Ships arriving in Boston 1902 (ish)?

January 31, 2022 2:36 AM

My normally decent research skills are failing me at the moment. I'm trying to find a list of passenger ships arriving in Boston in the years 1902-1905 (ish).

This is for a writing project, not ancestry research. I don't need to find passengers, just ship names (and port of departures) for passenger ships arriving in Boston in 1902-1905. (Specifically looking for ships arriving from Hamburg or Bremen, but interested in all.) Years are flexible in that general timeframe.

I have an account at FamilySearch but understandably the genealogy sites are arranged to search by passenger name. I've tried clicking through the microfilm images, passenger by passenger, but it seems like there must be a more efficient way.

Any advice would be welcome.

posted by profreader to Society & Culture (4 answers total)

Best answer: My instinct would be to check out archives of the local newspaper- they would have listed the departures and arrivals . In Australia I would use Trove, not sure what the Boston equivalent would be.
posted by freethefeet at 2:50 AM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Indeed, at this time the Boston Globe had a column called “Water Front Items” which definitely includes lists of arrivals and departures, though I don’t know how complete they are, and it seems to include both cargo and passenger ships. The early 1900s are available through the Proquest Historical Newspapers database. If you have a Boston Public Library card you can access it online.
posted by mskyle at 3:27 AM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]

Best answer: You want to use the Steven Morse webpage. Here is a link to a search that I ran from Jan 1902 to Dec 1905: link.
posted by xo at 5:05 AM on January 31, 2022 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks all. xo, that is exactly what I was looking for.
posted by profreader at 5:22 AM on January 31, 2022