BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: On the Water: Stories from Maritime America

DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: On the Water: Stories from Maritime America:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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[247] SIAHH2_160310_417.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[248] SIAHH2_160310_420.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?) $The Wreck of the Titanic On April 14, 1912, during the Titanic's first voyage, the ship struck an iceberg and sank in less than three hours. Some 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers and crew perished. A few of the Titanic's passengers were among the wealthiest and most famous people of the day, such as John Jacob Astor IV and Benjamin Guggenheim. But most were immigrants headed for the United States. Some 150 bodies were recovered from the North Atlantic, and about half were never identified. The best-known shipwreck in history inspired songs, books, movies, and an underwater expedition that found the fractured vessel on the ocean floor in 1985.$	[249] SIAHH2_160310_423.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SIAHH2_160308_001.JPG: On the Water Stories from Maritime America
2. SIAHH2_160308_014.JPG: Living in the Atlantic World 1450-1800 Over nearly four centuries, Atlantic-based trade shaped modern world history and life in America. Maritime commerce connected the peoples and nations that rimmed the Atlantic in a web of trade, conquest, settlement, and slavery. Europeans carved out vast new colonies in the Americas. From gold to sugar, the resources of the New World transformed European societies. The transatlantic slave trade carried millions of Africans westward to lives of labor and suffering. Ships and sailors helped create a complex new world with maritime commerce at its core.
3. SIAHH2_160308_027.JPG: How much tobacco could fit in a hogshead? About 1,000 pounds if you knew what you were doing. Plantation workers packed tobacco for shipment to England. They piled dried tobacco leaves inside the hogshead, pressed them down with weights or a screw and lever, and repeated the process until the hogshead was tightly packed. Hogshead For shipment, dried tobacco leaves were packed in large wooden barrels called hogsheads. In 1775, Virginia and Maryland exported more than 100 million pounds of the plant. Worth some $4,000,000, tobacco made up more than 75 percent of the total value of all exports from these colonies.
4. SIAHH2_160308_030.JPG: Tobacco Trade Spanish traders first brought tobacco to Europe from the Americas in the 1500s. England joined the trade in the 1600s, and tobacco became a favorite indulgence for millions. Tobacco's popularity drove much of the economy of the north Atlantic world. Colonial Virginia and Maryland produced relatively little else, and tobacco profits kept these colonies alive. Millions of lives revolved around tobacco -- Scots and English merchants, Chesapeake planters, indentured servants who worked the fields until their debts had been paid, and enslaved men, women, and children who tended and processed the plants. An international host of sailors connected them all.
5. SIAHH2_160308_033.JPG: Care of the Crop Tobacco required nearly constant attention. Indentured servants and enslaved Africans planted, harvested, and prepared the crop for shipment. These engravings show the laborious process, including drying the leaves in an open building, pressing them into a barrel called a hogshead, and storing the hogsheads. After the crop was inspected, the hogsheads were taken by boat or rolled overland for loading onto a tobacco ship.
6. SIAHH2_160308_040.JPG: Taking Tobacco Eaten raw, tobacco leaves are poisonous. But dried leaves were smoked in clay pipes, chewed, or sniffed as a powder. Inhaling powdered tobacco, or snuff, through the nose became fashionable in Spain, France, and the British Isles in the mid-1600s. Users ground their own powder with a small grater, or rasp, which they carried with a plug of tobacco in a small box. By the mid-1700s ready-made snuffs were available, and habitual snuff-takers were "taking a pinch" several times an hour. Snuff boxes, like these dating from 1750 to 1850, came in a variety of sizes and materials.
7. SIAHH2_160308_042.JPG: Wooden shoe snuff box
8. SIAHH2_160308_045.JPG: Engraved snuff box and grater
9. SIAHH2_160308_046.JPG: Wooden man snuff box
10. SIAHH2_160308_049.JPG: Ivory snuff rasp
11. SIAHH2_160308_051.JPG: Papier-m�ch� snuff box
12. SIAHH2_160308_056.JPG: The Tobacco Ship Brilliant The new Virginia-built ship Brilliant departed for Liverpool, England, in the summer of 1775. The vessel was part of the last tobacco fleet to sail before American exports stopped during the Revolutionary War. Tobacco was so valuable that Great Britain organized convoys to protect its tobacco ships from Dutch, Spanish, and French raiders. With convoy protection, tobacco ships did not need to sail fast, so shipbuilders gave them bigger holds and greater cargo capacity. Miles of Rigging This model contains 9/10 of a mile of scale rigging to mimic the 9-1/2 miles of rope rigged on the original ship. Seamen had to know the names and functions of all the ship's lines.
13. SIAHH2_160308_060.JPG: Indentured servants arriving in Virginia Slaves weren't the only type of captive labor in the American colonies. A British ship also named Brilliant arrived in Virginia's York River with a load of "choice, healthy" people who were to be sold for "money or tobacco." They were English and African indentured servants -- men and women who would work for a specified period of time, usually several years, before gaining their freedom. Imported goods from England to Virginia on the Sparling Ships brought a wide range of materials and items from Europe and the Caribbean to the Chesapeake Bay colonies. Virginia Gazette, May 19, 1774
14. SIAHH2_160308_067.JPG: The Sugar Trade Europeans introduced sugarcane to the New World in the 1490s. Cane plantations soon spread throughout the Caribbean and South America and made immense profits for planters and merchants. By 1750, British and French plantations produced most of the world's sugar and its byproducts, molasses and rum. At the heart of the plantation system was the labor of millions of enslaved workers, transplanted across the Atlantic like the sugar they produced.
15. SIAHH2_160308_069.JPG: The Sugar Craze Sugar reached Europe and North America as semirefined loaves, powder, molasses, and rum. It quickly encouraged a change of diet, and became a cheap, sweet source of calories. People poured sugar into hot, bitter beverages like tea, coffee, and chocolate. It was also used in medicines and in new kinds of cakes, candies, and confections. The pleasures of sugar hid other risks -- it sometimes replaced healthier foods in an era when malnutrition was common.
16. SIAHH2_160308_072.JPG: Rum In the early 1600s sugar planters in the Caribbean began converting the waste products from sugar making into rum. Rum was first produced to meet the local demand for alcoholic beverages and to supplement the diet of plantation slaves. Before long, it was an important export. Like tobacco, rum was used as currency by some merchants. Like sugar, it was easily packed and shipped in barrels. But, unlike sugar, it could be warehoused for long periods of time and age increased its value. Exterior of a Distillery After the juice was squeezed from the sugarcane in mills, it was boiled in large cauldrons. Impurities rose to the surface and were skimmed off. The juice was transferred to smaller cauldrons and then to wooden barrels or earthenware molds. The remaining impurities became molasses, which was processed and distilled to make rum. The entire enterprise -- making sugar, molasses, and rum -- relied on the labor of slaves.
17. SIAHH2_160308_078.JPG: New Tastes, New Trades Ships returning from the Americas carried new luxuries that transformed daily life -- sugar and tobacco. Beginning in the 1600s, sugar and tobacco offered people on both sides of the Atlantic new flavor sensations. Exotic and expensive, they made some planters in the Americas, merchants in England, and ship owners who connected them immensely rich. The price was the forced labor of millions of African people. The work of field hands on plantations in the Americas changed the lives of consumers elsewhere.
18. SIAHH2_160308_085.JPG: Barbados Pennies, 1788 and 1792 Slavery and sea power were so vital to the sugar-producing economy of Barbados that symbols of each appear on these tokens, the earliest minted coins struck on the island.
19. SIAHH2_160308_086.JPG: Silver sugar tongs, 1750–75 Used for adding sugar to a cup of tea, these silver utensils were also known as tea tongs.
20. SIAHH2_160308_089.JPG: Teatime In the early 1700s, English people consumed more coffee than tea, but tea drinking quickly grew more popular. The taste for tea -- another colonial import -- went hand in hand with their taste for sugar.
21. SIAHH2_160308_095.JPG: Web of Connections After 1500, a web of maritime trade linked Western Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Thousands of ships carried explorers, merchants, and migrants from Europe to the Americas. They also transported millions of enslaved men and women from Africa. Vessels bound back to Europe carried gold, silver, sugar, tobacco, rice, and other cargoes, along with returning travelers. Every crossing brought new encounters between people, customs, and ways of life, ultimately creating entirely new cultures in the Americas. The maritime web connected the lives of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic.
22. SIAHH2_160308_104.JPG: Sailors in the Atlantic World As maritime trade expanded after 1500, hundreds of thousands of men found work as sailors. These new seamen came from across Europe, Africa, and the Americas and brought a mixture of languages, customs, and beliefs to their ships. Conditions at sea were often dreadful, marked by hard labor, harsh discipline, poor provisions, low wages, violence, and disease. Desertion was common, and sailors from faraway places jumped ship in port cities and towns throughout the Atlantic world. . . . Turn'd away and Sent to Sea, 1747 In this 18th-century print, a young man is shown the brutality of seafaring by three unsavory sailors. While one rows, another taunts him with the lash, used for discipline on ships. The third points to the body of a pirate hanging from the gallows. His mother weeps, perhaps at the prospect of losing her son to the sea.
23. SIAHH2_160308_108.JPG: A World of Watercraft Ships, boats, and sailors tied the Atlantic world together. Native peoples and colonists depended on boats for fishing, communication, and trade with the wider world. Warships, merchant ships, and the thousands of sailors who sailed them allowed European nations to manage their empires and profit from the far-flung lands they controlled. These models represent some of the many types of watercraft people used in commerce around the Atlantic world.
24. SIAHH2_160308_111.JPG: The Santa Mar�a Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic in 1492 hoping to find a shorter route to the riches of Asia. Instead, he found the islands of the Caribbean Sea, which he claimed for Spain, though they were already inhabited. Waves of conquerors and colonists -- both free and enslaved -- followed. What was a triumph for Spain was a catastrophe for native peoples. New livestock, plants, diseases, and beliefs unsettled centuries-old communities and ecosystems, changing and destroying the lives of millions of native people.
