Impressions of the Maiden Voyage of the ‘Queen Mary’ to New York (1936)
Charles Chislett
Yorkshire Film Archive | Cunard Queens [blog]
You really do want to click through to this 30 min. black and white silent film (unfortunately not embeddable). Chislett brought his camera through Times Square at night, on the El, up to “The Yankee Stadium,” and to the top of the Woolworth and Empire State Buildings. He traveled across the Atlantic third class:
The cost of a trip to New York was, for cabin class, £53.15s (equivalent to £2,710 in today’s money, r.p.i.) – according to Merseyside Maritime Museum, this was enough to “keep a family with three children in food for over a year.” The cost for third class was £18.10 (equivalent to £942 in today’s money, r.p.i.) …[…] taking into account how average earnings have risen since 1936 makes it equivalent to £3,530. A considerable sum for a 31 year old bank employee (and this may well have been the cost for just for a one-way ticket!).
