A Ship for Peace

In the early afternoon of December 4, 1915, a crowd estimated at anywhere from 3,000 to 15,000 braved the brisk weather at a pier in Hoboken, New Jersey, in order to witness the sailing of the Scandinavian-American ship Oscar II . The ship was set for a scheduled ten-day trip across the Atlantic Ocean to Christiania (today Oslo), Norway. As the ship prepared to leave, the crowd sang and cheered as…