Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MedMaD (Mediterranean Mass Mobilities and Displacements in the Age of Steam (1869-1914))
Período documentado: 2024-01-01 hasta 2025-12-31
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the steam revolution transformed maritime transport by enabling the large-scale, low-cost movement of passengers at sea. Steamships became crucial for the circulation of migrants, refugees, pilgrims, seasonal workers and other mobile populations, whose movements were increasingly shaped by imperial interests, state regulation and public health concerns. At sea, these diverse groups experienced different degrees of freedom and coercion, while at the same time being brought together under shared commercial and legal regimes as low-cost passengers aboard steamships.
Against this background, the MedMaD project addresses a major historiographical gap in existing scholarship, which has long privileged Atlantic mass migration or Mediterranean elite travel, while marginalising the role of Mediterranean-based steamship companies in transporting low-cost passengers across the “wider Mediterranean” (including the Black Sea and the Red Sea). By focusing on the period between the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the First World War, the project repositions Mediterranean mass mobility within a global context of market integration, imperial competition and technological change.
The overall objective of MedMaD is to examine the development of low-cost maritime mass transport services in the “wider Mediterranean” and to assess their impact on inter- and extra-Mediterranean mobilities and displacements. The project adopts a comparative perspective centred on three major state-subsidised steamship companies—the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes, the Compagnia Rubattino (later Navigazione Generale Italiana), and the Austrian Lloyd—demonstrating how private economic interests, state policies and sanitary regulation jointly shaped steam-driven mass mobility at sea. Particular attention is devoted to the commodification of low-cost travel, the standardisation of passenger classes, and the reorganisation of steamship spaces as environments designed to manage, control and, when deemed as necessary, segregate large numbers of travellers.
By combining economic, political and material dimensions, MedMaD offers a reinterpretation of how maritime transport systems shaped mass mobility in the age of steam. In doing so, it links nineteenth-century maritime transport infrastructures to enduring debates on mobility, displacement and the regulation of movement.
Against this background, the MedMaD project addresses a major historiographical gap in existing scholarship, which has long privileged Atlantic mass migration or Mediterranean elite travel, while marginalising the role of Mediterranean-based steamship companies in transporting low-cost passengers across the “wider Mediterranean” (including the Black Sea and the Red Sea). By focusing on the period between the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the First World War, the project repositions Mediterranean mass mobility within a global context of market integration, imperial competition and technological change.
The overall objective of MedMaD is to examine the development of low-cost maritime mass transport services in the “wider Mediterranean” and to assess their impact on inter- and extra-Mediterranean mobilities and displacements. The project adopts a comparative perspective centred on three major state-subsidised steamship companies—the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes, the Compagnia Rubattino (later Navigazione Generale Italiana), and the Austrian Lloyd—demonstrating how private economic interests, state policies and sanitary regulation jointly shaped steam-driven mass mobility at sea. Particular attention is devoted to the commodification of low-cost travel, the standardisation of passenger classes, and the reorganisation of steamship spaces as environments designed to manage, control and, when deemed as necessary, segregate large numbers of travellers.
By combining economic, political and material dimensions, MedMaD offers a reinterpretation of how maritime transport systems shaped mass mobility in the age of steam. In doing so, it links nineteenth-century maritime transport infrastructures to enduring debates on mobility, displacement and the regulation of movement.
During the project, MedMaD carried out extensive archival research in France, Italy and Austria, consulting company archives, state and parliamentary documentation, consular records, shipping statistics, ship plans, traffic reports and health documentation. This research resulted in the systematic reconstruction of low-cost passenger services across the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Red Sea between 1869 and 1914.
A structured comparative corpus was built for three major state-subsidised steamship companies—Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes, Compagnia Rubattino/Navigazione Generale Italiana, and Austrian Lloyd—allowing, wherever possible, for the analysis of passenger volumes, pricing systems, subsidy regimes, spatial configurations of vessels and maritime regulatory frameworks. Data on traffic flows and pricing were processed and contextualised alongside qualitative sources to identify recurring structural patterns in the organisation of mass maritime mobility, while the use of case studies proved invaluable for providing a bottom-up analysis of the maritime mobility practices of certain categories of passengers.
