MARIPOSA

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date30 July 1932

Object number00041523

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionMARIPOSA is shown leaving Sydney Harbour for San Francisco on Saturday afternoon 30 July 1932. This image was captured from a vessel travelling between Mosman and Circular Quay. MARIPOSA was a luxurious ocean liner that carried passengers between America and Australia during the first half of the 20th century.HistoryMARIPOSA was a passenger and cargo vessel of 18,017 tons that operated on the Pacific route between America and Australia. It was built in 1931 by Bethlehem Shipbuilders at Quincy, the United States for the Oceanic Steam Ship Company of Los Angeles. During World War II it was used as a troop transport. In 1954 it was purchased by the Home lines, renamed HOMERIC and used on the North Atlantic and Caribbean trade routes. HOMERIC was scrapped in Taiwan in 1974 after it was damaged in a fire.SignificanceThis photograph demonstrates passenger travel between Australia and America during the first half of the 20th century.

It is part of the F G Wilkinson Photograph Collection, comprising more than 700 glass plate negatives of ships in Sydney Harbour between 1919 and 1936. The collection provides an extensive and well-documented coverage of the changing styles of shipping in the port of Sydney before the gradual decline of the coastal trade, and in a period which was probably the peak reached by commercial shipping in Australia. The backgrounds also reveal the changing face of the city and harbour foreshores.