Isthmian Steamship Lines

Miles D. MacMahon received the Marconi Gold Medal of Achievement in recognition of his accomplishments as a professor, university administrator and educational innovator. Dr. MacMahon, an alumnus of Hoffman Island, served as a radio operator aboard Liberty Ships and troopships in WW2. He was also an Army RADAR instructor before earning a doctorate in Physics from Rutgers and embarking on a distinguished career as a university physics professor at Rutgers and a professor, administrator and innovator at Essex County College. In an academic career spanning 25 years, Dr. MacMahon introduced many innovative programs to expand life-long learning beyond the classroom.

The following is from a note from Dr. MacMahon.

"I have many photos of my voyage as radio officer on the Steel Artisan in the summer of 1959. We sailed from the Erie Basin and called at Latakia (Syria), Beirut, Alexandria, Aqaba, Jeddah, Hoddidah (Yemen), Djibuouti, Dammam, Bandar Shapour (Iran), Karamshah, Basra, Kuwait, Genoa, and back to NY. My photos include a set of 35mm slides showing the unoading of bags of wheat into dhows in Yemen and a crane lifting tanks from the hold in Iran. If you would like copies, please let me know how to transmit them and the format that you prefer. It would take some time to digitize them.

I have a crew list for that trip from the copy of the log that I obtained from the National Archives in New York. I assume that you know that logs, which show crew expenses in the slop chest and cash advances, as well as departure drafts, are on file at the archive office that covers the port at which the voyage ended. For most Isthmian ships this would be New York. Some time ago, the cost was ten cents a page. They usually black out the character reports."