The United States Shipping Board was established as an emergency agency by the Shipping Act (39 Stat. 729), 7 September 1916. It was formally organized 30 January 1917. It was sometimes referred to as the War Shipping Board.
The Shipping Board's functions were to:
- Regulate:
- commercial maritime carriers and trade practices,
- marine insurance,
- transfers of ship registry, and
- the rates charged in interstate waterborne commerce.
- Investigate adequacy of port and water transportation facilities,
- Determine the necessity for steamship lines and the characteristics of vessels on those lines,
- Develop a naval auxiliary and merchant marine, and
- Subsidize private ship construction.
The Board was abolished, effective 2 March 1934.
Its successor agencies have been the U.S. Shipping Board Bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce (1933–36); the U.S. Maritime Commission (1936–50); the U.S. Federal Maritime Board of the Department of Commerce (regulatory functions only, 1950–61); the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission (regulatory functions only, 1961- ); the United States Maritime Administration of the Department of Commerce (all other functions, 1950–81); and the U.S. Maritime Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation (all other functions, 1981- ).
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—Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886)
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—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of Labrador gave the English no just title to New England, or to the United States generally, any more than to Patagonia.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
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—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)