March 19, 1910 · S.S. Vaderland · Red Star Line · Dinner
March 1910 was the Vaderland’s peak service period. Red Star carried both immigrants in third class and first/second cabin passengers — by this date the line had a substantial American business clientele crossing for European trade negotiations and tourism.
The watercolour shows a small workboat — a pilot launch or harbour tug — in the foreground, with the Vaderland’s profile visible at the right behind. The composition places the human-scale boat against the industrial scale of the liner — a visual play on scale that was common in maritime art of the period.
S.S. Vaderland (Dutch for “Fatherland”) was launched 1900 at Cramp’s shipyard in Philadelphia as one of the four ships of the so-called “American Line” sister class. She served Red Star’s Antwerp–New York route and at 12,018 gross tons was one of the largest ships in the Red Star fleet.
Visual style: Watercolour cover showing a small launch in the foreground with the Vaderland behind.
What you receive
- Three print sizes: 8×10, 11×14, 16×20 inches (300 DPI, ready for any home printer or framing shop).
- Two versions of each size: a pure print (no added text) and a museum print (with a small caption: restaurant or ship, year, and source).
- A 1–2 page PDF with the menu’s historical context.
- One ZIP file, instantly downloadable after checkout.
About the source
This menu is preserved in the Buttolph Collection of Menus at The New York Public Library and is in the public domain in the United States. The Menu Press has curated, digitally restored, and reformatted the work for modern printing.
