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The Pacific Mail Steamship Company was founded April 18, 1848 as a joint stock company under the laws of the State of New York by a group of New York City merchants, William H. Aspinwall, Edwin Bartlett, Henry Chauncey, Mr. Alsop, G.G. Howland and S.S. Howland. These merchants had acquired the right to transport mail under contract from the United States Government from the Isthmus of Panama to California awarded in 1847 to one Arnold Harris.

The company initially believed it would be transporting agricultural goods from the West Coast, but just as operations began, gold was discovered in California, and business boomed almost from the start. During the California Gold Rush in 1849, the company was a key mover of goods and people and played a key role in the growth of San Francisco, California.

One of the company's steamships, the Winfield Scott, ran aground on Anacapa Island in 1853.

In 1867 the company launched the first regularly scheduled trans-Pacific steamship service with a route between San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Yokohama, and extended service to Shanghai. This route led to an influx of Japanese and Chinese immigrants, bringing additional cultural diversity to California.

The company was a charter member of the Dow Jones Transportation Average.

In 1925 the company was purchased by Robert Dollar & Co..

• Company history, hosted by the Mystic Seaport
• 2002 article about "San Francisco's own Titanic" [SS City of Rio de Janeiro] and her 1901 sinking in the GGNRA from the NPS "Park News"
• Pacific Mail Steamship Collectiona brief history with images of pioneering PMSS steamers, hosted by Potash & Company

• Editorial Cartoon, Harper's Weekly, March 6, 1875, "Any Thing But a 'Pacific Mail'". A criticism highlighting subsidies and bribery of the US Congress.