Contract for a Ticket


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Contract for third-class ticket on the Cunard Line, 4/12 - 1920.

1996.041.023- Gift of Kenneth Lind.


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After 1868 all passenger lines were were required to give travelers a contract with explicit information about what they were paying for in addition to their tickets.

This 1920 example demonstrates how, upon making a down payment such as the 50 kroner here, travelers were issued an interim contract. In this example the payment of 50 kroner reserved the traveler's passage from Copenhagen to the United States via Esbjerg. The remaining sum, a staggering 592.50 kroner, was to be paid at the office of the shipping line in Nyhavn in Copenhagen no later than the day before departure, at which point the actual ticket would be issued. This interim contract is in the name of Mrs. Christina Absalonsen, age 21. She traveled third class to America, with a final destination of Sioux City, Iowa.

We find her again in the Ellis Island records as having arrived on the 20th of July 1920. Her ship was called the Oscar II.