SS President Coolidge Newport News, Virginia built the two ships, completing "President Hoover" in 1930. The keel for "President Coolidge" was laid 22 April 1930 and the ship was delivered 1 October 1931. They were the largest merchant ships built in the United States up to that time. Each ship had turbo-electric transmission, with a pair of steam turbo generators generating current that powered propulsion motors on the propeller shafts. Westinghouse built the turbo generators and propulsion motors for "President Coolidge" but General Electric built the turbo generators and propulsion motors for "President Hoover". In the "President Coolidge" twelve Babcock & Wilcox superheater
SS President Coolidge debt, and in June 1938 "President Coolidge" was arrested for an unpaid debt of $35,000. She was released in bond for a final trans-Pacific voyage, and then Dollar Lines was suspended from operation. In August 1938 the United States Maritime Commission reorganised the company as American President Lines, which then ran the former Dollar Lines fleet until the Second World War. In March 1939 "President Coolidge" was the last ship to sight the custom-built Chinese junk "Sea Dragon", built and sailed by American explorer Richard Halliburton, before she disappeared in a typhoon some west of the Midway Islands. As relations