... wonderfully readable ... Evans’s prologue deftly builds us a ship ... Piquant or squalid details provide a startling metaphor for insouciant social inequality ... The story is invigoratingly feminist ... engaging ... The book’s a treat. It’s staying on my shelf.
Evans' book is strongest when she discusses the women hired to work aboard the ocean liners ... engaging and accessible. The author's 'celebration of the diverse journeys made by a number of intrepid heroines' is put within the historical context of shifts in gender roles during the first half of the 20th century. Evans' decision to investigate stories of enormous personal transformation is a fruitful way to explore the impact of broader social changes. Her claim that transatlantic travel was life-altering does seem overdrawn when applied to wealthy women taking lavish vacations—but for non-elite women, travel was much more likely to be that 'step into the unknown' that Evans celebrates.
Siân Evans tells stories of the women who made the crossing and those who took care of them from embarkation on one continent to docking on another ... Broadening her focus along the way, Evans writes entertainingly of corporate competition and improvements in ship design, describing grand and grandiose decoration in gratifying detail. We see the rise of pleasure cruising as a vacation and watch Prohibition drive the 'booze cruise' outside American waters ... Like the best salty yarns, Maiden Voyages splices together intriguing personalities in extraordinary settings sailing through dramatic times, a tale well worth the fare.
All in all, Evans writes a compelling account of how ocean travel—for white women, in particular—evolved in concert with women's roles in the cruise industry during the early 20th century ... This fast-paced, well-written social history will appeal to fans of women's history who enjoy reading interesting life stories.
This is a thoroughly captivating history ... Evans recreates the era through richly detailed profiles of women from various backgrounds ... the author captures these wildly disparate experiences as played out within historical context, providing interesting angles on how women’s roles evolved from 1900 to the 1950s. First-hand accounts bring an immediacy to the never-ending action, and Evans is a good storyteller, deftly weaving individual women’s adventures into contemporary current events ... Readers will marvel at these stories about the golden age of luxury cruise ships, and, more importantly, learn how millions of women changed their lives by going to sea.
... an entertaining chronicle of transatlantic ocean travel ... sweeping ... Excerpts from...memoirs...provide color and drama, as does the story of journalist Martha Gellhorn ... Women’s history buffs and readers who enjoyed Erik Larson’s Dead Wake will have a bon voyage.
