Oceanic Steamship Company advertisement showing its transoceanic route (1889)
The Oceanic Steamship Company was an American shipping company active from 1881 until 1926 when it was acquired by Matson.[1] It was founded by John D. Spreckels and his family as a key transportation network from San Francisco, California, to Honolulu, then part of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The company was a subsidiary of the Wm. G. Irwin and Co. Ltd. holding company that was established by Claus Spreckels. Oceanic first began shipping raw sugar and other goods from the Spreckels' plantations in Hawaii, but quickly diversified to include tourists, and later mail service in Oceania. The company is often cited as an early example of the shipping link in the vertical integration strategy pioneered by Claus Spreckels in the sugar industry.[2]
The early commercial shipping industry in the Hawaiian Kingdom had its origins in the sandalwood trade established under the rule of Kamehameha I in the late 18th century.[2]C. Brewer & Co., the oldest of the Big Five companies in Hawaii, was involved in the sandalwood trade to China in the early part of the 19th century.[3] Larger vessels run by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company dominated shipping in the 1870s along the route from San Francisco to Australia. German-American industrialist Claus Spreckels, the founder of the Spreckels sugar empire, arrived in Hawaii in 1876, just after the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 had been signed, leading to major investment in the sugarcane industry.[2]
American businessman John D. Spreckels, the son of Claus Spreckels, organized J. D. Spreckels and Brothers in 1880, with $2 million ($65.2millionin 2024) in capital. The company was incorporated in December 1881 to establish trade between the mainland United States and the Hawaiian Islands. They began with one sailing vessel, and later controlled two large fleets of sail and steam ships. The firm also engaged extensively in sugar refining, and became agents for leading sugarcane plantations in Hawaii. The development of commercial interests between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawaii came about from this enterprise.[4]
Oceanic's steamship Australia in Hawaii, 1907
By 1885, the ocean mail contract held by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company had come to an end.[5] A new contract was won by Oceanic and the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand Limited. Oceanic began transporting mail along the San Francisco, Australia, and New Zealand route using the Alameda, the Mariposa, and the steamer Zealandia. Several years later, they were joined by the Sierra, the Sonoma, and the Ventura.[6] The company eventually expanded their fleet, owning a total of 17 ships.[7]Matson acquired and took over Oceanic in May 1926.[8]
Tourism
The Oceanic Steamship Company attracted wealthy tourists from the American mainland interested in traveling in upscale accommodations to the Hawaiian Kingdom and to Oceania. Their early advertising and marketing campaigns popularized Hawaiian words like aloha and luau, and helped to promote the sport of surfing in the 1880s. Such long distance ocean voyaging trips would not become obtainable to most people until lower priced air travel in the mid-20th century opened tourism up to Hawaii and Oceania to the general public and replaced ocean liners with jet airplanes.[9]
Vertical integration
A brochure advertising an "Around the World" tour with Oceanic covering 8,100 miles (13,000 km) of the route
Jacob O. Adler was one of the first scholars to study the vertical integration strategy used by Claus Spreckels to maintain his sugar empire. According to Adler, Oceanic played the third key part in the process: 1) Spreckels owned the sugar plantations, the landings and warehouses at the ports; 2) Spreckels was a partner with W. G. Irwin & Co., the agent who handled their business; 3) Oceanic was a subsidiary of W. G. Irwin & Co. and shipped sugar to California. Finally, 4) Spreckels owned the refinery in San Francisco. Adler notes that Spreckels was the "Grower, agent, shipper, [and] refiner".[4]
Legacy
The company filled a niche formerly held by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which did not appear to recognize the opportunities for shipping and tourism.[2] For the next several decades, Oceanic began to build a large fleet of ocean steamers for moving freight and passengers from San Francisco to Honolulu, and to Australia and New Zealand. The company also took over the contract from the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and began delivering the mail in Oceania and importing coal to California. Growing to a total of 17 ships, the "Spreckels line" as it was then called, began with an international fleet, but after the Hawaiian Organic Act was passed in 1900, U.S. law required it to become wholly American in time.[9]
The company became known as the principle South Pacific shipping company between the West Coast of the United States and Oceania in the late 19th century,[4] and is credited with establishing a stable shipping industry for freight and for creating the initial commercial tourism industry in Hawaii and the larger Pacific. The company began to enter a slow decline near the fin de siècle, as the Spanish–American War and the newly created Territory of Hawaii weakened its dominance. Nevertheless, the company had a lasting historical impact on the development of the cities of San Francisco and San Diego, and helped to strengthen the importance of military and commercial assets for the United States in the 20th century.[9]
↑Tate, E. Mowbray. (1986). Transpacific Steam: The Story of Steam Navigation from the Pacific Coast of North America to the Far East and the Antipodes, 1867-1941. Cornwall Books. pp. 49-61. ISBN9780845347928. OCLC12370774.
123Spiekermann, Uwe (2018). "Expanding the frontier(s): The Spreckels family and the German-American penetration of the Pacific, 1870–1920". In Berghoff, Hartmut; Biess, Frank; Strasser, Ulrike (eds.). Explorations and Entanglements: Germans in Pacific Worlds from the Early Modern Period to World War I. Berghahn Books. pp. 169–194. ISBN978-1-78920-029-4. OCLC1056202280.
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