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Ship History RadioAuthor: Steamship Historical Society of America
Join the Steamship Historical Society of America for tales of ships that reshaped our history as the country transitioned from sail to steam and beyond. Using exclusive oral histories and primary resources straight from our extensive archives, we focus on the vessels, crew and passengers that revolutionized the way that we traveled, traded and immigrated. Steam ahead with us as we navigate the waters of Americas rich maritime heritage. Language: en Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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The Elmo N. Pickerill Collection with SSHSA Curator Jordan Berson
Episode 25
Wednesday, 4 February, 2026
Join Education Director Aimee Bachari for a chat with Curator Jordan Berson about the fascinating Elmo N. Pickerill Collection at the Steamship Historical Society of America. Elmo Neale Pickerill served as Chief Radio Operator aboard the world’s biggest ocean liner SS LEVIATHAN for most of the ship’s career. Pickerill had already made a name for himself in the fields of aviation and wireless radiotelegraphy, and he had been to sea. He was known to be an accomplished and daring innovator with nearly 20 years of experience under his belt. The Wright brothers taught Elmo Pickerill to fly and he had also studied radio with Guglielmo Marconi.Among his accomplishments, Elmo Pickerill was credited with making the first ever airplane-to-ground radio communication, while solo-piloting a biplane in August 1910. During the flight Pickerill was said to have tapped out Morse code that was received by two stations on the beach, three different steamships, and a radio station on a New York City rooftop. This type of historic feat should have made front page headlines worldwide. But the event didn’t get any such publicity, and today due to this absence of period news reports, some historians have suggested that Pickerill fabricated the story for the purpose of self-promotion.A large volume of the papers and mementos he saved from this time period were donated to Steamship Historical Society in 1968 when he passed away. These include but are not limited to: signage from LEVIATHAN’s radio room, Pickerill’s badge, epaulettes, certification cards, 137 crew passes, 168 log abstract cards, photographs, souvenir-type objects, silver, correspondence, clippings, memoranda, books, and a very large 48-star American flag that purportedly was flown aboard LEVIATHAN.Two groupings of materials within that donation stand out as exceptional records of what it was like to work in the radio department of an early 20th century ocean liner. The first grouping is Pickerill’s photographs, that he kept in a large bound album. The second grouping are documents stored inside of two file-boxes stamped “SS LEVIATHAN” on their spines. These boxes were apparently saved from the radio room by Pickerill when the ship went out of service for the last time in 1934. Work has been going on at SSHSA to more thoroughly document and understand the contents of these boxes.Learn more about this and other collections at the Steamship Historical Society at sshsa.org/collections.
