct periods reflected in cap badge design: United States Shipping Board management, Paul W. Chapman acquisition, and International Merchantile Marine ownership. Each period saw numerous designs as corporate identity and personnel shifted: from operating in the shadow of European liners, becoming a wartime organization, and finally positioning itself as the pre-eminent American trans-Atlantic passenger service.
USSB Years: 1921-1929
1921-1922
From 1921 through 1922, there is a distinct absence of photographs of the crews of United States Shipping Board (USSB) ships assigned to United States Lines. With no photographs, a study is unable to be made of their uniform insignia. However, a tantalizing clue regarding insignia comes in the form of a news item from December 1922:
This indicates that the ships themselves were to fly the house flags of their operators and the government insignia was to be removed from their stacks (funnels); although USL was exempt – USSB issued the line its own house flag in September 1921. Up to this point, ship officers most probably wore the insignia of their respective employers; at this time, Moore & McCormack Co., Roosevelt Steamship Co., Inc., and United American Lines, Inc. acted as the managing operators of USL for USSB. Their management did not last long; in 1922 United American Lines abandoned the scheme to form their own, competing North Atlantic route. By March 1923, the remainder of the operators left USSB alone to operate the Line. By April 1923, with the entry of SS Leviathan into the USL fleet, did the Line adopt a unique livery.
April 1923 – May 1923
The cap badges worn by United States Lines mariners eventually followed the trends of the greater international maritime establishment, with design embellishments endemic to the United States and particularly to the company itself, but it started out as an outlier. The first cap badge appeared a priori. Its overall dimensions are greater than any other cap badge of the period and its central element was a stylistic innovation. Whereas all other U.S. maritime firms may be using cap badges with flags, USL decidedly did not. From April 1923 until May 1923, Captain Herbert Hartley is noted wearing the following:
June 1923 – 1927
At the time of the SS Leviathan’s maiden voyage on 4 July 1923, the cap badge took another design shift – the central eagle element was reduced and behind it were two angled flagstaffs with the USL house flag fluttering downward and two pairs of anchor crowns and flukes below. The overall construction was quite large for the period. The central eagle element became the logo for uniform buttons and was used on ship stationery. The new cap badge rarely found its way off of the uniform cap.
USSB Years: 1927-1929
The previous design did not last very long, probably due to size. As cap badges went, it took up 50% more real estate on the caps’ crown. Caps of the era did not benefit from crown stiffeners, so the badge itself may have become floppy over time. The next recorded cap badge to appear on USL uniform caps is the very uninspiring eagle over house flag and wreath type – however, at the time, these three elements together were exciting. The new style of cap badge was adopted with an enthusiasm that equaled the British merchant sailor’s experience the decade prior.
By 1927, cap badges with eagle elements became prevalent across the American Merchant Marine. This stylistic change came on the heels of the 28 February 1925 abolition of the U.S. Naval Reserve Force and the creation of a U.S. Naval Reserve (USNR), Merchant Marine Reserve taking effect on 1 July 1925. Despite the prohibition of wearing a U.S. Navy uniform, Merchant Marine Reservists often identified their special status of being in the USNR (Merchant Marine) by donning their U.S. naval officer’s caps. At the same time, USSB began reorganizing its lines and taking an interest in livery; during this period, USSB introduced eagles in the same style as the U.S. naval officer’s cap – the embroidered eagle above the federal shield. American Merchant Marine officers wore cap badges with an eagle above the house flag and wreath elements on cap badges – advertising the Federal government’s control of their shipping lines.
Previous authors incorrectly opined that since the USL fleet held a large complement of USNR officers, the new cap badge was very much a nod to them. It was supposed that USL masters, chief engineers, senior mates, and engineer officers all joined the USNR as or when possible. This is wholly incorrect; in fact, only 12% of all officers aboard the SS Leviathan were members of the USNRF. All officers – USNRF or not – wore this style of cap badge throughout the USL fleet in early 1927.
In later years, period photographs from other steamship lines attest to a unique bifurcation among USNR and other ship personnel. Some officers who were members of the USNR had the eagle on their caps, and those who were not members did not. This was not the case prior to February 1941 in the USL fleet. When there was a difference, it was with Able Bodied Seamen. The industry trend at the time was for unlicensed seamen to wear a cap similar to that of a U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer; except their caps had no insignia or ornamentation (follow this link for an example); USL personnel in positions of responsibility all wore a cap with insignia of some sort.