25. SIAHH2_160308_122.JPG: The End of the Slave Trade In the early 1800s, opposition to slavery grew on both sides of the Atlantic. A few nations joined in declaring the transatlantic slave trade illegal, yet most countries took years to abolish slavery within their borders. The United States banned the importing of African slaves in 1808, but slavery remained legal until the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865.
26. SIAHH2_160308_129.JPG: British abolitionist one-penny tokens, 1834 These tokens ask, "Am I not a man and a brother" and "Am I not a woman and a sister?" Reformers in Britain and America pressed for an end to slavery as cruel and immoral. Tokens like these, designed to spread the reformers' message, were common on both sides of the Atlantic from the 1790s into the 1860s.
27. SIAHH2_160308_132.JPG: Commemorative medals, 1807 and 1834 Great Britain abolished slave trading in 1807 and gradually ended slavery throughout its empire in the 1830s. It used its naval power in the 1800s to discourage other nations from slave trading. These tokens commemorate these events.
28. SIAHH2_160308_137.JPG: African Culture and the Middle Passage These 19th-century objects came from areas of Africa that were homelands to millions of people sold into slavery. They express their makers' sense of beauty, utility, and sacredness. The objects remained in Africa, but the ideas underlying these figures, tools, and instruments -- what they meant and the cultures they represented -- made it across the Atlantic with their creators.
29. SIAHH2_160308_144.JPG: Thumb piano, Angola
30. SIAHH2_160308_147.JPG: A Middle Passage Narrative Olaudah Equiano wrote an account of the Middle Passage in his 1789 autobiography. A portion of his story can be heard at the audio station in the "Web of Connections" area on the other side of the gallery. Recent scholarship has called into question Equiano's place of birth and whether his narrative is a firsthand account. Whether born in Africa or Carolina, many scholars agree that the basic content of Equiano's narrative is a significant document that rings true.
31. SIAHH2_160308_154.JPG: Slave Ship This model shows a typical ship in the early 1700s on the Middle Passage. To preserve their profits, captains and sailors tried to limit the deaths of slaves from disease, suicide, and revolts. In the grisly arithmetic of the slave trade, captains usually chose between two options: pack in as many slaves as possible and hope that most survive, or put fewer aboard, improve the conditions between decks, and hope to lose fewer to disease.
32. SIAHH2_160308_168.JPG: The slave decks of the ship Brooks, 1788 This famous plan has appeared in almost every study of the Middle Passage published since 1788. Working from measurements of a Liverpool slave ship, a British parliamentary committee filled the drawing's decks with figures representing men, women, and children. The drawing shows about 450 people; the Brooks carried 609 on a voyage in 1786.
33. SIAHH2_160308_171.JPG: The Middle Passage Crossing the Atlantic in the hold of a slave ship, or slaver, was a horrific ordeal. Perhaps one third of the captives perished on this journey, known as the Middle Passage -- the middle leg of a three-part trade in slaves and goods between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Sailors packed people together below decks. Standing was impossible, and even rolling over was often difficult. Poor ventilation, dampness, heat, cold, seasickness, rats, poor food, and a lack of sanitation left the conditions squalid, suffocating, and deadly. Outbreaks of disease spread quickly among captives and crew.
34. SIAHH2_160308_174.JPG: Slave factories on the Gulf of Guinea (modern Nigeria) Captive Africans were marched great distances overland to Africa's western coast. There they waited weeks or months in "slave factories" for the ships that would carry them to plantations in the New World.
35. SIAHH2_160308_177.JPG: Forced Crossings The Atlantic slave trade was the largest forced migration of people by sea in history. Hard labor made tobacco, rice, and sugar plantations profitable. Buying and enslaving the people who supplied this labor ultimately became a lucrative and tragic part of the commerce in the Atlantic world's maritime web of connections. During nearly 400 years of Atlantic-centered trade, between 11 and 15 million Africans arrived in the Americas as slaves. While the actual numbers are not known, scholars speculate around 1 million people were brought to North America.
36. SIAHH2_160308_180.JPG: Pirate Captain on the African Coast, 1722 Capt. Bartholomew Roberts raises his sword to his two ships after capturing a fleet of eleven English, French, and Portuguese slave ships off the coast of Africa. The ships surrendered without a fight because the commanders and crews had gone ashore to deal with captives and cargoes.
37. SIAHH2_160308_182.JPG: Pirates in the Atlantic World With so much valuable cargo crisscrossing the Atlantic, piracy flourished. Pirates cruised the Caribbean Sea and the North American coast searching for likely targets. At the height of Atlantic world piracy around 1720, some 2,000 pirates were attacking ships and threatening trade. Many of them had deserted their posts aboard naval or merchant ships or had themselves been captured by pirates.
38. SIAHH2_160308_189.JPG: Piracy in Print, 1700s In 1724, Captain Charles Johnson published his General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. Based on newspaper, court, and eyewitness accounts, Johnson's book was a best seller. It was quickly translated into French, German, and Dutch, and spawned many other books on piracy. Female Pirates Female buccaneers were rare, but Anne Bonny and Mary Read briefly led pirates' lives in the Caribbean. Both sailed with Captain "Calico" Jack Rackam and fought beside their shipmates. In 1720, Calico Jack and his entire crew were captured, tried, and sentenced to death. But both women were pregnant, and the court deferred their sentences. Read died of a fever in prison; Bonny gave birth in prison and was set free.
39. SIAHH2_160308_192.JPG: Pirates said "Arrrgh." False: Actor Robert Newton popularized this pirate-talk standard in the 1950 movie adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 "Treasury Island." All of the familiar talk-like-a-pirate expressions and inflections come from novels and movies.
40. SIAHH2_160308_196.JPG: Pirates kept parrots. True, but... Pirates, like other seamen on voyages to Africa or the West Indies, captured parrots for souvenirs or for sale in European markets. But unlike pirates in novels and noveis, they did not keep the sharp-beaked birds on their shoulders.
41. SIAHH2_160308_201.JPG: Pirates drank rum. True; Rum kept better than fresh water and was common aboard vessels at sea. Pirates, perhaps, enjoyed more of it than other seamen. One captive aboard a pirate ship in 1722 recalled that "prodigious drinking... was the constant enjoyment."
42. SIAHH2_160308_207.JPG: Pirates made prisoners walk the plank. False: Peter Pan -- both J.M. Barrie's 1904 play and Walt Disney's 1953 animated adaptation -- popularized this pirate practice. But in reality, prisoners faced more brutal and torturous forms of disfigurement or murder.
43. SIAHH2_160308_208.JPG: Edward Teach: The Pirate Blackbeard Edward Teach (about 1680–1718) wore his thick, black beard long, adorned with ribbons. It gave him his nickname, and before battles he hung smoldering fuses from his beard to terrify his enemies. In the early 1700s, Blackbeard captured dozens of merchant vessels in the Caribbean and along the Atlantic Coast. In 1718, he raided Charleston, South Carolina, seized many ships, and demanded a ransom for "several of the best inhabitants of this place." Later that year, he was killed in a battle with the British Navy. The British fleet commander, Lt. Robert Maynard, brought Blackbeard's head back to shore to claim a �100 reward.
44. SIAHH2_160308_213.JPG: Blackbeard's Flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge Blackbeard captured a French slaver named Concorde in the Caribbean in November 1717. He renamed it Queen Anne's Revenge and used it as his flagship for the next seven months. In June 1718, Blackbeard deliberately ran the ship aground in Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. He abandoned much of his crew and fled with a smaller group, probably so he could keep more of his loot. Divers discovered the wreck in 1996. Since then, thousands of artifacts from the early 1700s have been recovered, providing a remarkable window on life aboard a pirate ship.
45. SIAHH2_160308_215.JPG: A Pirate's Life Pirates knew that if they were caught in the act, they would be hanged swiftly and without mercy. They also knew that politicians regularly issued pardons to encourage pirates to end their thievery and keep the sea lanes open. Neither the threat of swift justice nor the prospect of a pardon had much impact. Pirates tended to live hard and for the moment.
46. SIAHH2_160308_218.JPG: Maritime Nation 1800-1850 Shipbuilders, mariners, and maritime merchants helped the new nation defend itself and grow. Americans fought for independence from Great Britain in the Revolutionary War and defended their new country in the War of 1812. In both conflicts, private vessels were called upon to defend the nation's commerce and capture enemy shipping. In the peace that followed, American ships carried immigrants to new homes, exotic goods from Asia, even prospectors to the California gold fields. American seaports flourished and the nation benefited as shipping grew faster, more reliable, and safer.
47. SIAHH2_160308_222.JPG: Privateer Rhodes The privateer Rhodes carried a crew of 90. Large crews helped privateers intimidate and overpower their prey, and provided crew for any ships captured. The Rhodes was built for speed and was heavily armed with 20 cannon. Still, it was captured on a cruise in the West Indies, sailed to England, renamed Barbadoes, and used against the American colonies until the end of the American Revolution.
48. SIAHH2_160308_225.JPG: Impressment By British law, naval captains had the right to stop ships at sea, search for deserters and other British citizens, and force them to join the crews of warships -- a practice called "impressment." Some British captains seized almost any able-bodied, English-speaking sailors they could find. As many as 6,000 American sailors were impressed in the period, and American outrage over the practice contributed to the War of 1812.
49. SIAHH2_160308_228.JPG: Press Warrant, 1794 This British Admiralty document authorized Capt. John Thomas Duckworth of HMS Orion to seize, or impress, as many men as he needed to man his vessel or "any other of His Majesty's Ships." Each man recruited this way was to receive one shilling as "Prest Money."
50. SIAHH2_160308_233.JPG: Instructions for Impressment, 1794 This British Admiralty pamphlet outlines the conditions for impressing men into the Royal Navy. British warships in need of crewmen routinely bent these rules.
51. SIAHH2_160308_238.JPG: English pistols, late 1700s
52. SIAHH2_160308_240.JPG: Catch Me Who Can In this watercolor, an American privateer has mistaken the British warship Pylades as a potential prize. After the British sloop fired a shot, the American schooner fled, taunting the enemy with a flag that says, "Catch me who can."
