Brig Key, SS <i>Leviathan</i>
date: label: date made
content: 1923
label: used date
content: 1923-1938
notes: label: Description
content: Although not marked, this key is reputed to be from the brig, or jail cell, of the ocean liner <i>Leviathan</i>. According to collector and historian Frank Braynard, the key's donor, it hung on a wood plaque for many years in the model shop of the New York naval architecture firm of Gibbs and Cox, the company that renovated the Leviathan for American passenger service in 1922-23. Presumably, it came to be there after the ship was scrapped in Scotland after 1938.
label: Description
content: The ocean liner <i>Leviathan</i> was built as the Vaterland for Germany's Hamburg-American Line in 1914. During World War I the American government seized the ship and operated it as a troopship. After a complete reconditioning at Newport News, Virginia, in 1922-23, the <i>Leviathan</i> became the flagship of the new United States Lines, which operated it for the U.S. Shipping Board until 1929. Subsequently sold into private hands, the ship ran until 1934. Laid up as a result of high operating costs and low Depression-era patronage, the <i>Leviathan</i> was sold to Scottish shipbreakers in 1938 and dismantled.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Associated Place
content: United States: New York
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Maritime
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content: America on the Move
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content: Transportation
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Frank O. Braynard, Sea Cliff, New York
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1991.0856.26
label: catalog number
content: 1991.0856.26
label: accession number
content: 1991.0856
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Key
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: average spatial: 1 1/4 in x 3 3/4 in; x 3.175 cm x 9.525 cm