During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the smell of whale oil, swish of
petticoats, roar of the sea, and cries of loneliness radiated from whaling communities, such as the island of Nantucket and New Bedford. The book, Captain Ahab Had a Wife, by Lisa Norling recounts the lives of colonial sea wives, whose crucial contributions to the overall success of the whaling industry has been overlooked by historians. The book mainly concentrates on the whaling widows, who resided on the island of Nantucket and on the mainland of New Bedford, which at the time, were the primary whaling communities in New England. As one of the requirements of the second most popular colonial occupation, the captains and sailors were obligated to depart from
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their homeland, for two to five years and depend on their wives to maintain their home (Norling 2). Norling clearly expresses how “It was the women’s activities-predominantly local, daily, small in scale, often unrecorded…that kept family, household, and community going (36). The reader is able to step into the shoes of whaling wives, whose daily work was often “unacknowledged, devalued,” and considered to be simply the labor of love (155). One main message, Norling conveys to the reader in Captain Ahab Had a Wife, is how the Cape Horn widows, as the maritime women were dubbed, physically, socially, economically, and emotionally suffered for the benefit of the colonial whaling industry. Furthermore, Norling addresses how women’s labor at home was essential to one of America’s most profitable and demanding industries. By following the lives of these maritime women, Norling reveals the harrowing inconsistences between gender ideals and standards, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the beginning of the book, Captain Ahab Had a Wife, Norling analyzes the heart of the colonial whale fishing community or Nantucket.
In fact, “By the early 1770s,…54 percent of the American fleet (by tonnage) were Nantucket vessels, which brought in 70 percent of the colonial catch” (19). While working for the whaling industry, both men and women faced arduous challenges. “Whatever it was they actually did, women’s efforts were not viewed as so much different from, and certainly not competing with, but rather complementing men’s activities” (36). Women created private schools, accepted borders, worked in stores, sewed, and ran small businesses (158). Norling demonstrates how Nantucket women’s jobs were less treacherous, but as strenuous, and unpleasant, as men’s roles at sea. On Nantucket, Norling asserts the tasks women acquired, were considered to be simply “a mite.” (38). Therefore, due to the extended absences of whalers from the Nantucket community, women procured more power in the town and attained jobs, which were inaccessible to them, when the men were present.
In addition, Norling exemplifies how women were able to gain power in the
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Nantucket community, in their husband’s absences partially, because of their Quaker religion (53). Under the Quaker religion, women were permitted to possess freedom and power in their community. The main goals of the Quaker religion are unity and love, and soon the Nantucket community became united under the religion, as an extended family. Homes on the island were deemed to be public places, and often non-kin would reside together, in the absence of the whalers (72). Moreover, the author contends that for women the worst part of their husband’s extended time at sea, was not the extra labor they performed, or the authority they had to assume, but instead the lack of companionship and loneliness they experienced (78). The prolonged separation was an emotional challenge for sea wives. Due to the strength they displayed, Quaker women were dubbed by Herman Melville “fighting Quakers” (81). The wives turned to their Quaker religion for justification of their actions and comfort when their husbands were absent. In the 1770s, the American Revolution began and instigated conflicts within the Nantucket Quaker community (86).