53. SIAHH2_160308_247.JPG: Defending Independence Americans fought two wars to gain independence and then defend it against the world's mightiest naval power. During the American Revolution and the War of 1812, the Americans faced a British navy with hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of sailors and marines. Lacking time and funds to build an adequate fleet, the American government authorized hundreds of privately armed ships to attack British vessels. These "privateers" captured more than a thousand ships, called "prizes," and helped the new nation gain and hold independence.
54. SIAHH2_160308_250.JPG: Keeping Privateers Afloat In the young American nation, privateering kept U.S. port cities humming with activity. Shipyards built the vessels. Banks and insurance agencies financed and insured them. Sailmakers made and maintained acres of sails. Armorers and gunsmiths supplied cannon, firearms, powder, and shot. Blacksmiths and chandlers made ship hardware of all sorts. Farmers and grocers supplied ships' provisions, and coopers made storage barrels and kegs. Fells Point, early 1800s The War of 1812 kept Baltimore shipyards busy. Since the early 1800s, the city had been building small, fast schooners such as pilot boats, which carried pilots familiar with local waters out to guide larger vessels in Chesapeake Bay. When war broke out, an area of Baltimore's waterfront known as Fells Point began building slightly bigger schooners that could raid enemy shipping and outrun enemy blockades.
55. SIAHH2_160308_254.JPG: Letter of Marque Schooner Lynx Built at Baltimore by Peter Kemp, the Lynx carried six guns and a 40-man crew. In 1812, the owners received a letter of marque -- the official authorization for a merchant vessel to take prizes as a privateer. The Lynx served less than a year before being captured. It was renamed the Mosquidobit, and joined the British blockade of Chesapeake Bay.
56. SIAHH2_160308_258.JPG: Privateer Prince de Neufchatel The Prince de Neufchatel was one of the most successful American privateers of the War of 1812. Its mostly American crew was augmented by 18 sailors from 11 different countries. In early 1814, the brig captured nine British vessels in the English Channel. In October, it survived a battle off New England with a much larger British frigate. Three British frigates finally captured the Prince in December 1814 and promptly sailed it back to England to have shipwrights copy the lines of the speedy vessel.
57. SIAHH2_160308_259.JPG: Defending Independence: During the Revolution and the War of 1812, privately armed ships called "privateers" were officially authorized to attack British vessels and seize their cargoes.
58. SIAHH2_160308_265.JPG: Articles of Agreement, 1814 This manuscript laid out terms between the owners and crew for a cruise of the privateer Prince de Neufchatel. The owners paid for all the initial armaments and provisions. The privateer was expected to replenish its needs from captured vessels. The owners received half of the proceeds from any vessels taken. The crew divided the other half by rank. The first two men to board an enemy ship earned six extra shares, while the loss of an arm or leg earned double the money.
59. SIAHH2_160308_281.JPG: Shipwrecks Voyages grew safer in the 1800s, but storms, fires, and rocky coasts still threatened seafarers. Ever-greater numbers of people traveled and worked at sea in the 1700s and 1800s. Ship design, navigation, and life-saving methods all improved dramatically. But crossing an ocean was a far riskier journey than it is today. Storms on the high seas might be the most terrifying of the dangers, but thousands of men and women lost their lives within sight of shore.
60. SIAHH2_160308_284.JPG: Queen of the Ocean Going to the Rescue of the Ocean Monarch On August 24, 1848, the Ocean Monarch caught fire while sailing from Liverpool, England, to the United States. The yacht Queen of the Ocean rescued 30 people. Other ships picked up another 188. The ship and 178 passengers were lost.
61. SIAHH2_160308_289.JPG: The Wreck and Rescue of an Immigrant Ship The British bark Ayrshire ran aground off Squan Beach, New Jersey, in January 1850. But the passengers and crew had reason for hope: Congress had begun funding the construction of life-saving stations along the coast of New York and New Jersey two years before. The sea was too rough to launch a surfboat, and the local wreckmaster decided to use his station's life-car instead. Hauled between the shore and the wreck on ropes, the enclosed boat made 60 trips to the wreck over two days and rescued all but one of Ayrshire's 166 passengers and 36 crew. Sailing from Famine Many of the passengers on the Ayrshire's final voyage were likely Irish laborers, farmers, and families fleeing famine in Ireland. Almost one million people between 1846 and 1851 died because of the failures of the potato crop and poor distribution of what remained. Hundreds of thousands more sailed for the United States, Canada, Britain, and Australia. After the Wreck The Irish immigrants aboard the Ayrshire included 50-year-old John Woods, some of his siblings, his 30-year-old wife Lydia, and their three sons -- a 2-year-old and infant twins. The family came ashore in the Francis Life-Car. Some settled in New York, while John, Lydia, and their children continued on to Canada, where they established a farm north of Toronto. The Ayrshire Wreck The passengers and crew of the bark Ayrshire came ashore in the Francis Life-Car, January 12, 1850. Ships traveling the busy sea lanes leading to New York frequently came to grief on the shores of Long Island and New Jersey. In the 1840s, an average of three vessels a month wrecked in these coastal waters.
62. SIAHH2_160308_293.JPG: The Francis Life-Car The life-car overhead rescued the passengers and crew of the stranded bark Ayrshire. It was the first such car ever used in an emergency. Developed by inventor Joseph Francis and manufactured by the Novelty Iron Works in Brooklyn, it was installed at the new Squan Beach, New Jersey, life-saving station in 1849. Boat-shaped and buoyant, the iron life-car was hauled between the stranded vessel and the beach on stout ropes.
63. SIAHH2_160308_295.JPG: Inventing Safety Between 1790 and 1873, the U.S. Patent Office granted 163 patents for an amazing variety of life-preserving boats, rafts, clothing, and other gear. Many of them were invented with an eye toward the rise in passenger travel: life-preserving bedsteads, berths, buckets, bucket rafts, buoys, capes, chairs, stools, dresses, doors, garments, hammocks, mattresses, and even a "life-preserving hat." Few of these inventions enjoyed practical success. The Francis Life-Car The life-car overhead rescued the passengers and crew of the stranded bark Ayrshire. It was the first such car ever used in an emergency. Developed by inventor Joseph Francis and manufactured by the Novelty Iron Works in Brooklyn, it was installed at the new Squan Beach, New Jersey, life-saving station in 1849. Boat-shaped and buoyant, the iron life-car was hauled between the stranded vessel and the beach on stout ropes.
64. SIAHH2_160308_302.JPG: Chadwick Beach Life Saving Station When the first federal life-saving stations were built along the New Jersey coast in 1849, they were equipped with galvanized iron surfboats. This station, at Chadwick Beach, was established around 1850. Each station was also given an experimental "life-car" -- an enclosed boat designed to be hauled by ropes to and from stranded vessels. Life-cars made by Joseph Francis's works rescued at least 1,400 people on the New Jersey coast alone by the end of 1853.
65. SIAHH2_160308_309.JPG: Honoring Joseph Francis Joseph Francis made a name for himself in the 1840s and 1850s manufacturing light and sturdy iron lifeboats and other nautical gear. These model dies and a sample copper sheet show how his boats were constructed using grooved metal plates. Francis traveled extensively promoting his inventions and was honored in several countries. French Emperor Napoleon III gave him this snuff box in 1856. President Benjamin Harrison presented this Congressional medal to him in 1890.
66. SIAHH2_160308_312.JPG: Snuff box Gold medal
67. SIAHH2_160308_316.JPG: Model of weight for stamping metal Model dies and a sample plate for making corrugated-metal boats
68. SIAHH2_160308_319.JPG: Patent model for a boat-building method This model accompanied Joseph Francis' patent application for a new way of fastening a boat's planking together.
69. SIAHH2_160308_321.JPG: Patent model for a boat-building method This model accompanied Joseph Francis' patent application for a new way of fastening a boat's planking together.
70. SIAHH2_160308_325.JPG: Lifeboat patent model In 1841, Joseph Francis patented air-filled chambers to keep a lifeboat afloat, even if damaged. His model contained holes to allow any "water within [to] escape freely without bailing."
71. SIAHH2_160308_328.JPG: Lifeboat patent model Designers George Tremberger and Michael Joseph Stein of New York City claimed that this boat's "cabin is free to roll in the body of the boat, and consequently the effect of the rolling motions of the boat is not felt by the passengers." Among the boat's many features were a telescoping mast and hand-operated propeller.
72. SIAHH2_160308_333.JPG: Life buoy patent model Francis D. Lee of Charleston, South Carolina, envisioned a shipboard water tank that -- if drained in time -- would float free of a sinking ship. Passengers would cling to its exterior while a "treasure safe" suspended below would save "bullion, mails, and other valuables." If the buoy itself sank, a smaller cork buoy would float out of the turret at the top to "mark the location of the lost treasure."
73. SIAHH2_160308_338.JPG: Lifeboat patent model Alpheus G. and Abram T. Sterling, fishermen from Portland, Maine, designed this boat to partially flood when launched. Water allowed into one chamber helped the boat resist capsizing while air-sealed rubber fenders and a second interior chamber kept it afloat.
74. SIAHH2_160308_342.JPG: Life raft patent model This raft uses rows of air-filled cylinders as floats. The elaborate wood framework protects the floats from damage and forms a deck. The inventor, George Clark of Ecorse, Michigan, hoped his rafts would be placed on the upper decks of steamships, "...whence they may readily be thrown into the water by one or two persons of ordinary strength, thus avoiding the delay and uncertainty of...launching boats."
75. SIAHH2_160308_349.JPG: "The Sea Ran Mountains High" On September 3, 1857, the steamship Central America left Panama for New York City with nearly 600 passengers and crew. Nine days later, the vessel sank in a hurricane off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in the deadliest peacetime shipwreck in American history. Four hundred twenty-five people perished in the wreck. And tons of California gold went to the bottom. The wreck horrified and fascinated the American public and helped spark a financial crisis known as the Panic of 1857. Without the gold on board, several New York banks were unable to pay their creditors. Rediscovered in 1987, the wreck was later salvaged.