Chapman Era & A Federal Interlude
1929-1931
In a United States Lines period advertisement from early 1930, a curious cap badge with what appears to be a flag with a trisected triangle and a star is present. This represents the first cap badge for use on the newly-acquired Paul W. Chapman United Stated Lines fleet; an image of his daughter raising a flag with the same design is here. For United States Lines, there were two distinct cap badges in use with the trisected triangle: one on a white flag with a red star, and another with a blue ring surrounding the trisected triangle. The former triable was blue, and the latter, was red. Period documentation shows Chapman’s house flags for USL had a central blue triangle device with a red star in the canton from late 1929 through mid-1930; from mid-1930, while still under Chapman’s management and through his insolvency, the revised logo and cap badges remained. These cap badges were worn by licensed officers and pursers alone; period photographs do not suggest them being worn by Able Bodied Seamen.
There is speculation that Chapman’s other line: American Merchant Line purchased with USL, was actually the holder of a blue triangle device with a red star in the canton, and United States Lines had a red triangle – this may be idle speculation and has yet to be corroborated.
July 1931 – December 1931
Paul W. Chapman failed to meet payments to the Federal government, and in July 1931 the company was seized by USSB and handed to Roosevelt Steamship Co., R. Stanley Dollar, and Kenneth D. Dawson for operation in December of the same year. In March 1932, the former ran the ships for all intents and purposes. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt Steamship Co. became a constituent line of International Mercantile Marine, Co. (IMM), with IMM gaining exclusive control of USL in 1934. Cap badges in the brief period between July 1931 and spilling into December 1931 remained the last Chapman design.
In regard to the mid-1930 Chapman design, it followed design cues used on cap badges by USNR officers in the Merchant Fleet – in USL’s case, instead of a flag, the company’s logo was surmounted by an eagle device. During this period, a corporate logo within a ring inscribed with the shipping line’s name became all the vogue among both privately held and USSB-managed lines; for USL, in particular, this was a throwback to the cap badge worn by officers of the ships that comprise of its early fleet, United States Mail Steamship Company. Below find the new design and an advertisement from 1931. These cap badges were worn by licensed officers and pursers.
Up until the 1930s, few American steamship companies used metal and enamel (cloisonné) cap badges. Among those companies that had them as part of their livery, their use was only among those that commanded or wanted to appear to control a substantial market segment. Before the 1930s, woven cap badges were preferred insignia items. Metal cap badges tended to tarnish quickly in a marine setting and required vigilance to be maintained, while quality woven devices required no such care. When companies used cloisonné, it was for house flags on their uniform caps. The industry moved toward cloisonné in the 1930s and continued throughout the Second World War. International Mercantile Marine – the eventual owner of United States Lines – was one of the few U.S. companies that pioneered the use of an integral metal and cloisonné cap badges with their holding American Lines, and an innovation they dropped by the 1920s.[ix] During the 1920s, when USL was Chapman-owned, large cloisonné badges were issued to steward department members who worked in a service role – e.g. server, porter, attendant. These cap badges were much like those of other large ocean carriers where stewards wore caps with badges derived from a central element of the company’s livery. Stewards with Cunard Lines had a mast with two flags on their caps, White Star Line, an enamel white star, Matson a large M, and USL the stylized ship’s prop.
IMM Holding: 1932-1952
1932-1938
With International Mercantile Marine (IMM) ownership of USL, both the cap badge with the surmounting eagle device and the large cloisonné badges disappeared. Going forward, officers and senior seamen wore the same cap badge – as was the trend among most steamship lines, who were aligning themselves visibly with British steamship lines – with the new house flag and laurel leaves. In this initial period under IMM, USL had syncretic caps, borrowing from British and American traditions.
Within the world of American merchant maritime insignia during the 1930s, one of the more striking departures from the British is the absence of a reductive model of cap badges. Instead of families of cap badges, Americans used chinstraps to denote the difference between licensed officers and Able Bodied Seamen: gold for the former, and black leather for the latter. This was a direct adoption from the United States Navy – the British Royal Navy and Merchant Navy had no such distinction. USL, under federal ownership and Paul Chapman (1923-1932), gold and black leather chinstraps were employed; although as as an I.M.M. company (1932-1938), both licensed officers and Able Bodied Seaman wore black leather straps; and from 1938 onward, gold and black leather chinstraps were worn.
Concurrent with the change in ownership, the USL adopted a new house flag. This flag over time was affectionately called the “blue goose,” and was originally the house flag of I.M.M.’s American Line; it was inaugurated in 1893. When I.M.M. retired the American Line in 1922, the flag passed to Panama Pacific Line; in 1932 it was flown by United States Lines, except defaced with line’s initials: U S L. Keeping with visual standardization, the newly acquired American Merchant Lines likewise wore a defaced blue goose flag with its initials: A M L. I.M.M. eventually rebranded itself United States Lines, and USL as the flagship line wore a non-defaced blue goose as the Panama Pacific Line was absorbed by USL in 1939. A full record of USL’s vexillological changes are here (opens in a new browser tab).