The research clarified the economic weight of low-cost passenger transport within company strategies and demonstrated how subsidy systems, market competition and imperial expansion influenced route planning and service standardisation. It further reconstructed the evolution of third- and fourth-class passenger categories and traced the material transformation of onboard spaces designed to accommodate and regulate large numbers of travellers.
Particular attention was devoted to the spatial and material dimensions of steamships. Through the analysis of ship plans, regulations and travel reports, the project identified how internal layouts, segregation practices and sanitary measures evolved in response to the growing scale and diversity of passenger flows.
A structured comparative corpus was built for three major state-subsidised steamship companies—Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes, Compagnia Rubattino/Navigazione Generale Italiana, and Austrian Lloyd—allowing, wherever possible, for the analysis of passenger volumes, pricing systems, subsidy regimes, spatial configurations of vessels and maritime regulatory frameworks. Data on traffic flows and pricing were processed and contextualised alongside qualitative sources to identify recurring structural patterns in the organisation of mass maritime mobility, while the use of case studies proved invaluable for providing a bottom-up analysis of the maritime mobility practices of certain categories of passengers.
The research clarified the economic weight of low-cost passenger transport within company strategies and demonstrated how subsidy systems, market competition and imperial expansion influenced route planning and service standardisation. It further reconstructed the evolution of third- and fourth-class passenger categories and traced the material transformation of onboard spaces designed to accommodate and regulate large numbers of travellers.
Particular attention was devoted to the spatial and material dimensions of steamships. Through the analysis of ship plans, regulations and travel reports, the project identified how internal layouts, segregation practices and sanitary measures evolved in response to the growing scale and diversity of passenger flows.
The project moves beyond existing scholarship by demonstrating that low-cost maritime transport constituted a core business for steam shipping companies operating in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Red Sea between 1869 and 1914. In contrast to historiographical approaches that have privileged either Atlantic mass migration or Mediterranean elite travel, MedMaD establishes steamship services as key infrastructures enabling and regulating large-scale population movements within the Mediterranean region.
A second major advance lies in identifying the structural interaction between private economic interests, state and imperial policies, and national and international sanitary regimes in shaping Mediterranean maritime mass mobility. Rather than treating these dimensions separately, the project shows that their interplay is necessary to understand the evolution of low-cost passenger transport, including the commodification of travel, the standardisation of passenger classes and the regulation of mobility at sea. By situating these dynamics within the broader context of imperial competition, market integration and technological change, MedMaD offers a new perspective on how steam-driven mobility was organised and managed beyond the better-studied oceanic routes.
Finally, the project advances the field by introducing a sustained material and spatial analysis of steamships as socio-material environments and space-time catalysts of maritime mobility. By examining shipboard spaces as sites of control, segregation and interaction, MedMaD shows how everyday experiences of mobility, inequality and coercion were produced within the enclosed environment of the steamship. This perspective shifts attention to the concrete mechanisms through which mobility was experienced by passengers at sea.
Taken together, these results contribute to a redefinition of maritime mass mobility in the age of steam and open new avenues for comparative research on transport infrastructures, mobility regimes and displacement in the Mediterranean and beyond.
A second major advance lies in identifying the structural interaction between private economic interests, state and imperial policies, and national and international sanitary regimes in shaping Mediterranean maritime mass mobility. Rather than treating these dimensions separately, the project shows that their interplay is necessary to understand the evolution of low-cost passenger transport, including the commodification of travel, the standardisation of passenger classes and the regulation of mobility at sea. By situating these dynamics within the broader context of imperial competition, market integration and technological change, MedMaD offers a new perspective on how steam-driven mobility was organised and managed beyond the better-studied oceanic routes.
Finally, the project advances the field by introducing a sustained material and spatial analysis of steamships as socio-material environments and space-time catalysts of maritime mobility. By examining shipboard spaces as sites of control, segregation and interaction, MedMaD shows how everyday experiences of mobility, inequality and coercion were produced within the enclosed environment of the steamship. This perspective shifts attention to the concrete mechanisms through which mobility was experienced by passengers at sea.
Taken together, these results contribute to a redefinition of maritime mass mobility in the age of steam and open new avenues for comparative research on transport infrastructures, mobility regimes and displacement in the Mediterranean and beyond.