76. SIAHH2_160308_352.JPG: Ship's Speaking Trumpet, Bark Laura [1858] President James Buchanan gave this ornamental silver speaking trumpet to the captain of the German bark Laura for bringing the Central America's final three survivors to New York City. The British brig Mary actually rescued the men after nine horrific days on the open ocean. Bound for Ireland, the Mary transferred them to the New York-bound Laura. The Central America The Central America was a three-masted sidewheel steamship originally named the George Law. In 43 trips between Panama and New York City between 1852 and 1857, the ship carried as much as a third of all the gold found during the California gold rush. On its final voyage, the ship's gold cargo included thousands of new $20 Double Eagle gold coins produced at the San Francisco Mint.
77. SIAHH2_160308_354.JPG: "It blew a perfect hurricane and the sea ran mountains high." -- Merchant ship captain Thomas Badger, a passenger on the Central America Disaster! The sinking of the Central America was international news. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly and other newspapers published artists' re-creations of the tragedy. Paddle steamer Central America The Central America was a three-masted sidewheel steamship originally named the George Law. In 43 trips between Panama and New York City between 1852 and 1857, the ship carried as much as a third of all the gold found during the California gold rush. On its final voyage, the ship's gold cargo included thousands of new $20 Double Eagle gold coins produced at the San Francisco Mint.
78. SIAHH2_160308_357.JPG: Boatswain's Trumpet, 1858 President James Buchanan gave this ornamental silver speaking trumpet to the captain of the German bark Laura for bringing the Central America's final three survivors to New York City. The British brig Mary actually rescued the men after nine horrific days on the open ocean. Bound for Ireland, the Mary transferred them to the New York-bound Laura. "The worst that was feared was nearest to the truth." -- New-York Daily Times, September 18, 1857
79. SIAHH2_160308_359.JPG: Boatswain's Trumpet, 1858 President James Buchanan gave this ornamental silver speaking trumpet to the captain of the German bark Laura for bringing the Central America's final three survivors to New York City. The British brig Mary actually rescued the men after nine horrific days on the open ocean. Bound for Ireland, the Mary transferred them to the New York-bound Laura.
80. SIAHH2_160308_366.JPG: A Gold Rush Journal This journal was written and illustrated by Alexander Van Valen of New York, who set sail in January 1849 to join the California gold rush. He and four partners had formed a company to dig gold, financed by two other New Yorkers. Leaving behind his wife Susan and two daughters, Van Valen planned to be gone for two years. The group booked passage on the bark Hersilia, which reached San Francisco on August 9, 1849, 200 days after leaving New York. Van Valen's experience was typical of many East Coast adventurers. But his account of the voyage and his observations of San Francisco and mining operations are remarkable in their detail. Around the Horn For Easterners, sailing to the gold fields was a dangerous and stormy voyage that lasted five to seven months. Vessels sailed around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America, some 14,000 miles in all. Wealthier travelers could save months by boarding steamships for Panama. There they crossed through tropical jungles to the Pacific Coast to catch ships bound north for San Francisco. "It was a verry fatigueing journey...confined for near 7 months on board of a small vessel, with little chance for exercise, and no manual labor to harden us..." -- Alexander Van Valen, January 18, 1850
81. SIAHH2_160308_374.JPG: To California by Sea The gold rush drew wealth-seekers from around the world. More than a third came by sea. Glittering rumors of gold for the taking spread from California around the globe beginning in 1848. Tens of thousands of people left homes and families to chase the dream of quick riches. For most of the world, the ocean was the only way to reach California. For Americans, it was the fastest way. In 1849 alone, 42,000 Americans headed west over land; 25,000 took to the waves.
82. SIAHH2_160308_383.JPG: Gold Fever The discovery of gold nuggets in the American River near Sacramento, California, brought waves of people to the region. With no official mint, private companies soon began striking their own coins. The U.S. Assayer of Gold, a government contractor, collected and tested the gold until the San Francisco branch mint opened in 1854.
83. SIAHH2_160308_386.JPG: Gold from Sutter's Mill, 1848 James Marshall found this tiny piece of pure gold in the tailrace of John Sutter's Coloma, California, sawmill on January 24, 1848. This is the actual nugget that sparked the rush for California gold.
84. SIAHH2_160308_397.JPG: $5 gold coin, Norris, Gregg & Norris, 1849 Norris, Gregg & Norris were businessmen from New York who headed west and established a mint near San Francisco. They struck $5 pieces only and were the first coin makers in California to strike money in any real quantity.
85. SIAHH2_160308_402.JPG: Enterprise on the Water After the War of 1812, shipping expanded its reach -- and the nation grew with it. Shipping was the lifeblood of the growing American nation in the first half of the 19th century. Ships and sailors connected manufacturers and customers, farmers and consumers, immigrants and their new homes -- across the oceans, along the coasts, and up inland waterways. Ships ran on a regular schedule and began to take advantage of the power of steam.
86. SIAHH2_160308_406.JPG: Mariner's Sea Chest, 1799 A sailor's sea chest held personal items and clothing for entire voyages. It was his store, library, bank, and link to home. A heart with the name "Jan Smart" is carved inside the lid.
87. SIAHH2_160308_412.JPG: "The road from Liverpool to New York, as they who have traveled it well know, is very long, crooked, rough, and eminently disagreeable." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, aboard the packet ship New York, 1833
88. SIAHH2_160308_416.JPG: Scheduled Sailings The simple innovation of sailing on a schedule gave immigrants and the American economy a boost in the early 1800s. Traditionally, ships sailed when they had loaded enough cargo to justify a voyage. Passengers could be delayed days or even weeks waiting for the holds to fill. After the War of 1812, ship owners began experimenting with regular timetables, and the 1820s and 1830s saw a boom of scheduled shipping lines across the ocean and along the coasts.
89. SIAHH2_160308_420.JPG: Aboard a Packet Hundreds of thousands of immigrants left Europe for the United States in the 1800s. They sought economic opportunity, religious and political freedom, and the chance to join family members who had gone ahead. Many immigrants sailed to America or back to their homelands in packet ships, vessels that carried mail, cargo, and people. Most crossed in the steerage area, below decks. Conditions varied from ship to ship, but steerage was normally crowded, dark, and damp. Limited sanitation and stormy seas often combined to make it dirty and foul-smelling, too. Rats, insects, and disease were common problems. A typical packet in the 1820s and 1830s could also accommodate 10 to 20 well-to-do cabin passengers. Rich or poor, many travelers alternated between anxiety and boredom on long ocean crossings, depending on the weather. Cooking at Sea "From Liverpool each passenger receives weekly 5 lbs. of oatmeal, 2 1/2 lbs. biscuit, 1 lb. flour, 2 lbs. rice, 1/2 lb. sugar, 1/2 lb. molasses, and 2 ounces of tea. He is obliged to cook it the best way he can in a cook shop 12 feet by 6! This is the cause of so many quarrels and...many a poor woman with her children can get but one meal done, and sometimes they get nothing warm for days and nights when a gale of wind is blowing and the sea is mountains high and breaking over the ship in all directions." -- Anonymous, New-York Daily Times, October 15, 1851 This report of conditions in steerage was written by a doctor who had crossed the Atlantic many times on large American packet ships. "Reform must be made," he wrote, "to better the condition of the poorer classes of emigrants."
90. SIAHH2_160308_427.JPG: Train & Co. sailing announcement, August 1850 Imagine you were emigrating from Great Britain to the United States in 1850. How would this announcement help you prepare for your voyage? What was included in the price of a steerage ticket? What could you expect to eat while on board? What was not included with your ticket? How could Irish travelers starting in Belfast get to Liverpool, England, to catch the ship for their transatlantic crossing? This document uses traditional English weights and measures. 1 stone = 14 pounds (6.3 kilograms); 1 cwt or hundredweight = 112 pounds (50.8 kilograms)
91. SIAHH2_160308_436.JPG: Inside a Packet Ship, 1854 This cutaway reveals how travelers, immigrants, and cargo sailed together. Travelers with enough money purchased "cabin passage" and slept in private or semiprivate rooms. The vast majority of passengers, usually immigrants, bought bunks in steerage, also called the 'tween deck for its position between the cabins and the hold. In Steerage Steerage passengers slept, ate, and socialized in the same spaces. They brought their own bedding. Although food was provided, passengers had to cook it themselves. On rough crossings, steerage passengers often had little time in the fresh air on the upper deck. If passengers didn't fill steerage, the space often held cargo.
92. SIAHH2_160308_438.JPG: Inside a Packet Ship, 1854 This cutaway reveals how travelers, immigrants, and cargo sailed together. Travelers with enough money purchased "cabin passage" and slept in private or semiprivate rooms. The vast majority of passengers, usually immigrants, bought bunks in steerage, also called the 'tween deck for its position between the cabins and the hold. In Steerage Steerage passengers slept, ate, and socialized in the same spaces. They brought their own bedding. Although food was provided, passengers had to cook it themselves. On rough crossings, steerage passengers often had little time in the fresh air on the upper deck. If passengers didn't fill steerage, the space often held cargo.
93. SIAHH2_160308_446.JPG: "Interior of the Saloon of a Sailing Packet-Ship" Wealthy travelers took advantage of packets' reliable sailings to study, tour, or transact business abroad. Staterooms, although tiny, normally came equipped with a mattress and linens, a washbasin, and some drawers. Their ventilated doors opened directly into the cabin or saloon, a common area for eating and socializing. On many ships, the captain dined with the cabin passengers.
94. SIAHH2_160308_449.JPG: Coasting Connections Shipping along America's coasts was vital to the nation's economy. Lumber, bricks, cotton, and other bulk cargoes from different parts of the country spent time at sea. Many American cities were built with materials carried over coastal waters. Limestone quarried in Maine was made into mortar and shipped to New York and Boston, where it was used in building construction. Quarries in Maine also supplied granite to complete the Treasury Department building in Washington, D.C., between 1855 and 1869. Matching stone was later shipped to New York and Philadelphia for new, grand central post offices. Getting granite aboard, about 1900 Workers at the John L. Goss Quarry in Stonington, Maine, used derricks and horse-drawn stone carts called galamanders to transport blocks of granite from quarry to ship.
