Holland America Line is a US-owned cruise line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States.
Holland America Line was founded in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and from 1873 to 1989, it operated as a Dutch shipping line, a passenger line, a cargo line and a cruise line operating primarily between the Netherlands and North America. As part of the company's legacy, it was directly involved in the transport of many hundreds of thousands of emigrants from the Netherlands to North America.
Holland America has been a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation since 1989.
History
Early decades
Holland America Line was founded in 1873, as the Nederlandsch-Amerikaansche Stoomvaart Maatschappij (Dutch-American Steamship Company), in short Holland-Amerika Lijn, a shipping and passenger line. It was headquartered in Rotterdam, in the building which is now the Hotel New York. The company was formed as a result of the reorganization of an earlier company, Plate, Reuchlin & Co. The company's first ship was the original , which sailed its 15-day maiden voyage from the Netherlands to New York City on October 15, 1872. Cargo service to New York started in 1909.
HAL's main route was between Rotterdam and New York. Its "New York" terminal was in fact in Hoboken, New Jersey, on the opposite side of the Hudson River from New York City. By 1892, HAL ships sailing between Rotterdam and Hoboken were scheduled to call en route at Boulogne in France.
In its first 25 years, the company carried 400,000 people from Europe to the Americas. Other North American ports were added during the early 20th century.
Larger ships
Harland & Wolff in Belfast launched the third Rotterdam (1897). She was the first HAL ship built by H&W. H&W next launched : the first HAL ship of that name, and the first HAL ship of more than . In 1899 Blohm+Voss in Hamburg launched , which was long and . H&W built two sister ships for Potsdam: (1901) and .
In 1902 William Pirrie, Chairman of H&W, negotiated to buy 51 percent of HAL's share capital. Pirrie was acting on behalf of J. P. Morgan's International Mercantile Marine Company (IMM), which already owned HAL's Belgian competitor Red Star Line. Pirrie did not disclose the fact that IMM had formed a cartel with Albert Ballin's Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) and Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL), and wanted to buy HAL to control passenger and cargo rates across the North Atlantic.
HAL continued to order ever larger ships from H&W. was long and . The fourth was long and .
In 1895 HAL offered its first cruise. Its second cruise, from New York to Palestine, was offered in 1910.
First World War
In July 1914 H&W launched a new Statendam that was and . However, a month later, the First World War started, and in 1915 the UK government requisitioned the new ship in H&W's shipyard and had her completed as the troopship . A U-boat sank her in 1918, and HAL accepted the UK government's offer of 60,000 tons of steel as compensation.
In the First World War the Netherlands were neutral, but numerous Dutch merchant ships were sunk. HAL lost five cargo ships, totalling more than . In 1915 two German mines sank Eemdijk, and in 1916 stopped and sank . On 22 February 1917 sank an entire Dutch convoy, including the HAL ships Noorderdijk and Zaandijk.
After the First World War began, Dutch capitalists bought HAPAG and NDL's shares in HAL. In December 1917, the same Dutch interests paid $3.5 million for half of IMM's shares in HAL. This amounted to about $800 per share, which was far more than IMM had paid for them in 1902. In 1916, IMM had received a dividend of 50 percent on its HAL shareholding.
In March 1918 President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation seizing under angary 89 Dutch merchant ships in US ports. They included the HAL liner Rijndam, which was converted into a US troopship, and eight HAL cargo ships. One of these, , was sunk in a collision while being used by the United States Navy. The United States Shipping Board returned Rijndam and the surviving cargo ships to HAL in the course of 1919.
Between the World Wars
In 1921–22 HAL introduced its first steam turbine passenger liners: the , Edam, Leerdam and Spaardnam. They served a route between Rotterdam and Tampico in Mexico. On westbound voyages, their ports of call were Antwerp, Boulogne, Bilbao, Santander, Gijón, A Coruña, Vigo, Havana and Vera Cruz. On eastbound voyages, they called at Vera Cruz, New Orleans, Havana, A Coruña and Santander.