According to their religion, Quakers are forbidden to support wars. Most of Nantucket citizens were compelled to select a side in the Revolution. Furthermore, the Revolutionary War triggered a decline in whaling ships departing from Nantucket, because Nantucket whalers previously supplied whales to Great Britain. Both the Loyalists and Patriots attacked and burned Nantucket whaling ships, causing devastation to the industry. Additionally at this time, a reform movement was happening in the Quaker religion. These three occurrences initiated a decline in the number of people following the Quaker religion, less freedom available to women and a decrease in whaling in
Nantucket. Unfortunately after the Revolution, the Quaker religion did not recover, but the Nantucket whaling industry rebounded. A new idea of women developed, which discouraged assertiveness. “New ideas about sex differences emerging in the late eighteenth century: the association of women with a set of qualities and values that included modesty, sympathy, tenderness, piety, charity, and self-sacrifice, while men…became associated with rationality, bravery, activity, and self-interest” (113). On the island, a new view of love, marriage, home, and women’s roles arose. By the 1820s, Nantucket lost its title as the center of the whaling fishery to the mainland town of New Bedford (119). Compared to Nantucket, New Bedford men were at sea for longer periods of time, and less of the male population embarked on voyages at one time. While the men were absent, women in New Bedford financially supported their family, like wives in Nantucket. With the longer voyages, it was even harder for women to maintain their relationships with their husbands. Letter writing became a crucial method for couples to communicate and maintain their relationship, while being miles apart. Another way women survived, was by concentrating on their duties as a mother. To emotionally survive, “Both women and men were forced to rely on prescribed domestic ideals about manhood and womanhood,…to maintain their relationships as husbands’ voyages lengthened dramatically” (197). Thus, the author reveals how these new ideas allowed women to subsist and justify their actions, during their husband’s time at sea. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, some women began to join their husbands on whaling vessels. Women who accompanied their husbands on the whaling ships were attempting to avoid the loneliness they experienced on land and emotionally support their partners. Unfortunately for most wives, the time they spent on the ships was extremely monotonous and the crew was often hostile to them (219). On the whole, Norling asserts how the separation between family and work was essential to the success of the whaling industry. Norling supports her assertions in Captain Ahab Had a Wife, with innumerable personnel accounts and other sources. Illustrations present throughout the book, were derived from recognized historic institutions and enhance the author’s arguments. At the end of the book, there is a section complete with eighty-two pages of notes, explaining where she gathered the evidence for her claims in each chapter. Primary sources are employed by the author throughout the book, such as the accounts from Hannah Ashley, Phebe Floger Coleman, Ruth A Grinnell, Mary Starbuck, Elijah Chase, Roland Russel, and Seth Blackmer. Often, Norling quotes Melville from his book, Moby Dick. The first chapter describes Nantucket and its involvement in the eighteenth century whaling industry. During this chapter, one source Norling commonly employs is John de Crevecoceur’s, Letters from an American Farmer. John de Crevecoceur visited Nantucket in the 1770s and dedicated a part of his book, to explaining the lifestyle on Nantucket. Norling also gained information about the Nantucket whaling industry from “Nantucket Whalemen” by Vickers and Nation of Nantucket, by Byers. The fifth chapter, is partially based upon Grinnell’s letters to James M. Sowle and Sarah Howland’s letters to Philip Howland. To support her arguments about the new ideas of love and marriage, Norling quotes Grinnell and Howland frequently throughout chapter five. In the final chapter, Norling investigates the consequences of domesticity on land and at sea. During chapter six, Norling continues to quote Howland, but combines this evidence with other sources, such as the diaries of Hannah Ashley, Julia Fisk, Harriet Allan, and Mary Brewster. In all, Captain Ahab Had a Wife is created from the combination and interpretation of countless historic accounts. Before composing the book, Norling conducted a comprehensive study of the available information, about whaling women in New England. According to the notes section of the book, Norling evaluated and interpreted the information in hundreds of documents, including reliable books, speeches, accounts of people involved in the New England whaling industry to compile the nonfiction story. Under each illustration, there is a reference to where the author obtained the picture. Norling located the copies of the pictures from historic private art collections, whaling museums in Nantucket and New Bedford, Harvard University, libraries, the Mystic Seaport Museum, historical societies, and associations. Thus the sources Norling employed are dependable, because some of the information was gathered from accounts of people residing in the time period and from individuals who personally participated in the whaling industry. Norling employed the experiences of sixty-six whaling families, involving over two hundred people, and ninety marriages to compose her book (271). Indeed after evaluating the author’s sources, the reader can conclude Captain Ahab Had a Wife is intended to communicate the facts of the New England whaling industry, its impact on women’s roles, and human history. Most people have gleaned knowledge about life onboard a whaling vessel, but Norling explores the unfamiliar life of the wives on land, who suffered for the benefit of the whaling industry. By documenting this arcane part of history, Captain Ahab Had a Wife becomes a requisite reading for any person interested in gaining knowledge about the colonial whale fishery, maritime history, Victorian domesticity, connecting with their heritage, or studying gender roles. Minimum background knowledge about maritime history and the whaling industry in New England is required to devour this book. Norling considers both men and women’s roles and the cultural norms during the years, the whaling industry in New England flourished, in order to avoid inconsistences and omissions from occurring in the book. At times, the book is repetitive, but through this reiteration, the reader is successfully able to comprehend the life of colonial sea wives. In all, Norling does equity to a story of gender bias. By the conclusion of the book, the reader is left with a profound emotional effect and a new understanding of the colonial fishery through colonial women’s eyes. Norling depicts people involved in the whaling industry and illustrates the trials and tribulations the families endured, with their husbands as simply a visitor to their homes (195). According to Norling, women and families are often portrayed as “dependents of men at sea-but on closer examination, it appears that the direction of dependency actually ran in the opposite direction” (147). Captain Ahab Had a Wife is a poignant story, which causes the reader to realize how people around the world must regard both genders as equals. Therefore, Captain Ahab Had a Wife, is not only significant, due to what the book reveals about the colonial whale fishery, but also because it insinuates how to surmount the legacy of gender discrimination.
