The United States was behind. It was always behind in one simple thing that meant the world to it. The sea. For centuries the Europeans had monopolized ocean-going trade, building bigger, better, and faster ships, constantly one-upping one another. The US was not apt to compete with such ships, so they were largely shaded out by the western world. But that would all change in the 1930's when the USA launched their very own premier line, the creatively named United States Lines, and their first official vessel became the SS Manhattan. The company was ironically not born from American ships but from German ones, the United States having received many as war reparations after WWI. But they would soon begin to show off the might American engineering, building sleek vessels that, like the country, were new, fast moving, and cutting edge. By the mid-1900's it was clear that america's time had come to dominate the sea.