The New York and Cuba Mail Steamship Company, commonly called the Ward Line, was a shipping company that operated from 1841 until liquidated in 1954.The Ward Line evolved from the freight consignment company established by James Otis Ward in New York in 1841. After Ward's death in 1856, his son James Edward Ward took over and expanded the company, eventually incorporating under the name New York and Cuba Mail Steamship Company in 1881.

In the 1920s, service reductions, poor management, and rehabilitation of its aging fleet nearly bankrupted the company, but subsidies from the United States government helped to resuscitate the company. In 1929 government financing help the Ward Line build two new luxury liners, SS Morro Castle and SS Oriente. With two of the newest liners in the Merchant Marine and relatively low fares, the company was able to weather the early years of the Great Depression relatively well.

the Ward Line's reputation for safety at sea suffered a major setback. On September 8, 1934, Morro Castle caught fire killing 137, a tally that is still the highest death toll of any U.S.-flagged merchant ship. The Ward Line name was dropped in favor of Cuba Mail Line to help put these disasters behind the company, but it never truly recovered.