95. SIAHH2_160308_456.JPG: Travel by Steam Steam power promised to free ocean vessels from the whims of wind and weather. Still, steamships suffered from a variety of problems: carrying enough fuel, finding reliable engines, and supporting huge operating costs. Early steam vessels were hybrids that relied on both steam engines and sails. The Savannah made the first steam-assisted crossing of the Atlantic in 1819. But the first regular steamship crossings didn't begin until the 1840s. By the 1850s, many wealthier passengers moved to steamships while most immigrants still crossed the ocean on sailing vessels.
96. SIAHH2_160308_458.JPG: The Savannah, 1819 The Savannah was the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, although mostly under wind power. The ship's engine was auxiliary, meant mainly for maneuvering in calms or in port. In 1820, new owners removed the engine and operated the Savannah between New York and Savannah, Georgia, as a coastal packet ship, carrying cotton and other goods.
97. SIAHH2_160308_467.JPG: Granite Cap, about 1869 This granite cap anchored part of the Treasury Department's iron fence. Construction workers removed it during alterations in 1986.
98. SIAHH2_160308_473.JPG: The Rush to California Most of the fortune seekers in the California gold rush were young men. These "forty-niners" left behind families and jobs in the hope of instant wealth. A few succeeded, but the gold fields destroyed some and disappointed many more. Some enterprising migrants set up businesses to furnish, feed, and entertain the region's growing population. Merchants were more likely to prosper than prospectors. Failed miners became settlers, and San Francisco boomed. In 1850, the population of California grew from 18,000 to 92,600.
99. SIAHH2_160308_476.JPG: Nisenan Indian Man with Arrows, around 1850-60 California was a Mexican province until 1848, and the residents were mostly Spanish-speaking people and Native Americans. Both found their lands overrun during the gold rush. The flood of immigrants destroyed Indian villages, redirected waterways, and depleted food supplies. From the 1840s to 1900, disease and death at the hands of newcomers reduced the Indian population from about 150,000 to 16,000. The Nisenan were among the Native cultures nearly destroyed by the rush for gold. Sacramento and its busy riverfront, about 1850 Rivers linked the gold-mining regions with San Francisco and were vital to mining operations. Steamboats were shipped around Cape Horn in 1849 and 1850 to work the inland waterways. The Senator, seen in this view of booming Sacramento, came from Boston and made an amazing $600,000 carrying supplies and people in its first year in California.
100. SIAHH2_160308_479.JPG: Ships under the City Many gold rush ships were abandoned in Yerba Buena Cove and used as storeships and hotels, and for other purposes. Others were sunk and, over time, San Francisco was built on top of them. Later construction projects revealed the remains of several ships under the city. In 2001, the General Harrison, an 1840 vessel built in Newburyport, Massachusetts, was discovered underground near downtown San Francisco. Maritime historians studied the ship before it was covered again, this time by an 11-story building.
101. SIAHH2_160308_482.JPG: The Challenge At the height of the gold rush, a prominent trading company challenged New York shipbuilder William Webb to build the world's largest and fastest sailing ship. His answer was the Challenge, launched in 1851 and briefly the largest ship afloat. For the maiden voyage, the owners offered Capt. Robert Waterman a $10,000 bonus if he could sail to San Francisco in less than the record time of 90 days. Thwarted by violent weather, the Challenge took 108 days.
102. SIAHH2_160308_486.JPG: Miner's scale This compact scale and set of weights was manufactured especially for California-bound miners.
103. SIAHH2_160310_003.JPG: Fishing for a Living 1840-1920 The bounty of the waters has sustained people of North America for centuries. Oceans, seacoasts, and rivers have long been sources of food and profit. From tiny villages to bustling seaports, communities have harvested fish, whales, and other marine resources to survive. Even in hard times, working on the water has remained a cherished way of life for many people. As this way of life has come under pressure, they have fought to preserve it, often against mounting challenges.
104. SIAHH2_160310_006.JPG: The Salmon Coast For centuries, North America's native peoples turned to the water for sustenance. Native people have lived along the northwestern coast of the present-day United States for thousands of years. Most have lived by fishing, and mostly for salmon. These people expressed their relationship to the fish and waters that sustained them in dance, song, ceremony, and social relationships. Beginning in the 1850s, they found their way of life threatened, as waves of settlers and forced treaties took their lands, rivers, and fishing rights. The struggle to regain and preserve these rights goes on to this day.
105. SIAHH2_160310_012.JPG: Hupa and Yurok The Hupa and Yurok peoples have lived along the Klamath River for thousands of years, sustained by the bounty of the waters and trade with one another and other tribes. Along rocky seacoasts, Yurok hunted seals and sea lions, occasionally harvesting whales. They also netted smelt and gathered shellfish in tidal flats. Since the 1850s, the Yurok and Hupa have tried to protect their traditional ways of life from a series of threats: gold prospectors, settlers, and then dams on the Klamath and Trinity rivers that blocked the path of migrating salmon. Today, the tribes still strive to maintain the centuries-old relationship between the people, their homelands, and the waters.
106. SIAHH2_160310_018.JPG: People of the Coast On the coast of Washington State, native Salish people live at the mouths of the many rivers that spill into the Pacific Ocean. A seafaring people, they have always hunted seals and whales. But they also depend on the salmon that run from the ocean upriver to spawn. In the late 1800s, they ceded most of their ancient lands to the federal government and removed to the reservations where they now live. But after a century of broken treaties, a 1974 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court declared the tribes co-managers of their ancient water resources, entitled to 50 percent of the harvestable salmon. They have returned to a life of fishing for sustenance, income, and spiritual restoration.
107. SIAHH2_160310_022.JPG: Processing the Catch Working aboard a whale ship was strenuous and often unpleasant. After securing a whale's carcass beside the ship, crewmen cut away the blubber, or outer fat layer, in long strips. They hauled the strips aboard, cut them into smaller pieces, and tossed them into boiling cauldrons on deck to render the fat into oil. The whale oil was stored in barrels in the cargo hold. Very little of the whale was wasted: its bones were stripped clean of flesh, bundled, and stowed for making products to sell on shore. Depending on the species, other parts were saved. The stench of processing whales was so strong a whale ship could be smelled over the horizon before it could be seen.
108. SIAHH2_160310_029.JPG: New Bedford Whaling Bark Alice Knowles, about 1878 Whaleships were floating factories and warehouses. The top view of the deck plan shows the try works, a pair of big iron kettles where the whale blubber was boiled into oil. The lower view shows how the full barrels of whale oil were stowed below deck. Pieces of barrels, ready to be put together, were stored in the bow.
109. SIAHH2_160310_032.JPG: Whale Hoist Patent Model, 1862 After whales died, they usually floated on the water, but sometimes the carcasses sank. To avoid this sort of loss, Thomas Roys of Southampton, Long Island, patented an apparatus for "Raising Dead Whales From the Bottom of the Sea." Few American whalers tried it.
110. SIAHH2_160310_036.JPG: Mincing Knife, about 1876 Whaling crew used mincing knives to cut the blubber strips into thin slices down to, but not through, the whale skin. Cut in this fashion, the sections of whale blubber and skin were known as "bible leaves" because they resembled the pages of a book. This process increased the surface area of the blubber and helped it melt faster in the try pots.
111. SIAHH2_160310_039.JPG: Whaling American whaling flourished from the late 1700s through the mid-1800s. Hundreds of ships left American ports, hunting the planet's largest living creatures. Commercial whaling began in the Atlantic, but as whale populations declined, the chase spread to the Pacific and Arctic oceans. While whalebone and ivory were valuable, a whaler's main profits came from the oil derived from whale blubber.
112. SIAHH2_160310_050.JPG: African Americans and Whaling Commercial whaling in the 1800s was far more integrated than most trades on land, and racial prejudice was generally more muted on whaleships than in society at large. Black and white whalers had to work side by side to get the job done -- and to survive. Many owners of whaleships were Quakers, a religious group opposed to slavery. Some New England towns were also important stops on the Underground Railroad, an informal network that provided safe passage to people trying to escape slavery. And these towns needed seamen, including free black people and those who had escaped slavery.
113. SIAHH2_160310_054.JPG: Master Shipbuilder John Mashow (1805–1893) John Mashow was born enslaved in South Carolina. By unknown means he found his way to Dartmouth, Massachusetts, apprenticed to a local shipbuilder, and then set up his own shipyard. Mashow's yard at Padanarum designed more than 100 ships and built about 60, including 14 whaleships. When his yard closed, he received a public testimonial as "a thorough, practical master shipbuilder and a most worthy and respected citizen." Blacksmith and Inventor Lewis Temple (about 1800–1854) Lewis Temple was born into slavery about 1800 in Richmond, Virginia. By 1829, he had moved to New Bedford. Whether he bought his freedom or escaped from slavery is unknown. He set up a blacksmith shop and in 1848 made an important improvement in harpoon design. The Temple iron featured a toggle at the harpoon's tip that helped hook a whale more securely. Whalers around the world quickly adopted Temple's idea, which he never patented. He died in May 1854, unrecognized and in debt.
114. SIAHH2_160310_058.JPG: Builder's Half Hull, Whaleship Jireh Swift The Jireh Swift sailed to the northern Pacific on its first voyage, which lasted nearly four years. The crew collected 2,719 barrels of whale oil and 14,900 pounds of bone. During the vessel's third voyage, on June 22, 1865, it was captured by the Confederate raider Shenandoah and burned, for a loss of more than $40,000.
115. SIAHH2_160310_062.JPG: Pursuing the Whale Whaling meant long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of intense, dangerous activity. When a lookout aboard the ship spotted a whale, crewmen lowered small boats over the side and rowed hard in its direction. As they approached, the harpooner threw a barbed harpoon at the whale, and crewmen quickly thrust sharp lances into its body to hasten death. Then whaleboats towed the carcass back to the ship.
