20150421 - Holland America Line

Holland America Line is a American owned cruise line based in Seattle. It has been owned by Carnival Corporation & plc since 1989.
From 1873 to 1989, it was a Dutch shipping line, a passenger line, a cargo line and a cruise line operating primarily between the Netherlands and North America. As part of this rich legacy, it was instrumental in the transport of many hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the Netherlands to North America.

History as a Dutch shipping and passenger line (1873–1989)

Holland America Line was founded in 1873 as the Nederlandsch-Amerikaansche Stoomvaart Maatschappij (Dutch-American Steamship Company), a shipping and passenger line. It was headquartered in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and provided service to the Americas. The company was formed as a result of the reorganization of an earlier company, Plate, Reuchlin & Co. The company's first ship was the original Rotterdam, which sailed its 15-day maiden voyage from the Netherlands to New York City on October 15, 1872. Other services were started to other new world ports, including Hoboken, Baltimore and South America. Cargo service to New York started in 1899.
During the first 25 years the company carried 400,000 people from Europe to the Americas. Other North American ports were added during the early 20th century.
Though transportation and shipping were the primary sources of revenue, in 1895 HAL offered its first vacation cruise. Its second vacation cruise, from New York to Palestine, was first offered in 1910.
One notable ship was the elegant 36,000 gross ton SS Nieuw Amsterdam of 1937, it and the RMS Queen Mary being the only two liners built in the 1930s to make a profit.
At the start of the Second World War, HAL had 25 ships; nine remained at war's end. At the beginning of the war, the Westernland acquired from the Red Star Line in 1939, berthed at Falmouth, England, became the seat of the Dutch government. The Nieuw Amsterdam sailed half a million miles transporting 400,000 military personnel. After the war, the cruise line was instrumental in transporting a massive wave of immigrants from the Netherlands to Canada and elsewhere.
Another notable ship during the post-war period was the SS Rotterdam of 1959, one of the first North Atlantic ships equipped for two-class transatlantic crossing and one-class luxury cruising.
By the late 1960s, the golden era of transatlantic passenger ships had been ended by the introduction of air travel. HAL ended transatlantic service during the early 1970s, leaving the North Atlantic passenger trade for Cunard's RMS Queen Elizabeth 2.
In 1973 it sold its cargo shipping division.
It ceased operating as a Dutch line in 1989, when it was purchased by Carnival for 1.2 billion guilders (530 million euros). The proceeds were put into an investment company (HAL Investments), the majority of which is owned by the van der Vorm family.


 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_America_Line