Synopses & Reviews
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the whaling industry in New England sent hundreds of ships and thousands of men to distant seas on voyages lasting up to five years. In
Captain Ahab Had a Wife, Lisa Norling taps a rich vein of sourcesincluding women's and men's letters and diaries, shipowners' records, Quaker meeting minutes and other church records, newspapers and magazines, censuses, and city directoriesto reconstruct the lives of the "Cape Horn widows" left behind onshore.
Norling begins with the emergence of colonial whalefishery on the island of Nantucket and then follows the industry to mainland New Bedford in the nineteenth century, tracking the parallel shift from a patriarchal world to a more ambiguous Victorian culture of domesticity. Through the sea-wives' compelling and often poignant stories, Norling exposes the painful discrepancies between gender ideals and the reality of maritime life and documents the power of gender to shape both economic development and individual experience.
Review
Gracefully written, the book is about contradictions: between what society expected of women and men and what the vicissitudes of life demanded and actually produced. (William and Mary Quarterly)
Review
A thorough and penetrating history of the whaling masters' wives of Southern New England and the complex culture created through their interactions with their often absent husbands and each other. (Sea History
Review
With a deft pen Lisa Norling illuminates the everyday lives of families living in the whaling communities in Southeastern New England during the 18th and 19th centuries. (Virginia Quarterly Review)
Review
This book is required reading . . . for anyone interested in maritime gender systems.
International Journal of Maritime History
Review
Gracefully written.
William and Mary Quarterly
Review
A thorough and penetrating history.
Sea History
Review
[This book] gives a larger, more nuanced picture of whaling behind the scenes than anywhere else I know of.
American Studies
Review
A signal achievement in American women's and gender history. . . . Scholars will ignore her at their peril.
Journal of American History
Synopsis
A social history that uncovers the lives of maritime women in New England villages whose men were whalers during the 18th and 19th centuries. Norling draws from a variety of sourcesincluding women's and men's letters and diaries, shipowners' records, church records, newspapers and magazines, censuses, and city directories to uncover the women's often poignant and painful stories.
Synopsis
Gracefully written.
William and Mary Quarterly A thorough and penetrating history.
Sea History [This book] gives a larger, more nuanced picture of whaling behind the scenes than anywhere else I know of.
American Studies A signal achievement in American women's and gender history. . . . Scholars will ignore her at their peril.
Journal of American History This book is required reading . . . for anyone interested in maritime gender systems.
International Journal of Maritime History
About the Author
Lisa Norling, associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota, is coeditor of Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920.