In the book Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England 1650-1750, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich attempts to highlight the role of women that was typical during this particular time period. During this point in history in hierarchal New England, as stated both in Ulrich’s book and “Give Me Liberty! An American History” by Eric Foner, ordinary women were referred to as “goodwives” (Foner 70). “A married woman in early New England was simultaneously a housewife, a deputy husband, a consort, a mother, a mistress, a neighbor, and a Christian” and possibly even a heroine (Ulrich 9). While it is known that women were an integral part of economic and family life in the colonies during this time, Ulrich notes that it is unlikely
The Colonial society rendered a patriarchal power over women, both privately and publicly. Martha’s experiences and knowledge, “had been formed in [this] older world, in which a women’s worth was measured by her service to god and her neighbors” (Ulrich, 1990, pg. 32). Women were often merely the primary spiritual structures in the home and
James, Edward, Janet James, and Paul Boyer. Notable American Women, 1607-1950. Volume III: P-Z. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Print.
In her book, First Generations Women in Colonial America, Carol Berkin depicts the everyday lives of women living during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Berkin relays accounts of European, Native American, and African women's struggles and achievements within the patriarchal colonies in which women lived and interacted with. Until the first publication of First Generations little was published about the lives of women in the early colonies. This could be explained by a problem that Berkin frequently ran into, as a result of the patriarchal family dynamic women often did not receive a formally educated and subsequently could not write down stories from day to day lives. This caused Berkin to draw conclusions from public accounts and the journals of men during the time period. PUT THESIS HERE! ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THE BOOK.
Industrialization had a major impact on the lives of every American, including women. Before the era of industrialization, around the 1790's, a typical home scene depicted women carding and spinning while the man in the family weaves (Doc F). One statistic shows that men dominated women in the factory work, while women took over teaching and domestic services (Doc G). This information all relates to the changes in women because they were being discriminated against and given children's work while the men worked in factories all day. Women wanted to be given an equal chance, just as the men had been given.
Analysis: Melville's Great American Novel draws on both Biblical and Shakespearean myths. Captain Ahab is "a grand, ungodly, god-like man … above the common" whose pursuit of the great white whale is a fable about obsession and over-reaching. Just as Macbeth and Lear subvert the natural order of things, Ahab takes on Nature in his
Cott, Nancy F. The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977.
