Advertising the United States:
Discovering America’s flagship through prints, posters, and advertisements
“550,000 Miles.” Commissioned by Socony Mobil Oil Company, Inc, 1956, World Petroleum.
Image courtesy of The Archives of Advertising, SS United States: A History in Advertising 1951-1968.
The warm, muted colors and crowded, exuberant composition of this busy harbor scene harken back to the late 1920s and 1930s, when American painters used this style to glorify the new world of ocean liners, skyscrapers, and other industrial miracles. The use of an outmoded style was likely intended to appeal to the nostalgia of an older generation. While the text brags about Socony Mobil’s reliability during four years of use aboard the SS United States, the image disingenuously extends the record, suggesting that the company’s lubricants had greased the engines as far back as the 1930s--two decades before the ship was built.