Holland-America Line History – SS NIEUW AMSTERDAM – THE MOST GRACIOUS OF ALL THE TRANSATLANTIC LINERS.
Queen Wilhelmina launches the Nieuw Amsterdam in the late 1930s. Video includes newsreel footage of the pre-war liner. Along with a trans-Atlantic crossing from Holland to New York. Then shots of the ship during WW II. Newsreel of cruising after the war from a Holland-America Line promo film.
(Left: Cary Grant was a big fan of Holland-America Line.)
The Nieuw Amsterdam, of all the Depression era ships of state, led a charmed existence. Introduced in recessionary 1938, her prewar service life consisted of a single brilliant year and can be seen as the final elegant flourish of the golden days day of travel before the war, postwar austerity and jet travel permanently altered the way people traveled. Neither the largest nor the fastest, the Nieuw Amsterdam earned her place in liner history by being the ultimate combination of elegance, comfort, and practical design in a three class ship.