USL’s cap badges and cap configuration remained relatively stable in terms of their design up from I.M.M. purchase through 1940; in 1941 SS America deck and engineering officers began wearing cap badges with eagles surmounting the wreath and flag; stewards, pursers, and cadets kept the cap badges without the eagle. The chin strap changed to gold bullion from black patent leather. The embroidered eagles on the cap badges faced the viewer’s right, following the precedent of United States Naval Officer cap badges of the period.
From October 1939 onward, USL personnel may be found wearing cap badges with blue goose defaced with USL or a plain blue goose. This continued. The defaced blue goose house flag persistence is most probably due to the fact that merchant seamen were wont to throw away their insignia unless so compelled; in fact, the defaced blue goose house flag on cap badges continued throughout the Second World War until 1947.
Yet in the decade after the USL acquisition by I.M.M., several variations of the blue goose house flag and badge themselves may be seen on the caps of USL personnel. This variety is due to the contortions of line mergers and acquisitions. Although the blue goose is often associated with the USL, it was the identifier – in order – for American Line, Panama Pacific Line, and United States Lines. In essence, the various cap badges act as clues in a vast web of corporate archaeology.
The cap badge on the left, above, worn by a Panama Pacific purser is quite similar to that worn by an Atlantic Transport Line (ATL) officer; this is due to the fact that I.M.M. acquired ATL ships and merged them with Red Star Line, and personnel and the former’s ships migrated to the Panama Pacific Line. Both licensed officers and stewards on Panama Pacific Line ships wore the same cap badge; livery was shared with American Line – I.M.M.’s flagship line through the 1920s until its demise in 1932. By 1938, PPL pursers (and it may be assumed by extension, all officers), wore a cap badge without the dragging anchor (see image on the right, above).
In looking at the various stylistic changes in house flags, it is evident that Panama Pacific Line combined two key elements from its predecessors, the dragging anchor – which was very much a British design, and the house flag of American Lines; the house flag of American Lines on the upper left is of British style as well – the flag is pulling away from the pole (the is a J. R. Gaunt badge); the pole itself is rendered in metal representing the hook and eye weaving present in bullion badges. The upper right badge is of American manufacture and takes a more representative approach to the house flag – it has the halyard following the length of the pole with the pole appearing realistic and not a reproduction in metal of woven work; over the years, the halyard becomes stylized or omitted by American insignia manufactures and when it is represented, it appears as beads or hashes in the negative space between the hoist and the pole.
After 1932, the blue goose has taken on the following forms:
Despite cap badges available via multiple ship chandlers in Manhattan, there was some creative play with USL cap badges by USL’s mariners, especially up to and during the Second World War. In the period leading up to the war, some stewards combined a silver-washed U.S. Army wreath with their blue goose – silver being the traditional color of steward cap badge laurels. The below badge is from the SS America which was acquired by the U.S. Navy and commissioned as the USS West Point (AP-23) and used as a troop transport throughout the Second World War from June 1941 through 1946 when it went back to USL ownership. The USL crew mostly remained with the ship as it changed owners – the United States Navy augmented the crew with newly commissioned USNR officers and gunnery crew, and the United States Army assigned Army personnel under the command of a Transportation Officer to manage troop affairs.
In January 1943, the United States Maritime Service (USMS) opened its ranks to all licensed officers in the American Merchant Marine – enrollment was wholly voluntary without remuneration, but with the benefit of wearing a federally-sanctioned uniform and insignia, and honorary rank. Ship’s officers – much like their British counterparts when the crown sponsored the British Mercantile Marine Uniform Act of 1919 – were not keen on divesting themselves of their corporate insignia; this led to a back-pedaling of sorts, and the United Kingdom allowed existing corporate insignia to remain in force. No official mandate stated USMS uniform insignia shall and must be worn when commissioned; however, a fluke in USMS cap badge construction enabled sea-going USMS officers to modify the government-issued cap badge and place house flags on them. This deft alteration showed the wearers as both patriotic members of the American Merchant Marine and employees of United States Lines. This did not preclude USL-licensed officers from wearing bullion and house flag cap badges. This did not preclude licensed officers from continuing to wear the eagle and laurel wreath cap badges – the only change from pre-war cap badges was that badge’s eagle faced the viewer’s left; most of these cap badges had the blue goose in enamel – I am familiar with a single example of the cap badge completely woven.
