Steven Ujifusa

I have had a hard time finding a recording of William Francis Gibbs’s voice, as Gibbs & Cox destroyed most of his recorded archives a decade after his death in 1967.  I had seen plenty of video footage of him, but Mr. Gibbs is mute.  In one piece of film footage, taken when the SS United States’s arrived in Southampton,  Mr. Gibbs peers back at the camera with a slight twinkle in his eye and showing the smallest of knowing smiles. I had also read through a few speeches and several pieces of his writing.   His earlier writing was stilted and formal, as if he was trying to break out of some sort of cage, and that expressing himself was a real trial.  For someone rigidly brought up in Philadelphia’s 19th century upper class world of cricket clubs and private schools, expressing one’s feelings was not high on the list of childhood priorities.  It was a closed, formal world that I believe he fought hard to escape.

Although he spent most of his professional life in New York, he always identified himself as a Philadelphian, and he also took the best elements of that world along with him, namely the culture, gentility, and old world tastes in clothing and the arts. As one friend said, he represented the best of the 19th and the 20th centuries, a man who designed the most modern ships in the world but still wore a morning coat, a homburg hat, and striped pants to church. And he maintained a strong policy of hiring without regard to ethnicity or religion, an unusual practice at big firms in mid-twentieth century America.

Yet his speeches, ones that he gave without notes in front of large gatherings, were peppered with irony, dry humor, and wisdom. His became so famous for his dead-pan delivery that he became a popular emcee at awards dinners.

When attending Yankees games, one friend noted, he was completely at ease, and his enthusiasm was infectious.  That dour expression, she said, was just an act; he saved his smile for those he knew and trusted best.

I had heard Mr. Gibbs has having a “very salty tongue,” and that his speech was peppered with short, abrupt Anglo-Saxon phrases.   His voice was one of intelligence and authority.  I heard in my mind a gravely, patrician intonation learned at Philadelphia’s Delancey School and Harvard College, one that I could easily hear quoting Shakespeare at dinner parties and using some extraordinary curse words in the shipyard.

Finally, I have come across a rare British Pathe newsreel of Mr. Gibbs speaking in front of reporters on July 8, 1952, when the SS United States arrived in Southampton on her maiden voyage.   He is dressed in his trademark battered fedora hat, black batwing tie, and gray trench coat.

To hear Mr. Gibbs speak, cue up the video to 2:30.

Selected Originals – BLUE RIBAND FIRST TRY