A transnational history of health control and hygiene onboard of liners (1894-1946)

Project Information

SHIPPAN

Grant agreement ID: 101064925

DOI

10.3030/101064925

EC signature date 22 July 2022

Start date 1 May 2023

End date 31 August 2026

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 335 734,08

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITE D'ANGERS
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SHIPPAN (A transnational history of health control and hygiene onboard of liners (1894-1946))

Reporting period: 2023-05-01 to 2025-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

SHIPPAN seeks to demonstrate how health management on shipping lines and liners—from the second half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century—was central to understanding and regulating sanitary issues globally. The objective is to develop a transnational history of health at sea in the Late Modern period. This contribution unfolds accross nested scales, from state-level interventions to the policies of the companies, down to the lived experiences of individuals on board.
The MSCA Fellow explores new dimensions of maritime health, shedding light on the challenges faced by shipping companies during sanitary crises. Moving away from a solely land-based perspective, SHIPPAN shifts the analytical focus offshore. This innovative approach challenges the assumption of states full control over health policies, highlighting instead how companies and seafarers responded to health threats.
Though SHIPPAN moves beyond a port-centered approach, it anchors itself in key departure points—Hong Kong, Marseille, and San Francisco—to enable a global perspective. This includes of a wide range of lines and companies. Local archives foreground national and regional actors, while legislative, legal, and diplomatic sources—often rich in health-related material—broaden the scope. The aim is not to juxtapose case studies, but rather to examine how maritime powers and companies interacted and adapted via the only physical and symbolic link united them: the ocean.
1. Diseases as a Transimperial Issue
This hypothesis highlights the role of imperial powers in imposing health regulations aboard ships. Epidemic anxiety functioned as a tool of imperial governance—formal or informal— exemplified by the training of colonial physicians. Imperial systems contributed to some general health improvements, but rivalry between metropoles often undermined global coordination.
2. Sanitary Control Onboard as a Shipping Issue
This hypothesis compares the roles of shipping companies in implementing health measures. SHIPPAN posits that companies, driven by the imperative of profitability, were often more innovative and adaptable, while port authorities tended to act in accordance with national interests. The underlying thesis is that the effectiveness of health management at sea was, above all, a function of private sector initiative.
3. Health Management Onboard as a Personal Issue
This hypothesis considers how seafarers and passengers responded to sanitary crises. By comparing personal narratives, professional training, and work practices across different lines, it is possible to trace how best practices in health were disseminated and appropriated. This supports the argument that onboard sanitary measures contributed to the global diffusion of medical habits and practices.
SHIPPAN forges connections between empires, major international ports, and maritime communities. The ocean, too often perceived as an empty space, is reimagined as a vital conduit. The ship, a confined social unit, forces cohabitation and interaction despite rigid hierarchies and spatial segregation. Within this space—before individuals return to their respective social positions on land—knowledge and practices are transferred. The ocean emerges as a laboratory of modernity. The recurring transoceanic experiences form a temporal and spatial frame SHIPPAN seeks to explore.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

From a technical perspective, SHIPPAN has enabled an unprecedented dialogue between physical archives held in four different countries and across more than twelve resource centres. The programme has also led to the recovery of previously unexplored private archives. In terms of research engineering, SHIPPAN has facilitated the creation of several small-scale databases—now freely accessible—including catalogues and corpora designed to assist future researchers.
The MSCA Fellow has also successfully established interdisciplinary bridges between scholars in various fields, including colonial history, the history of international relations, and the history of medicine, in order to foster a renewed dialogue around maritime history. Through a series of conferences and workshops, the collaborations initiated by SHIPPAN have laid the foundations for a strong academic network.
On the scientific level, the articulation of SHIPPAN’s three main research axes demonstrates that health management on board ships did not follow a simple top-down political logic imposed through port-based regulations. Rather, it was shaped by more complex economic (company-driven) and cultural (individual) dynamics. Whether through the intimate dimensions of health at sea or the role of medical professionals on board, SHIPPAN has revealed previously overlooked processes that were often tied to imperial and colonial concerns, and it continues to investigate the cultural transfers that occurred between continents along maritime routes. While racial and gender biases remain a notable constant, the maritime environment also proves to be a site of social and medical disruption.
One of the most unexpected findings—currently under further investigation—is that, for many passengers and seafarers, health conditions often improved significantly during long ocean crossings, in contrast to the pre-mid-19th-century period. With the advent of steamship regularity, improved supervision, and less arduous travel conditions, lower-income individuals in particular were able to access levels of medical care they would not necessarily have had access to on land. These findings, along with previous results, are currently being prepared for publication in peer-reviewed journals.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

SHIPPAN contributes to renewing the field of maritime history, a discipline traditionally rooted—both methodologically and historiographically—in early modern, military, and naval studies. By focusing on a more contemporary period, on the merchant marine, and by adopting a social perspective, the MSCA Fellow proposes a new historiographical approach to the field, one that holds the potential to inspire further scholarly developments.
The project’s findings should also encourage fellow researchers, universities, and public authorities to devote more time and resources to the development of digital tools in the humanities and social sciences, in support of innovative, global approaches to historical corpora. Given the diversity and scale of maritime historical sources across the globe, there is now a pressing need to apply large language models (LLMs) to overcome challenges related to both volume and multilingualism.

Nurse onboard a French ocean liner, circa 1950. Credit FL&C