JB1406 --
The good news is that we have a source of information for you. The
bad news is that the balance of the search will have to be done off
the Internet.
According to the Sept. 8, 1964 New York Times, Calmar Steamship Co.
acquired six C-4 former troopships to replace smaller Liberty ships
that the company traded in. The U.S. Maritime Administration gave the
company six ships to use in inter-coastal trade:
? Gen. H.L. Scott
? Gen. G. O. Squier
? Gen. Omar Bundy
? Gen. T.H. Bliss
? Gen. J.R. Brooke
? Gen. O.H. Ernst
These 15,0000-ton ships were to be converted by March 31, 1965 and put
into service at a cost of $20 million. Calmar was to install
dehumidification and heating equipment; self-loaders; and lengthen
some hatches in the process. The ships were to be designated for
coastal runs on both coasts, carrying steel, lumber and general cargo.
Subsequent articles indicate that the 4th of the vessels, the newly
named "Seamar" was christened in Baltimore on Feb. 10, 1965, though
the article doesn't say what the former name was. The "Yorkmar" was
christened in late May, 1965 in Baltimore. It was the last of the 6
converted. When all complete, the conversions cost a total of $27
million, according to Calmar officials.
Though the NY Times article of 1964 doesn't say it, Calmar was a
subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel and had revenues of about $161 million
for the year. In addition to the coastal shipping, Bethlehem also
operated a Great Lakes Division, largely for transport of taconite
ore.
All of this information comes from the online versions of the New York
Times, which is available at many public libraries on the Proquest
Historical newspaper service.
---
Luckily, thanks to the Vessel Documentation program of the U.S. Coast
Guard, there are historical records of ships and they're available
from:
U.S. Coast Guard
National Vessel Documentation Center
792 T J Jackson Drive
Falling Waters, WV 25419
Toll Free: (800) 799-8362
Main: (304) 271-2400
I contacted the Coast Guard officers there and they said that records
are available via a Freedom of Information Act (commonly called FOIA).
There is apparently no special form need, as with other government
agencies, but the request should be directed to FOIA Request or FOIA
Officer at the address above.
You'll want to include as much information as possible, including
certainly these items:
? previous name of ship
? owner (Calmar Steamship Corp., a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel)
? date of conversion (between Sept. 8, 1964 and May 25, 1965)
? what you'd like to know. This would obviously include the new name,
if there is any reason to believe that it really didn't get named the
'Calmar'; and dates of service.
I think that the FOIA officer would also be most helpful if they
understood exactly why you're doing the search, though it's certainly
not necessary.
---
There's not a lot available via a Google search on the ship and you're
probably familiar with the pictures and description at this naval
site:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/22133.htm
Google search strategy:
Calmar ship photograph
"O.H. Ernst" ship
I also searched a pair of databases that don't appear via Google, the
Library of Congress database and the Proquest Historical Newspaper
database. I also went to the 1995 Form 10K for Bethlehem Steel to see
if ships were listed in the earliest online financial form for the
company but Calmar is not there.
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA |
Clarification of Answer by
omnivorous-ga
on
20 Oct 2004 17:27 PDT
JB1406 --
1. Let me answer the Proquest question tomorrow, as I'll need to run
through my library's interface and make up the instructions. Note
that your library interface is likely different (but research
librarians are often angels-in-disguise when you're doing work like
this).
Also, many libraries have the NY Times from that period on microfilm.
That May date was May 25, 1965.
2. Note that FOIA requests can take many months. A genealogical
request for my grandfather took about 6 months.
3. The Securities & Exchange Commission has offices in many major
cities. They'll have microfiche copies of Form 10K's, the most-likely
place to find the ship listed. Most 10K's list factory and major
office locations for corporations; they might list ship holdings as
well. I was going to include the SEC link for you but unfortunately
their web page doesn't list the public reading rooms. Most often
they're in the Federal Building of cities like Seattle or Chicago.
Here's the SEC Edgar site, which has financial reports back to 1995:
http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htm
Here's Bethlehem Steel:
http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000011860&owner=include
I'm so glad that you found it useful. There are some specialty
publications that might be interesting places to look, such as
American Metal Markets, which covered the steel industry during that
period. However, it will take a very specialized business library to
find it archived:
http://www.amm.com/
I'm less familiar with what publications cover the shipping industry
but here's a good place to start:
http://logistics.about.com/library/blmaritimeshipping.htm
I'm so glad that you found this Google Answer useful!
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA
|
Clarification of Answer by
omnivorous-ga
on
21 Oct 2004 08:37 PDT
JB1406 --
First, note that library interfaces to Proquest services vary, as some
have different versions and different databases.
Mine has both Proquest Magazines and Proquest Newspapers. This
highlights how to search Proquest Newspapers, specifically to get to
the NY Times Historical index:
1. Under Basic Search, select "Historical New York Times"
2. The 2 data entry areas now should be:
Search
Date range
3. I would start the search for "Calmar" (no quotes in the entry)
after 6/1/1964, as I know that it will return thousands of entries.
Your last date could be 1/1/2000. The Proquest Historical Database
runs through the end of 2001. It's not really relevant to this
search, but after that date you can check the nytimes.com site.
4. The Proquest site uses the terms AND and OR as it's key Boolean
operators. So one way to help restrict the search to things that are
relevant (and eliminate the thousands of real estate ads with the term
"Calmar") is:
Calmar AND ship
Another way to do this is to use the Advanced Search tab at the top of
the Proquest screen.
5. Note that the NY Times ran the "Shipping -- Mail" column with
sailings to and from New York for years. I checked this morning and
they ran at least until the 1980s. Though this search did NOT work
well on Proquest:
Shipping AND mail AND Calmar
You can can find the ship sailings with:
Shipping AND mail
6. Be very careful when doing repeated Proquest searches: the
interface forgets your original date selections -- so suddenly you'll
see unintended results back to 1851!
7. A final note: the Proquest index relies on searches using Acrobat
or PDF files. It's very good but not perfect. If there's a major
event that you can find -- such as a spinoff of the Calmar Shipping
subsidiary by Bethlehem Steel -- don't hesitate to look through the
day's issues of the Times page-by-page.
Good luck with it. And don't hesitate to query your reference
librarians: they're very helpful.
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA
|
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