In the gallery below, there are two defaced USMS cap badges as well as a photograph of a woven wreath and eagle cap badge. Included below is also the completely woven badge. The defaced badges show a USMS cap badge with a Panama Pacific Line blue goose – this is evidence that PPL personnel continued to sail with their old insignia intact after line merger. Period photos show a USL defaced blue goose remained in effect for wear throughout the war and these house flags made their way to USMS cap badges; thus far I have not noted the appearance of postwar cap flags defacing USMS cap badges; this may very well be that this defacement was a wartime measure only, and peacetime brought a return to prewar woven cap badges a less militaristic stance by ship officers.
After the end of hostilities, the Federal government began devolving vessels back to United States Lines for peacetime operations. A refurbishment of corporate livery either took place in 1946 – this is evident in the SS America II’s debut in New York Tims advertising copy from October 1946 showing a re-designed house flag with a less rounded blue goose taking on a dynamic poise. This blue goose found its way to cap badges, supplanting the USL-defaced blue goose badges that officers and stewards wore for the duration of the war.
Along with the change in corporate livery, where United Stated Lines was the exclusive user of the blue goose, came re-imagined rank insignia which shadowed United States Naval and United States Army Transport Service trends. The new insignia reflected an overall shift from the American Merchant Marine referencing a British model, and now, looking inward highlighted America’s newfound sense of primacy in global affairs.
When United States Lines brought SS United States into transatlantic service, it inaugurated a new sleek, svelte blue goose which was also perched on USL officer cap badges. With liner service also came a full return to passenger-facing stewards and pursers, who wore cap badges without a surmounting eagle device in bullion. This configuration of cap badges remained in force through the 1950s.
References
United Kingdom. Merchant Shipping Act Amendment Act, 1862
Rex Hickox. All You Wanted to Know about 18th Century Royal Navy.
Robert C. Sturm. SS United States: The View From Down Below. Robert C. Sturm, Medford, NY, 2016. [available here]
Simon Wills. Tracing Your Seafaring Ancestors: A Guide to Maritime Photographs for Family Historians. Pen and Sword, Feb 29, 2016
Notes
USL Cap Badges and related objects in the dittybag collection
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[i] Ordinary Seamen commonly did not wear headwear which included a provision for a cap badge.
[ii] It is also worth noting stars or crowns found above other countries’ cuff lace evoke the executive curl through mimesis. The U. S. Navy star device came to be placed on the sleeves in May 1863; the star – derived from the canton of the U. S. Federal flag – recalled a central element on the U. S. Navy officer cap badge: a laurel wreath with a star in the center. The British are careful to pronounce the garb worn by employees of a company is livery; the garb worn by an armed service is a uniform. Writing as an American and following America usage, I will use uniform throughout the text.
[iii] Merchant Shipping Act, 1854.
[iv] Merchant Shipping Act Amendment Act, 1862.
[v] P. & O. fossilized Royal Navy traditions long after the Royal Navy moved on. A fascinating tradition was calling the captain of a ship Commander. This title came from the shortened Royal Navy “Master and Commander,” which meant “captain and military commander of the ship” – the U. S. Navy uses similar parlance for the same role: Commanding Officer. Do note: Master was the abbreviated form of the older British maritime title “Master Under God” – this recalled the ship’s captain’s absolute authority over all aboard. Thus the concatenated title Commander combined the two. Another striking fossilization was the wear of fore-and-aft shoulder straps to indicate rank among the ship’s officers. Even after the Royal Navy began wearing shoulder boards, P. & O. held on to the older sartorial form. This uniform anomaly was kept until 1973 when P. & O. took on contemporary uniform accouterments. At this time, gone were the shoulder straps and the “Oriental rising sun” cap badge; in their place were shoulder boards and a Merchant Navy-style cap badge emblazoned with the P. & O. house flag.
[vi] In and of themselves, British army cap badges encapsulated a unit’s history and proud moments; they were examples of heraldry on a grand scale.
[vii] In the British Royal Navy and merchant service, there was the tradition of Wardroom officers and Standing officers. Wardroom officers were commissioned officers and some staff officers were permitted to mess together. Standing officers were those who were attached to the ship between sailings and personnel changes. Standing officers were most often pursers and warrant officers (ship’s carpenters, cooks, and craftsmen) and were vital for fitting out a ship.
[viii] By the 1960s and into the 1970s, some companies defaced Royal Navy officer cap badges by removing the anchor and Queen’s crown and replacing them with a house flag or corporate motif and the Naval Crown. I am unaware of any defaced Merchant Navy cap badges.
[ix] I.M.M. was not an innovator in terms of nautical enamel cap badges; New York City Yacht Club members wore a small enamel and struck metal button with a representation of the club burgee since the turn of the twentieth century [see LOC]. But, one of its members was an owner of I.M.M. and the yachting set was keen on the appearance of their yacht crews. I would extend the same to the crews of their steamship lines; in fact, some officers in the United States Line fleet trace their early careers to being mates aboard private yachts