Steerage

In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, considerable numbers of persons travelled from their homeland to seek a new life elsewhere, in many cases North America and Australia.

It was available to very poor people, usually emigrants seeking a new life in the New World, chiefly North America and Australia.

The poor conditions and the very long voyages could contribute to en route deaths of passengers in steerage.

The stenches become unbearable... [and the] division between the sexes is not carefully looked after, and the young women who are quartered among the married passengers have neither the privacy to which they are entitled nor are they much more protected than if they were living promiscuously.

The food, which is miserable, is dealt out of huge kettles into the dinner pails provided by the steamship company.