The United States Federal Maritime Board was an agency within the

U.S. Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for busi ...

, responsible for certain aspects of

merchant shipping Maritime transport (or ocean transport) and hydraulic effluvial transport, or more generally waterborne transport, is the transport of people ( passengers) or goods ( cargo) via waterways. Freight transport by sea has been widely used th ...

between 1950 and 1961.

History

The agency was established in 1950 when the

U.S. Maritime Commission The United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) was an independent executive agency of the U.S. federal government that was created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which was passed by Congress on June 29, 1936, and was abolished on May 24, 195 ...

was abolished and its responsibilities split between two new agencies: the Federal Maritime Board and the

U.S. Maritime Administration The United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) is an agency of the United States Department of Transportation. MARAD administers financial programs to develop, promote, and operate the U.S. Maritime Service and the U.S. Merchant Marine. Det ...

(MARAD). The Federal Maritime Board was responsible for regulating shipping and awarding subsidies for construction and operation of merchant vessels, while MARAD was responsible for administering subsidy programs, maintaining the national defense reserve merchant fleet, and operating the

U.S. Merchant Marine Academy The United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA or Kings Point) is a United States service academy in Kings Point, New York. It trains its midshipmen (as students at the academy are called) to serve as officers in the United States Merchant ...

Abolition

The Federal Maritime Board was abolished in 1961, when U.S. shipping laws were separated into two categories: regulatory and promotional. The regulatory role was assigned to the newly created

Federal Maritime Commission The United States Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) is an independent federal agency based in Washington, D.C. that is responsible for the regulation of oceanborne international transportation of the U.S. It is chaired by Daniel B. Maffei. Hi ...

, while the promotional role was assigned to MARAD. Responsibility for U.S. merchant shipping has been held by different federal agencies since 1917. For a history, see

United States Shipping Board The United States Shipping Board (USSB) was established as an emergency agency by the 1916 Shipping Act (39 Stat. 729), on September 7, 1916. The United States Shipping Board's task was to increase the number of US ships supporting the World War ...

References

Records of the Federal Maritime Commission.
(See 358.2, Records of the Federal Maritime Board)

Defunct agencies of the United States government Maritime agency U.S. maritime transport authorities {{US-gov-stub