The meaning of atlantic ferries in the 19th and 20th century

The first ones to cross the Atlantic with steam-operated ships were the Americans. It was a little ship called "Savannah" in the year 1818, which was only about 98 feet long. Steam was only used to help getting forward, when there was no wind. It took 27 Days and 11 hours to get from Savannah, USA to Liverpool. In the year 1838 the "Great Western" started a flow of shipping between Great Britain and New York. This was the first time man spoke of "the Atlantic Ferry", because it operated with a great continuity.
The same company, the "Great Western Steamship Company", owned the first ship with an all-iron hull, the "Great Western" in 1843. Yet this company hasnever earned as much pride as the Cunard Line.
Cunard Line won a government contract to establish a mail line across the North Atlantic. So it launched in 1840 four paddle steamers, the Acadia, the Britannia, the Columbia and the Caledonia, which became leaders in safety and speed on the North Atlantic for a long time. The Acadia even won the Blue Ribbon, a trophy given for the speediest crossing of the route New York - Liverpool. In 1851 this trophy passed to the fastest ship of this period, the "Pacific" for an average speed of 13 knots. During the Civil War the shipping became merely unimportant. About 1865 the propeller was invented and succeeded the paddles. In the late 1890s the North German Lloyd Steamship entered the high-class passenger shipping by constructing a Blue Ribbon Class Liner. The "Kaiser Wilhelm der Große", sized to carry 1,749 passengers, was 655 feet long and displaced 23,760 tons won the blue ribbon in 1897. This started a real race on the North Atlantic route.
28 % of the passengers that landed in New York were handled by North German Lloyd. To compete this, Cunard ordered two giant liners, which were planned to be the largest ships ever built. In 1906 the Lusitania and the Mauretania were launched. Especially the Mauretania, which won the blue ribbon in 1907 and held it for 22 years was probably the most popular ship of this period. This was the time for White Star Lines to react. So they started planning ships that were larger than all ships of this period.