Synopses & Reviews
This book focuses on two centuries of early American maritime history, years when the Atlantic Ocean beckoned as the great frontier. Drawing on the records of seamen who sailed from Salem, Massachusetts, in the colonial and early national period, the book uncovers the everyday lives of several thousand seafaring men and their families.
"Young Men and the Sea provides a wonderful glimpse, as grounded as it is imaginative, into the lives of families along New England's long coast."—Marla R. Miller, International Journal of Maritime History
"Casting away what we think we know, Vickers has redefined the meaning of seafaring under sail. Distinguished by impeccable scholarship and innovative methodology, this is the most original American maritime history ever published."— W. Jeffrey Bolster, author of Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail
"A phenomenal work of scholarship, exquisitely crafted, [and] delightful to read."—Paul E. Fontenoy, Nautical Research Journal
"Through exhaustive research and fluid writing, the author is able to convey to the reader the ways in which seafaring changed during this period, and what these changes meant to Salem (and by extension, the rest of maritime New England). . . . Young Men and the Sea is an important work that redirects the attention of scholars back to the maritime dimension of New England's history. . . . Deserves a wide audience and guarantees an engaged readership."—Timothy G. Lynch, The Northern Mariner
Synopsis
Two centuries of American maritime history, in which the Atlantic Ocean remained the great frontier Westward expansion has been the great narrative of the first two centuries of American history, but as historian Daniel Vickers demonstrates here, the horizon extended in all directions. For those who lived along the Atlantic coast, it was the Eastand#151;and the Atlantic Oceanand#151;that beckoned. While historical and fictional accounts have tended to stress the exceptional circumstances or psychological compulsions that drove men to sea, this book shows how normal a part of life seafaring was for those living near a coast before the midand#150;nineteenth century.
Drawing on records of several thousand seamen and their voyages from Salem, Massachusetts, Young Men and the Sea offers a social history of seafaring in the colonial and early national period. In what sort of families were sailors raised? When did they go to sea? What were their chances of death? Whom did they marry, and how did their wives operate households in their absence? Answering these and many other questions, this book is destined to become a classic of American social and maritime history.
Synopsis
Two centuries of American maritime history, in which the Atlantic Ocean remained the great frontier.
Two centuries of American maritime history, in which the Atlantic Ocean remained the great frontier Westward expansion has been the great narrative of the first two centuries of American history, but as historian Daniel Vickers demonstrates here, the horizon extended in all directions. For those who lived along the Atlantic coast, it was the East--and the Atlantic Ocean--that beckoned. While historical and fictional accounts have tended to stress the exceptional circumstances or psychological compulsions that drove men to sea, this book shows how normal a part of life seafaring was for those living near a coast before the mid-nineteenth century.
Drawing on records of several thousand seamen and their voyages from Salem, Massachusetts, Young Men and the Sea offersa social history of seafaring in the colonial and early national period. In what sort of families were sailors raised? When did they go to sea? What were their chances of death? Whom did they marry, and how did their wives operate households in their absence? Answering these and many other questions, this book is destined to become a classic of American social and maritime history.
About the Author
Daniel Vickers is the head of the department of history at the University of British Columbia. His previous book, Farmers and Fisherman: Two Centuries of Work in Essex County, Massachusetts, won the John Dunning Prize from the American Historical Association and the Louis Gottschalk Prize from the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Vince Walsh is an independent scholar and project coordinator at the Maritime History Archive, Memorial University of Newfoundland.