Obligatory disclaimer that the whaling industry was terrible and cruel and decimated populations of an amazing animal that has yet to recover almost 200 years later.
But it is just so fascinating to me. The only sea occupation where your destination was literally just THE SEA. That’s it. You go out there and you don’t come back until it’s somewhat worth it, however long that takes. There are familiar grounds one would go to first, yes, but no routes, no schedules, no final destinations, no sense of when one comes back if one ever comes back. Just going to lonelier and lonelier places that no other ship is going to nor has need to go to. And when one finally happens to see another whaler it was a cause for an extended social event in ways that other maritime jobs just DID NOT have time for.
Highly diverse crews that were, of course, not without racism and inequity by any means (the entire job was…rife with inequity since idle agents ashore were already taking around 60% of the cut), but also one where one’s rank was ultimately determined by ‘can you kill a whale?’. And where the social component was so closely intertwined the fact that one would be at sea likely 3-4 years and if there was ANY surviving it and ANY success of it everyone had to more-or-less get along with each other.
And over the course of those years and years staring down aimless stretches of boredom you get the most fascinating folk art. And folk art that is so often tied to domestics. Making yarn swifts and pie crimpers and valentines for your girl outta BONES. Bones that came from the moments where that boredom was punctuated by Complete Terror.
An industry that was just like…SO violent and bloody and brutal, all for the aim of bringing back materials to make things that were so staid and domestic. Lamp oil. Candles. Corset Stays. Perfume Bases. Soaps. Just…candles paid for by so much blood from people, from animals. And was something that for such a fleeting moment was one of THE American industries, before settling, mercifully, into obscurity.
IT’S REALLY FASCINATING TO ME and so unlike any other maritime professions. I feel like piracy is the thing that comes closest to whaling in terms of all of the componants above, in a weird way, but whaling is such a thing of its own. UNIQUE AND TERRIBLE CREATURE.
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