fourstacker

The ship on the left is (I believe) the Hamburg America Line's SS Viktoria Luise. Built as the SS Deutschland for the North Atlantic run in 1900, she held -for a time- the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic Crossing. She was renamed/rebuilt in 1911 and converted to one of the earliest and finest Cruise Ships, where speed was not so important. I would date this photo 1911-1914 see also

This photo (in a cropped version) is depicted in The Sun and New York press., July 30, 1916, SECTION 5 SPECIAL FEATURE SUPPLEMENT, Image 49 with article "DANISH ISLES FOR UNCLE SAM" (chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030430/1916-07-30/ed-...). The United States purchased St. Thomas (along with Saint John and Saint Croix) in 1917 for $25 million in gold, as part of a defensive strategy to maintain control over the Caribbean and the Panama Canal during the First World War. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Thomas,_U.S._Virgin_Islands

All the Charlotte Amalie photos in this set, www.flickr.com/search/?q=charlotte+amalie+st.+Thomas+bain...

The Sun used 6 of the 9 bain photos. This one's caption: "The landlocked basin - where big ships find safe harbor."

Seuss. good catch, I think this has to be the Victoria Louise, before she returned to Germany in 1914 for the duration of the war. She was definitely in St. Thomas as late as March, 1914: flic.kr/p/7zqt1q

The 4-stack destroyer at left, outboard a tender, most likely, is USS MUGFORD DD 105.

The 4-stack destroyer at right, outboard what appears to be a tender, is USS MUGFORD (DD 105)