The S. S. President Grant was launched in 1921 by the by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, serving as a passenger liner and mail ship initially named Pine Tree State. President Grant was idled by the 1936-1937 Maritime strike, and lay at Seattle until being taken over by the Navy from the Maritime Commission in 1940. She was reclassified USS Harris (APA-2) and served with the U.S. Navy during World War II as the lead ship in her class.

The menu pictured here is from a dinner held the last night of the crossing between San Francisco and Honolulu. At the time, the S. S. President Grant was operated by American Orient Lines (later American Mail Line) on Trans-Pacific steamship routes between the ports of Seattle, Victoria, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Yokohama, Kobe, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manila, and Honolulu. The elaborate dinner described here failed to impress the passenger who wrote a note on the back of the menu, calling the food "O.K., but the seasoning is poor and the turkey tastes just like the beefsteak."

Caption information source: "The Orient," The Seattle Daily Times, December 27, 1925, p. 26.