Service Badge

United States Mail Steamship Company · 1920-1921

This badge was probably issued by a private company and not by the United States Post Office Department, possibly the United States Mail Steamship Co. which existed for a brief time in 1920-21. It was a private corporation established to operate on charter steamships owned by the U.S. government, mostly German transatlantic passenger liners seized during World War I. It failed very quickly and its ships formed part of the new government-run United States Lines set up in 1921.