Putting on the Ritz Welcome back to Period Dramas, a weekly column that alternates between roundups of historic homes on the market and answering questions we?ve always had about older structures.
If you're traveling this summer, chances are you'll board a plane and arrive at your destination in just a few hours. But a hundred years ago, it wasn?t so easy.
At the turn of the 20th century, anybody with a wanderlust for Europe relied on a transatlantic ocean liner to carry them to their destination.
Companies like the French Line, the Hamburg-America Line, the Cunard Line, and White Star Line dominated oceans with superstructures that not only took people abroad but also competed with each other: in size, in speed, and in luxury. Those richly decorated, largely first-class, interiors of ships?like Cunard's RMS Aquitania, The French Line's S.S. France, and White Star Line's RMS Olympic?dominate the lasting impression we have of this period of travel, but what led to this moment of Gilded Age maritime design" Why were these ships so luxurious"

Via Creative Commons.
The first-class lounge of the RMS Lusitania.

In many ways, the opulent interiors were meant to make travelers forget they were at sea. While it may take about six hours to fly from New York City to London today, in 1917 it took the better part of a week to complete the same journey by ship. The aim was to create an environment akin to the grand hotels that first-class tra...