116. SIAHH2_160310_067.JPG: The Whaleboat Light and fast, a whaleboat commonly had a crew of six men. One steered from the stern (back) of the boat when approaching the whale. After the oarsman in the bow (front) harpooned the whale, he took over steering. Various members of the crew killed the whale, tended the lines (ropes), and pulled the oars to return to the ship. Whaleboats were crowded with gear. Line tubs carried enough rope to allow the whale to swim a safe distance from the boat until it tired. Lances, spades, and extra harpoons were kept on board, along with buckets for bailing. Whaleboats also carried a sail, a compass, a foghorn, and a keg of drinking water in case they were separated from the mother ship by a storm or fog.
117. SIAHH2_160310_070.JPG: Darts of Death Whalers stood in small boats buffeted by pitching waves, trying to kill a powerful, thrashing creature. It was a grisly, dangerous business. The first dart thrown into a whale's back was a long, sharp, barbed harpoon, followed quickly by a second one, both attached to long lines coiled in tubs in the whaleboat. Harpoons were made of soft iron so they would bend and not break from a whale's violent thrashing. After the harpoon came the lance, or killing iron. Its sharp oval- or leaf-shaped tip let the whaler do the job quickly. Other crewmen jabbed sharp-edged boat spades at a whale's tail tendons to immobilize the animal -- the most dangerous act in whaling.
118. SIAHH2_160310_075.JPG: The Whaleboat Light and fast, a whaleboat commonly had a crew of six men. One steered from the stern (back) of the boat when approaching the whale. After the oarsman in the bow (front) harpooned the whale, he took over steering. Various members of the crew killed the whale, tended the lines (ropes), and pulled the oars to return to the ship. Whaleboats were crowded with gear. Line tubs carried enough rope to allow the whale to swim a safe distance from the boat until it tired. Lances, spades, and extra harpoons were kept on board, along with buckets for bailing. Whaleboats also carried a sail, a compass, a foghorn, and a keg of drinking water in case they were separated from the mother ship by a storm or fog.
119. SIAHH2_160310_078.JPG: Scrimshaw Panbone, 1800s This panbone, part of a sperm whale's jaw, served as a sailor's canvas. He drew a busy whale hunt -- seven whaleboats chasing a pod of whales. The background depicts the coast of Ternate, one of the Spice Islands in Indonesia.
120. SIAHH2_160310_081.JPG: Ivory Jagging Wheel, 1800s Pie crimpers, or jagging wheels, were common scrimshaw items made by American whalemen. The fluted wheel was used to cut dough or seal the top of a piecrust.
121. SIAHH2_160310_086.JPG: Scrimshaw Food Chopper, 1800s This food chopper, or mincer, was carved in two pieces from the jawbone of a sperm whale. The blunt, curved blade was used to chop soft foods such as bread dough, fruits, sausage, and animal fats.
122. SIAHH2_160310_090.JPG: Panbone Port Scene, 1800s This freehand sketch of an imaginary port scene includes a warship, a lighthouse, a military camp, and even a turreted medieval castle.
123. SIAHH2_160310_092.JPG: Crew List, 1876 Every voyage began with assembling a crew. In May 1876, the small 106-foot bark Bartholomew Gosnold signed a crew of 31 men for its next voyage from New Bedford. Less than half were from the United States; the rest were from Portugal, England, Ireland, Germany, France, and Scotland; two were listed as blacks. The oldest crewman was in his forties; the youngest was sixteen.
124. SIAHH2_160310_095.JPG: Scrimshaw Tooth, 1840–45 View Object Record Women and ships were the most popular subjects for scrimshaw carved by crewmen on whaling voyages. In this example, a young lady, possibly in mourning dress, gazes longingly at an open locket containing a picture of a young man. Polychrome Scrimshaw Whale Tooth [1865-1869] Polychrome Scrimshaw Tooth, 1865--69 Even whalemen with little or no artistic talent could carve highly detailed scenes like this with the pinprick technique. A picture cut from a magazine was pasted or dampened and wrapped on the polished surface of a sperm whale's tooth. The whaler pushed a sharp pin through the lines of the image, then removed it, leaving the dots on the surface. He engraved the picture by connecting the dots and rubbing black soot or colored pigments into the lines. USS Alaska Scrimshaw Sperm Whale Tooth [1878] USS Alaska Commemorative Tooth, 1878 This massive tooth of a sperm whale records the visit of the sloop of war USS Alaska to Talcahuano, Chile, in September 1878. Fifty-four of Alaska's crew went absent without leave, and three more were confined to leg irons and handcuffs for their behavior on shore. Sperm Whale Tooth Watch Stand, 1800s This unfinished tooth is hollowed out from the back to hold a gentleman's pocket watch.
125. SIAHH2_160310_098.JPG: Scrimshaw Tooth, 1840–45 Women and ships were the most popular subjects for scrimshaw carved by crewmen on whaling voyages. In this example, a young lady, possibly in mourning dress, gazes longingly at an open locket containing a picture of a young man.
126. SIAHH2_160310_101.JPG: Logbook, Whaling Bark Virginia of New Bedford, 1840 This logbook chronicles the Virginia's voyage through the Pacific whaling grounds. The December 16 entry tells the story of two whales that were caught and processed. The figures inside the whale stamps show the barrels of oil taken from each whale. The last word, "Amanda," reveals the writer's homesickness. Her name appears often, as do the words "home sweet home."
127. SIAHH2_160310_103.JPG: A Whaler's Tale, 1800s In early 1841, at age 21, Herman Melville shipped out on a voyage to the Pacific Ocean aboard the whaler Acushnet. He deserted in the Marquesas Islands after only 18 months and then served briefly on other ships. His time at sea supplied the background for his novel Moby-Dick, or The Whale, published in 1851. The first American edition of Moby-Dick sold poorly and netted Melville only $556.37. In the 1920s, however, the book's reputation began to rise. Illustrated by American artist Rockwell Kent, this 1930 edition of Moby-Dick introduced whaling to thousands of Americans. Life on the Long Voyage Crewmen on American whaleships came from all over the globe. Their work was hard, dirty, smelly, dangerous, lonely, and poorly paid, but some still liked it better than their prospects ashore. Whaling threw together men from vastly different backgrounds. Many had no nautical skills at the beginning of a voyage and had to learn them on the spot. Even in well-run ships, the living quarters were often dank and infested with vermin. Aboard some ships, crewmen might work for two or three long, dangerous years only to find at the voyage's end that they owed the shipowner money for medicine, tobacco, or other supplies. Some whalers loved the sea, but the romance of whaling was mostly in novels.
128. SIAHH2_160310_105.JPG: Passing the Time at Sea During their idle hours, whalemen produced scrimshaw for family members, sweethearts, and friends. Scrimshaw refers to decorative and utilitarian objects carved from bone, ivory teeth, and baleen, and to designs engraved on the same materials. Some whalemen sketched their designs freehand, but more often they copied or traced drawings from popular publications. The subjects often included whaling ships and details of the whale hunt, racy images of women, patriotic motifs, and idealized images of home and family. South Sea Whale Fishery, about 1835 In the foreground of this fanciful print, a whaleboat approaches a wounded right whale. The harpooner stands in the bow to deliver the killing lance behind the fin. Behind is the mother ship, with a crew cutting in, or trimming, long strips of fat off a floating whale.
129. SIAHH2_160310_121.JPG: Capturing a Sperm Whale, after 1835 The most dangerous part of a dangerous job was working in a whaleboat. Gravely wounded, a whale was still strong enough to break a boat in half and flip crewmen into the water. This painting is a copy of what may be the first American whaling print, issued in 1835. It is derived from a sketch by whaler Cornelius Hulsart, who lost an arm on the whaling ship Superior.
130. SIAHH2_160310_127.JPG: Injury and Sickness at Sea Whaling was a dangerous way to make a living. Crews spent years on the ocean, far from land and medical help. Drowning was an ever-present risk, and few sailors in the 1800s could swim. A fall from the rigging, a slip on an oily deck, a tool or weapon in the hands of an angry shipmate, a stumble, a foot caught in a coil of rope -- all could cause permanent injury or death. Other hazards to a crewman's health were not so obvious. Scurvy, venereal disease, rickets, tetanus, and poor diets afflicted the crews of whalers and merchant ships alike.
131. SIAHH2_160310_132.JPG: For Light and Fashion For centuries, the bodies of whales furnished dozens of valuable products -- from whale oil to skirt hoops. As a result, whales were hunted nearly to extinction by the late 1800s. Ivory and Bone Swift, 1800s Swifts, or yarn-winders, were an extra pair of hands for a knitter. They held skeins of yarn or thread while it was being wound onto spools or rewound into measured lengths. This large swift was fastened to the edge of a table with the clamp on the bottom.
132. SIAHH2_160310_136.JPG: Corset and Busks, mid-1800s For much of the 1800s, ladies' fashion required very small waists. Most women attained this shape by wearing tight-laced corsets stiffened by pieces of whalebone known as busks. One of the most intimate pieces of scrimshaw a whaleman could produce was a carved whalebone busk for a loved one's corset. Each of these busks has a cityscape etched into one side. The other side of one has eight pictures, topped by a portrait of a beautiful young woman. The other has a plaintive love poem on the back.
133. SIAHH2_160310_150.JPG: Commercial Fisher In the 1800s, American fishers reaped ever-larger harvests from the waters to feed a growing nation. By 1880, there were 43 distinct fisheries around the country, employing more than 130,000 people in fishing and related industries ashore. In this era, the Atlantic cod, Chesapeake oyster, and Columbia River salmon fisheries all flourished. Whole communities grew around these industries, often built by immigrants who used their knowledge of fishing to build successful enterprises and distinctive places. Though these fisheries continued to thrive for decades, by the end of the 20th century, each was in crisis.
