Studia Maritima

The article looks at the transport revolution of the nineteenth century, focusing on coastal and short-sea shipping. It points out that despite their crucial role in the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States, steam-driven coasters have been either ignored or downplayed by historians. This may be due to the paucity of surviving records. A fortunate exception is the archive of the M. Jebsen Shipping Company in Aabenraa, Denmark. The preserved letter copy books make it possible to trace the early history of the company in European coastal and short-sea shipping, as well as the work of its founder Michael Jebsen and his networks. The ar- ticle examines the general position of the Baltic port of Aabenraa (or Apenrade), a bulwark of sailing ships in Schleswig-Holstein in Denmark (later in Prussia, Germany), and the attitudes of the local network of investors, who, for rational and emotional reasons, proved unwilling to switch from sail to steam. Jebsen’s only option was to set up a ship-owning partnership in which he himself, a family member, and a few business friends from outside his hometown, including the Diederichsen brothers in Hamburg, took over most shares. The brothers were able to turn the shipbuilding business of their relatives, Georg, Bernhard, and Hermann Howaldt in Kiel, into Jebsen’s house shipyard which built until 1930 most of his company’s vessels. This triangular financing and shipbuilding network ensured the success of Jebsen’s business in European waters from 1878 to 1885 and even in East Asia. Another crucial factor was his network of shipmasters sailing in the maritime region between northern Russia and southern Spain. From his office in Aabenraa, Jebsen kept his captains constantly and inten- sively informed by letter and telegram about technical and personnel matters, as well as about lucrative freight contracts. This correspondence, preserved in the company’s archives, also shows the system of rules that Jebsen strictly monitored and sanctioned. Running the ship as economically as possible was a constant theme in his letters to the captains. The article attempts to combine the macro and micro perspectives in the description and analysis of the background and early history of a European steam shipping company operating small and medium-sized merchant vessels in the late seventies and early eighties of the nineteenth century.