The parallel editions of

the List of Merchant Vessels of the United States

The Congress (House) Documents edition of the LMVUS may well be the more readily available

and includes additional information omitted from the standard edition for many years

(new 17 May 2006)

From 1868 to 1894 the LMVUS was issued in one standard format.

From 1895 onward until at least 1939 it was also published in parallel within the documents series of the US Congress. This means that it is likely to be available in many libraries with sets of US Congress documents which do not catalogue the LMVUS as a separate publication series and may be unaware that they hold any maritime publications of any type.

One could reasonably expect to find sets of US Congress documents in US state libraries, many European national capitals, international universities and libraries in other major cities so the LMVUS may well be more widely available in this format than the other, especially outside the USA. In NZ, the International Documents section of the Parliamentary Library holds most volumes from 1895 to 1920. These are the only copies in the country as far as I can establish apart from a few privately owned copies.

Not only does the Congress documents edition hold out the hope of much better accessibility to the LMVUS than you would think from Library catalogues but for some 25 years it contains more, and more useful content than the standard edition.

Up to 1895 signal code lists were included in the standard edition as “Part I”. From 1895 until around 1930/31 the signal code lists were excluded from the standard edition and published separately as “Part VI of the LMVUS”. However, the Congress edition includes “Part VI” throughout.

The inclusion of Part VI in the Congress edition has particular significance for its additional content. One does not need it in order to know the signal code of a particular vessel because the standard edition indicates them beside the names of those vessels (around 20% historically) that were allocated them. The importance is that the signal code lists contain ownership details when the standard tabulations do not and the number of decks and number of masts for good measure (this last is particularly useful to sailing ship enthusiasts as the standard tables do not give the numbers of masts of ships, barks, schooners, barkentines and schooner-barges).

Make sure you know which edition you are getting if purchasing through the internet as the vendor may be unaware of the difference in content or possibly fudging the distinction in the hope that you do not.

Only one edition of the 1917 LMVUS was published in limited numbers for the use of naval officers. The library of the Maine Maritime Museum is able to provide access to a copy. I await information on whether or not this includes the signal code list and loss lists for that year. As this edition must be particularly rare I will be pleased to add here the names of other libraries which hold it if readers let me know which they are.

Libraries that have major sets of US government documents should have indexes to them. Search under “House” documents if you cannot find them under Congress (Congress is the House of Representatives).

Below I list references compiled from what is available to me.

List of Merchant Vessels of the United States

issued as US Congressional Documents

Based on observation and on the Catalogue of Public Documents of the ...th Congress,

published by the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington

LMVUS	Content	Congress	Congress	Congress	Congress	Congress
#	Year	#	Session	Year	Document	Volume
	ended		#		#	#
	June
27	1895	54	1	1895-96	29	34
28	1896	54	2	1896-97	38	37
29	1897	55	2		15	35
30	1898	55	3	1898-99	100	54
31	1899	56	1	1899-1900	18	56
32	1900	56	2	1900-01	16	57
33	1901	57	1	1901-02	16	49
34	1902	57	2	1902-03	16	43
35	1903	58	2	1903-04	16	43
36	1904	58	3	1904-05	16	45
37	1905	59	1	1905-06	16	38
38	1906	59	2	1906-07	16	35
39	1907	60	1		16	66
40	1908	61	2		1023	97
41	1909	61	2	1909-10	18	94
42	1910	61	3	1910-11	1026	99
43	1911	62	2	1911-12	160	101
44	1912	63	1		973	86
45	1913	63	2	1913-14	425	112
46	1914	63	3	1914-15	1449	67
47	1915	64	1	1915-16	448	99
48	1916	64	2	1916-17	1382	77
49	1917
50	1918	65	3	1918-19	1442	68
51	1919	66	2	1919-20	670	62
52	1920	66	3	1920-21	876	69
53	1921	67	2		234	69
54	1922	67	3		426	29
55	1923	68	1		30	84
56	1924	68	2		422	78
57	1925	69	1		53	84
58	1926	69	2		505	72
59	1927	70	1		30	64
60	1928	70	2		390	78
61	1929	71	2		205	66
62	1930	71	3		559	92
63	1931	72	1		40	85
64	1932	72	2		440	44
65	1933	73	2		144	49
66	1934	74	1		35	46
67	1935	74	2		340	36
68	1936	75	1		30	43
69	1937	75	2		400	21
70	1938	75	3		715	24

Only a few copies of the 49th list were compiled because of wartime secrecy.

There was no Congressional Documents’ edition of 1917.

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