Jamestown, Virginia, is a crucial source of legends about the United States. Pocahontas, a daughter of an Indian werowance married an Englishman named John Rolfe and changed her name to Rebecca. In her article, “Gender Frontier”, Kathleen Brown underscores gender role and responsibility in both Native American and English settlers. Gender frontier is the meeting of two or more culturally specific system of knowledge about gender and nature. She also stresses the duties that they played in their societies prior to the arrival of the English people in the early colony in Virginia. Brown describes the difference values between Europeans and Native Americans in regards to what women and men should and should not do and the complex progression of
Massachusetts's inhabitants were Puritans who believed in predestination and the ideal that God is perfect. Many Puritans in England were persecuted for their nihilist beliefs in England because they felt that the Church of England, led by the Kind, did not enforce a literal enough interpretation of the Bible. Persecution punishment included jail and even execution. To seek refuge, they separated to go to Holland because of its proximity, lower cost, and safer passage. However, their lives in Holland were much different than that of England. The Separatists did not rebel against but rather preferred the English culture. They did not want their children to be raised Dutch. Also, they felt that Holland was too liberal. Although they enjoyed the freedom of religion, they decided to leave for America. Pilgrims, or sojourners, left for America on The Mayflower and landed in Cape Cod in 1626. They had missed their destination, Jamestown. Although the climate was extremely rocky, they did not want to move south because of their Puritan beliefs. They thought that everything was predestined, and that they must have landed on this rocky place for a reason. They moved slightly north to Plymouth Rock in order to survive more comfortably. Also because of their Puritan beliefs, they had good relations with the Native Americans. Their pacifist nature led the Indians to help with their crops. In thanks, the Pilgrims celebrated the first thanksgiving in 1621. A second group of Puritans in England, the Massachusetts Bay Company, came to Massachusetts for more economically motivated purposes due to their non-minimalist beliefs.
Puritans in the colonies had established communal and family hierarchal orders to govern themselves. At the top of the power structure was the village Pastor who over saw all community grievances and disputes, being either spiritual or worldly in nature. In the family structure the power belonged to the father or the male elder of the household. David Goldfield said, women in Puritan New England were held in high regard and given great responsibilities though they were assumed to be legally and economically dependent on the men of the families. Women’s economic contributions were indeed central to the family’s success. In addition to caring for children, cooking, sewing, gardening, and cleaning, most women engaged in household p...
As many women took on a domestic role during this era, by the turn of the century women were certainly not strangers to the work force. As the developing American nation altered the lives of its citizens, both men and women found themselves struggling economically and migrated into cities to find work in the emerging industrialized labor movement . Ho...
Often historical events leading up to the twentieth century are dominated by men and the role of women is seemingly non-existent outside of reproduction. When one thinks of notable and memorable names and events of the Revolution, men are the first to be mentioned. The American Revolution was mainly dominated by men including George Washington, Samuel Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. There is no denying that men were vitally important to the American Revolution, but what were the women doing? Often overlooked, the women of the Revolution played a key role in the outcome of the nation. The women of the American Revolution, although not always recognized, were an influential society that assumed risky jobs like soldiers, as well as involvement
A huge part of the economical grow of the United States was the wealth being produced by the factories in New England. Women up until the factories started booming were seen as the child-bearer and were not allowed to have any kind of career. They were valued for factories because of their ability to do intricate work requiring dexterity and nimble fingers. "The Industrial Revolution has on the whole proved beneficial to women. It has resulted in greater leisure for women in the home and has relieved them from the drudgery and monotony that characterized much of the hand labour previously performed in connection with industrial work under the domestic system. For the woman workers outside the home it has resulted in better conditions, a greater variety of openings and an improved status" (Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850, pg.4) The women could now make their own money and they didn’t have to live completely off their husbands. This allowed women to start thinking more freely and become a little bit more independent.
Woman and family roles are considerably different today than they were back in Puritan times. Puritans thought that the public’s foundation rested on the “little commonwealth”, and not merely on the individual. The “little commonwealth” meant that a father’s rule over his family mirrored God’s rule over creation or a king over his subjects. John Winthrop believed that a “true wife” thought of herself “in [weakness] to her husband’s authority.” As ludicrous as this idea may appeal to women and others in today’s society, this idea was truly necessary for colonies to be able to thrive and maintain social order.
Ahab is dedicated towards regaining control of his life by conquering the whale. His obsession with Moby Dick is what fuels his desire to spend months and months at sea. Ahab is so involved that he tries to get into the mind of the whale. He becomes obsessed with the whale’s every move. Similarly, the narrator is highly analytical of Bartleby’s behavior. He feels the need to know exactly what it is that makes Bartleby ‘tick’. Eventually the narrator is mentally defeated by Bartleby and is forced to change the location of his offices in order to avoid him. Ahab on the other hand is constantly chasing his antagonist and does whatever he can to get closer to Moby Dick.