134. SIAHH2_160310_153.JPG: Atlantic Cod Two centuries before the arrival of the Pilgrims, explorers reported an abundance of enormous cod in the waters of present-day New England and Atlantic Canada. English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold was so impressed that he changed the name of Cape Saint James to Cape Cod in 1602. Salt cod was an essential element in the web of early Atlantic commerce, but cod were not harvested on an industrial scale until the mid-1800s. As waves of immigrants reached America, the nation's cities, industries, and population all grew. Commercial fisheries grew with them.
135. SIAHH2_160310_157.JPG: Gloucester: Fishing on the Banks The New England cod fishery grew explosively in the mid-1800s. Men of Italian, Canadian, West Indian, and especially Portuguese descent flocked to Gloucester, Massachusetts, to find work in the fisheries and escape the discrimination they encountered in other New England communities. By 1888, approximately 200 Portuguese families lived in Gloucester, making it the largest Portuguese community on the East Coast. By the late 1880s, nearly 400 vessels fished out of Gloucester.
136. SIAHH2_160310_161.JPG: Gloucester Schooners Schooners were built around Gloucester, Massachusetts, beginning about 1713. These vessels had large holds for fish and supplies, but they were also designed for speed to reach fishing grounds quickly. With fishing so profitable, owners demanded ever larger and faster vessels. They got what they wanted -- longer, wider hulls to carry more fish and immense amounts of sail to catch more wind. But safety was sacrificed for speed. Many schooners were dangerously top-heavy and prone to capsizing in storms. They were also hazardous for the men who clambered out on the long bowsprit to tend the sails. Schooner bowsprits came to be known as "widow makers." The George's Bank Cod Fishery Fishermen using hand-lines stood at the rail of the schooner, each fishing a single line that had a spreader and two hooks. One fishermen is using a gaff to bring in a fish, one is cutting out the cod's tongue -- the method used to keep track of how many fish were caught by each fisherman -- and the third is tending his line. George's Bank fishermen used about 900 feet of line. Hauling in a pair of cod by hand took about thirty minutes.
137. SIAHH2_160310_164.JPG: A Terrible Mortality Gloucester's dependence on the North Atlantic meant a close acquaintance with tragedy and death. "The history of the Gloucester fisheries has been written in tears," wrote an anonymous reporter in 1876. Between 1866 and 1890, more than 380 schooners and 2,450 Gloucester men never returned from the fishing grounds. In a single storm on August 24, 1873, nine Gloucester vessels and 128 fishermen were lost. In 1865, community members formed the Gloucester Fisherman's and Seaman's Widows and Orphan's Aid Society Fund to help fishermen's families.
138. SIAHH2_160310_169.JPG: Widows' Home This house was built for fishermen's widows in Gloucester around 1870. It had ten apartments of three rooms each. Rent for each apartment was $3 per month.
139. SIAHH2_160310_171.JPG: Our Lady of Good Voyage Portuguese families in Gloucester have worshiped at Our Lady of Good Voyage Church since 1893. The statue on the second level shows the church's namesake holding a boat in her left hand, symbolizing a safe voyage.
140. SIAHH2_160310_174.JPG: "When will the slaughter cease?" In 1882, Capt. Joseph Collins asked this question in Gloucester's newspaper, the Cape Ann Weekly Advertiser. Too many fishermen perished at sea, and Collins and others lobbied for new schooner designs featuring deeper, more stable hulls and sail plans that didn't require a long bowsprit, the spar that projected forward from the bow.
141. SIAHH2_160310_176.JPG: What Happened to Cod? After the peak catches of the 1880s, Gloucester fishermen continued to work coastal and offshore waters. In the 20th century, they typically used diesel- and gasoline-powered vessels called trawlers that pulled large nets to catch cod, haddock, flounder, and other fish. Foreign trawlers began to appear in the 1950s, and a decade later huge factory trawlers from nations around the globe were capturing tons of fish. In 1977, the United States and Canada banned foreign trawlers from the fishing grounds. With foreign competition gone, the American and Canadian fleets soon expanded and the stocks of cod declined further. In the 1990s, both nations agreed to close much of George's Bank to fishing for bottom-dwelling species like cod. Today, most cod at supermarkets was not caught in the North Atlantic.
142. SIAHH2_160310_178.JPG: Cod Coffin In 1992, Canada declared a moratorium on cod fishing in its Atlantic coastal waters. Fisherman Dan Murphy of Dunville, Newfoundland, made this cod-in-a-coffin to express his view of the decision and its impact on his livelihood. He sold these coffins at a local flea market.
143. SIAHH2_160310_181.JPG: Hand-line This hand-line -- a reel with fishing line, a sinker, and hooks -- was the type used in the 1880s.
144. SIAHH2_160310_183.JPG: It's Good for You Cod liver oil was a byproduct of the cod fishery. The oil contains essential vitamins and helped prevent rickets, a common disease among malnourished children in the late 1800s. Children dreaded the taste of their daily dose, and this sample from the early 1900s recommends three doses a day.
145. SIAHH2_160310_185.JPG: Chesapeake Oysters Chesapeake Bay's bounty of fish and shellfish amazed and delighted early travelers. Oysters were first among the bay's wonders, described as "very large and delicate in taste" and thriving in "whole banks and beds." Out of the shell, oysters quickly go bad. Until the 1800s, most Chesapeake oysters were harvested for local consumption. By the mid-1800s, shucked oysters could be packed in ice or canned for shipment to distant markets. As American cities grew, demand for oysters surged, and Chesapeake oysters found ready markets in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Minneapolis, and points west. The Bay From its headwaters in New York State to its mouth near Norfolk, Virginia, the Chesapeake watershed covers some 64,000 square miles. Fresh water from many tidal rivers, including the Susquehanna, the Potomac, and the James, mixes with the salty Atlantic around Norfolk to produce the largest and most productive estuary in the country.
146. SIAHH2_160310_188.JPG: Baltimore: Oyster City "Baltimore lay very near the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay, and out of the bay it ate divinely." -- H. L. Mencken, Happy Days, 1940 Canning -- preserving food by boiling it in cans or jars -- was developed in France in the early 1800s. By the 1840s, oyster canning was an established industry in Baltimore. The oyster beds nearby, and the city's growing population of workers and rail connections, made Baltimore the center of canning in the country. By 1870, there were more than 100 packing houses in the city.
147. SIAHH2_160310_190.JPG: Oysters for Sale Oysters were for sale even at the J. M. Karmany meat market in the small town of Mankato, Minnesota, in 1881. Cove Oysters Thomas Kensett, an Englishman, began canning food in New York in the 1810s. His son and namesake was one of the first to process oysters in Baltimore, beginning in 1849. "Cove" on the label refers to Cove Street, a lane in Baltimore where several oyster houses were located. Cannery Workers Thousands of people worked in Baltimore's canneries, packing oysters in winter and fruits and vegetables in summer. Many immigrants, especially women from Eastern Europe, worked opening oysters. In this 1914 image they are opening, or "shucking," steamed oysters, a process that loosened the oyster muscle and separated the shells, making the work less difficult.
148. SIAHH2_160310_194.JPG: Oyster Shuckers on the Shore After the Civil War, many African Americans found work in the Chesapeake seafood industries. Packing houses in small communities such as Crisfield, on the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, primarily employed African American women as oyster shuckers. In this 1891 image, the workers are atop the detritus of their handiwork -- a pile of oyster shells.
149. SIAHH2_160310_196.JPG: Tongers, Dredgers, and the Oyster Police In the mid-1800s, Chesapeake watermen hauled in millions of bushels of oysters to meet the national demand. The harvest peaked in the 1884-85 season, when 15 million bushels were taken from the bay. Competition among oystermen was fierce. Tongers used long-handled tongs to pry oysters from the bottom a few at a time. They were up against much larger vessels that used the most efficient harvesting gear available -- dredges. Separate oyster grounds were designated for tongers and dredgers. Yet by 1868, the situation had become so dangerous that Maryland organized the Oyster Police to keep the peace on the oyster grounds.
150. SIAHH2_160310_199.JPG: A Heritage in Oysters Oysters helped build communities around Chesapeake Bay. For generations, watermen and their families made a living from the local waters. Scratch the surface of places like Crisfield, Cambridge, Oxford, St. Michaels, Galesville, Solomons, or Smith Island, Maryland, and you'll find a heritage in oysters. No church supper, community festival, or Thanksgiving feast was complete without oysters -- stewed, fried, steamed, raw, or baked into a pie.
151. SIAHH2_160310_202.JPG: What Happened to Chesapeake Oysters? Harvests of Chesapeake oysters declined throughout the 1900s. Despite limits on harvests and programs to seed oyster beds, the resource never rebounded. Two diseases -- MSX and Dermo -- continue to decimate the small remaining oyster populations. Most experts agree that a combination of factors -- overharvesting, silting, pollution, and disease -- contributed to the virtual disappearance of the Chesapeake Bay's oyster bounty. Without oysters, many watermen's communities around the bay have also suffered.
152. SIAHH2_160310_209.JPG: Baltimore Oyster Tins
153. SIAHH2_160310_211.JPG: Oysters and the Pure Food Laws Outbreaks of typhoid fever and other illnesses persuaded the U.S. Congress to pass Pure Food Laws in 1906. Several of the new regulations were aimed at the oyster industry. The laws regulated oyster beds, packing houses, shellfish sources, shipping methods, and labeling. To restore public confidence, the oyster industry publicized the sanitary conditions under which oysters were handled and the high standards used in packing fresh oyster meats. Oyster tins were stamped with packers' certification numbers and advertised the oysters inside as fresh, pure, healthful, and (of course) delicious.
