How did a cruise line in the midst of the Great Depression draw in new customers? With the allure of unique, exclusive experiences. Even during the most brutal period for the U.S. economy, the formula for luxury cruise advertising remained the same: offer consumers what they can’t have anywhere else.

These amenities included outside-only cabins, personal baths, and on-shore excursions in private trains to exotic destinations. Luxury cruise advertising often boasts the chance to escape from the mundane, and for Americans in the throes of a tumultuous economy and political climate, escape likely never sounded so appealing.

FUN FACT: The Grace Line was originally established as a commercial shipping line by brothers William Russell and Michael Grace in the mid-1800s. Grace Line’s most successful transport? Guano fertilizer, better known as bird, well, you know. (Source: Cruise Line History)