House Flags of U.S. Shipping Companies: U

Union Barge Line

  by Joe McMillan

Union Barge Line, Pittsburgh
As the name and homeport suggest, this is a barge line operating on the Mississippi-Ohio river system. The flag is (was?) a white pennant with the word "Union" in blue letters of diminishing size.
Source: www.steamship.net

Joe McMillan, 29 November 2001

Union (Havre) Line

  by Joe McMillan

Union (Havre) Line, New York (?-1863)<us~union.gif
This flag is very similar to that of the Fox & Livingston Havre Line, which was one of the three New York-to-Le Havre lines that were consolidated into the Union Line in the 1840s. It was eventually put out of business by the American Civil War. This flag is white with a black U and was in use by at least 1845. The  Fox & Livingston Union Line flag was white with a blue U according to Private Signals of the Merchants of New York. I am somewhat skeptical that there were really two different flags, as the F&L line had been consolidated into the Union Line by the time the chart was published.
Source:  chart of "Private Signals of the Merchants of New York"

Joe McMillan, 29 November 2001

Union Oil Company of California

Union Oil Company of California, Los Angeles (1890-present)
This company was formed by the merger of the holdings of three partners who had struck oil northwest of Los Angeles in the late 19th century. The number "76" came into use as a trademark in 1930 and was placed on an orange circle, as shown in the latter two flags below, in 1947.

  by Joe McMillan

Sources: Wedge (1951), Stewart (1953), US Navy's 1961 H.O. This was apparently the first flag of the company's tanker fleet, which consisted of 8 ships as of 1949. It was blue with a white lozenge bearing the initials U.O.Co. (as shown) or, in a variant, U.O.C.

  by Joe McMillan

Source: Styring (1971), a distinctive design of diagonal blue and white stripes with the orange 76 logo superimposed.

  by Joe McMillan

Source: photo of house flags in dining hall at US Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, apparently from the late 1970s, white with the word Union in blue lower case letters, the 76 on an orange disk forming the letter o.

Joe McMillan, 29 November 2001

Union Sulphur Co.

  by Joe McMillan

Union Sulphur Co., New York (1896-1962)
This company was formed in New Jersey in 1896 and had operations all up and down the U.S. east coast, but primarily in mining the sulphur domes along the Louisiana and Texas coasts in the midst of oil country. It later got into the oil business as well, specializing in extracting the sulphur from sour crude and selling both products. It was operating its own ships by 1920. Union Sulphur became Union Sulphur and Oil in 1950, Union Oil and Gas in 1955, and Union Texas Natural Gas in 1960 before merging with Allied Chemical Company in 1962. The flag (as I said, my favorite of the whole set) is perfect for a sulphur company, as it simply reeks of brimstone--yellow with a red devil brandishing a black pitchfork.
Source: Talbot-Booth (1937)

Joe McMillan, 29 November 2001

United American Lines (American Shipping and Commercial Corp.)

  by Joe McMillan

United American Lines (American Shipping and Commercial Corp.), New York (1920-26)
This large shipping company was essentially the plaything of the W. Averell Harriman, son of E. H. Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad, whose name will be familiar to fans of the film "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."  It was financed by Averell's mother as a way for him to make his mark in business independent of his father--an interesting concept when Mom's providing all the cash! Harriman's timing wasn't the best, as he entered the passenger shipping business just when immigration laws were tightened, ending the great flow of immigrants of the previous 40-50 years. He also got taken to the cleaners in a joint venture with the German firm HAPAG, which was determined to recover from the German defeat in the first World War, and whose owners had vastly more experience in the shipping business than young Averell. Several million of his mother's dollars later, Harriman sold what was left of UAL to HAPAG. He learned from the bitter experience of UAL, however, and subsequently enjoyed considerable success in international trade, although he did not go back into shipping. He later entered politics and diplomacy, becoming governor of New  York and later U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam. He is best remembered today as the last husband of the socialite, Democratic Party fundraiser, and U.S. ambassador to Paris, Pamela Harriman. His choice in flags was unfortunately less adventurous than his choice of brides: the white letters UAL on a blue field.
Source: verbal description in North Atlantic Seaway IV:1502)

Joe McMillan, 29 November 2001

United States Lines

The pre-World War I American Line and the United States Lines, although with no direct corporate lineage, were both eventually owned by the International Mercantile Marine holding company and so ended up with the same house flag. The United States Lines was originally created by the US Shipping Board to operate German liners confiscated in World War I, including the huge HAPAG liner Vaterland, which was renamed Leviathan.

1921-29 Flag

During its initial years, the line was operated directly by the US government and used a bureaucratic LOB for a house flag, featuring a steamship propeller inside a triangle inside a circle containing the name of the line.

Source: (Source: description in North Atlantic Seaway IV:192)

Joe McMillan, 26 August 2001

1929-31 Flag

  by Joe McMillan

The company was sold in 1929 to Paul W. Chapman, a financial speculator, as part of privatization of the lines created by the Shipping Board. The only change in the flag was the addition of a red star in the canton. Unfortunately, private ownership turned out to run a less efficient operation than the USSB, and the Shipping Board was forced to resume ownership in 1931 to save the company from bankruptcy.

Source: (Source: description in North Atlantic Seaway IV:192)

Joe McMillan, 26 August 2001

1931-38 Flag

  by Joe McMillan

Although it had sought to avoid doing so, the government sold both the United States Lines and another former Chapman property, the American Merchant Line, to the monopolistic International Mercantile Marine (parent company of the former American Line) in consortium with the Robert Dollar family. IMM gave both companies modified versions of the old American Line flag, a blue eagle on white, with the initials of the respective lines added in the upper hoist and fly and lower center. A third IMM property, the Panama-Pacific Line, used a similar flag but with the eagle shown in outline with blue details rather than all blue.Source: (Source: description in North Atlantic Seaway IV:192)

Source: Barraclough & Crampton (1981)

Joe McMillan, 26 August 2000

1938-86 Flag

  by Joe McMillan

In 1937, IMM abolished the American Merchant Line and merged its assets into the United States Lines. At this point, the initials were removed from the flags and the simple blue eagle on white of the pre-war American Line was restored. Eventually, IMM decided that "United States Lines" had a better public resonance than "International Mercantile Marine" and arranged for the parent company to be swallowed up by the subsidiary. For the rest of its history, US Lines was the premier shipping company operating under the United States flag, both the largest and the most prestigious. Its flagship, the United States, was the biggest passenger ship ever built in the US and the fastest ever. But it never turned a profit, and a combination of losses from passenger service and slowness to embrace containerization for its freight services put the company in serious financial trouble by the late 1960s. It recovered briefly but went back into the red in mid-1980s and was forced into bankruptcy and liquidation in 1986. The name "United States Line" has since been purchased by a company that is running cruises under that name, but I don't know if they are also using the old USL flag.

Source: National Geographic (1934)

Joe McMillan, 26 August 2001

United States Transportation Co, Cleveland <us~ustc.gif> (Source: [wed51])
From the home port, obviously a Great Lakes company, but no further
information. Flag white with a red oval bearing the company's initials in
white.