154. SIAHH2_160310_213.JPG: "The largest genuine Maryland oyster -- the veritable bivalve of the Chesapeake...is as large as your open hand. A magnificent, matchless reptile! Hard to swallow? Dangerous? Perhaps to the novice, the dastard. But to the veteran of the raw bar, the man of trained and lusty esophagus, a thing of prolonged and kaleidoscopic flavors, a slow sipping saturnalia, a delirium of joy!" -- H. L. Mencken, 1913
155. SIAHH2_160310_216.JPG: Columbia River Salmon The Columbia is the largest river of the American West, and its annual migrations of Chinook salmon were once spectacles of nature. These prized fish, some weighing more than 70 pounds, churned the waters as they returned upstream to reproduce. For centuries, salmon have been central to the diet, economy, and culture of the river's native peoples. In the 1860s, American entrepreneurs established canneries on the river and brought the taste of salmon to people from England to Australia. But decades of commercial fishing and canning also brought dramatic change to the region's landscape, environment, and culture. The River The Columbia River flows 1,200 miles from southeastern British Columbia to the Pacific. It forms the border between Oregon and Washington.
156. SIAHH2_160310_220.JPG: Columbia River Canneries Fresh, salted, dried, and smoked -- these were the options for preserving and eating salmon before the spread of canning technology in the mid-1800s. William Hume, his brother George, and their friend Andrew Hapgood established the first cannery on the Columbia River in 1866. Other companies followed, as did fishermen, laborers, and merchants. By 1883, there were 55 canneries on the Columbia, and the Pacific salmon industry was among the most valuable fisheries in the world. That year, the best ever, the canneries piled up 630,000 cases of salmon -- 30.2 million one-pound cans.
157. SIAHH2_160310_223.JPG: A Monument to Salmon Beacon Brand salmon from Astoria borrowed the most famous American beacon of all, the Statue of Liberty, for its label. Lady Liberty is shown in New York Harbor holding a big salmon in one hand and a can in the other. Little Scandinavia The Pacific Northwest's logging, fishing, and maritime industries attracted many Scandinavian immigrants. Fishermen from Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark settled around the mouth of the Columbia River to work in the salmon industry. The Scandinavian influence on these communities was reflected in boat design and construction, foodways, language, and other cultural forms of expression.
158. SIAHH2_160310_225.JPG: Fishing at the Falls Between 1850 and 1900, the Indian population along the Columbia declined by 95 percent due to disease, death, and displacement. The non-native population increased 1,000 percent. Native peoples held onto some of their traditional fishing sites, including Celilo Falls. They used dip nets to capture fish, keeping some for food and selling the rest to the canneries.
159. SIAHH2_160310_228.JPG: Chinese Workers In the canneries, gangs of butchers beheaded, cleaned, and cut the fish into pieces. On the Columbia River after 1872, this work was done exclusively by Chinese men, who were supplied by Chinese labor contractors based in San Francisco. The expert cutters could clean 1,700 fish a day. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited new Chinese laborers from entering the United States, and by the 1890s the canneries felt the shortage of skilled laborers. They recruited Japanese, Filipino, and Mexican laborers to fill the gap, but many cannery owners insisted the Chinese butchers were the best in the business.
160. SIAHH2_160310_232.JPG: A Mechanical Fish Dresser Cannery operators mechanized as many aspects of canning as possible to increase production with fewer laborers. But butchering and cleaning the fish remained hand work, which created a production bottleneck during heavy runs of fish. In 1903, Edmund Smith of Seattle introduced his "machine for dressing fish," and its success marked the beginning of the end for Chinese fish butchers. "Iron Chink" The common name for Smith's machine was the "Iron Chink," a term that acknowledged the superior skills of Chinese butchers and insulted them with an ethnic slur. The machines were installed at canneries along much of the coast.
161. SIAHH2_160310_234.JPG: Pacific Salmon The North Pacific is home to five species of salmon and steelhead, a migratory form of trout. Each kind of salmon is known by different names: Chinook (king), sockeye (red), coho (silver), chum (dog), and pink (humpback). All are commercially valuable, but the Chinook were the prize of the Columbia River system.
162. SIAHH2_160310_237.JPG: What Happened to Columbia River Salmon? In the mid-1800s, stocks of salmon on the Columbia River began to diminish quickly. Scientists advocated a hatchery program in the 1870s, but the dwindling salmon runs were not solely due to too many fishermen and too few fish. As the region grew, spawning areas upstream were affected by mining, agriculture, logging, urbanization, and industry. Hydroelectric dams on the river provided power to vast areas of the American West at the price of disrupting annual migrations of fish. Most of the Pacific wild salmon available in the United States today are from Alaska.
163. SIAHH2_160310_240.JPG: Remembering the fishing In 1997 a group of poets, writers, teachers, and artists organized the first Fisher Poets gathering. Modeled after the annual Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko, Nevada, the Fisher Poets event is held every February in Astoria, Oregon, and features readings, music, art, and camaraderie dedicated to fish and the fishing life. This flyer, button, and booklet are from the 2005 gathering at the Wet Dog Caf� in downtown Astoria.
164. SIAHH2_160310_243.JPG: Remembering the butterfly fleet Astoria native Frankye Thompson made this object to call attention to her community's past. The photo shows the fleet of sailing gillnetters around the turn of the 20th century. Called the "Butterfly Fleet" by Astorians, these vessels symbolize the town's fishing heritage. The photo is mounted on half of a cedar net float. Ms. Thompson makes souvenirs from surplus floats for the growing tourist trade.
165. SIAHH2_160310_245.JPG: River Towns, River Networks People followed waterways, from canals to great rivers, to build businesses, communities, and new lives. The Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and other rivers knit together the American nation over the course of a century. In an era before widespread highways and railroads, the farms and industries of the Midwest poured their goods downriver to markets around the world. The boomtowns of the century -- New Orleans, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and many others -- thrived and grew on this waterborne commerce. Waterways were so valuable that the nation began building them. The Erie Canal was one.
166. SIAHH2_160310_248.JPG: A Mississippi Riverboat The sidewheel steamboat J. M. White was designed for passenger service between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Greenville, Mississippi. The vessel was a masterpiece of the gaudy, glamorous style known as Steamboat Gothic and was one of the largest, most expensive, and most powerful river steamers ever built. The boilers produced 2,800 horsepower and the ship could carry 250 first-class passengers and 10,000 bales of cotton. Yet it sat only 6 feet 6 inches deep in the water fully laden. The J. M. White burned at a Louisiana landing in December 1886.
167. SIAHH2_160310_253.JPG: Cotton Aboard, 1878 Cotton was processed through a cotton gin, pressed, and baled at the plantation. For the trip to the "factors" or merchants in New Orleans, the bales were stacked into every available space aboard a river steamer. A staggering 7,818 bales of cotton were carried aboard the sternwheel steamer Chas. P. Chouteau, shown here in Natchez, Mississippi, in December 1878.
168. SIAHH2_160310_257.JPG: Deck Passengers Deck passengers usually outnumbered cabin passengers three or four to one. The fares were cheap but the comforts few: without beds or shelter, they found room among the cargo crates. Diseases spread in such close quarters and were carried to unsuspecting communities along the steamers' routes. The deck passengers in this image are suffering from cholera, an epidemic that spread along the Mississippi in 1873.
169. SIAHH2_160310_260.JPG: An Artificial River In the early 1800s, most Americans moved themselves and their goods by water, rather than on the nation's rough, limited roads. To extend the water's reach into the nation's interior, they began decades of canal building. The Erie Canal was the nation's most successful example. Built between 1817 and 1825 to link Lake Erie to the Hudson River and New York City, the canal brought together goods and people from across New York State and from the far reaches of the Great Lakes. Area farms and industries benefited from the traffic on the canal. And New York City thrived in the 1800s in part because it was the leading market for the canal's commerce.
170. SIAHH2_160310_263.JPG: Fish and beehive cooler
171. SIAHH2_160310_266.JPG: Goddess water cooler
172. SIAHH2_160310_269.JPG: Canal Carriers Canal boats needed jars, jugs, crocks, and pots for the food, drink, and other perishable cargo they carried. Almost overnight, potteries sprang up in canal towns to turn out practical stoneware. Each piece was made distinctive by its glaze, decoration, and shape, and proudly stamped with the name and city of the potter, some of whom were immigrants. These examples date from the early years of the Erie Canal.
173. SIAHH2_160310_275.JPG: View of the Upper Village of Lockport, Niagara County, New York Along the Erie Canal, small towns like Utica, Syracuse, and Rochester grew into cities. And between 1823 and 1825, canal construction transformed a three-family settlement at Lockport into a town of 3,000 residents, not counting almost 2,000 canal workers.
174. SIAHH2_160310_280.JPG: Canal Builders The Erie Canal's labor force numbered 3,000 men in 1818 and 9,000 in 1821. The men dug the 4-foot-deep by 40-foot-wide canal largely by hand, aided by draft animals, explosives, and tree-stump-pulling machines. Their wages of 50 cents a day or about $12 a month sometimes included food and a bunk. Local residents and new immigrants all found work on the project.
175. SIAHH2_160310_282.JPG: Passenger list from canal boat Montezuma, 1828 Many immigrants traveled on the canal. In 1839, Johann Pritzlaff of Germany described how "we went from New York by steamship to Albany and from there, partly by train, partly by canal boats that were pulled by horses, we finally arrived in Buffalo...and from there, again by steamship (across Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan) to Milwaukee." Capt. William Rogers Jr., compiled this list of his passengers for ten days in October 1828.
176. SIAHH2_160310_284.JPG: The Erie Canal in downtown Rochester, N.Y., about 1900 The canal connected the cities of upstate New York to markets across the Atlantic and justified the expense of expanding manufacturing. Rochester dominated flour milling in the region until mid-century, then grew into a national leader in making men's clothing.
177. SIAHH2_160310_288.JPG: Pennsylvania Main Line Canal Business leaders and lawmakers in other states rushed to compete with the Erie Canal. Few of their projects met with the same success. In 1826, Pennsylvania began a canal to link Pittsburgh to the port city of Philadelphia. The Allegheny Mountains blocked the route, forcing engineers to design a railroad to lift freight from one part of the canal to another. The canal opened in 1833, and was for sale 10 years later. It was largely abandoned by the 1870s, and closed in 1903, having never paid off its investors.
178. SIAHH2_160310_292.JPG: Erie Canal Medals, 1825 At the canal's opening celebration in October 1825, New York governor DeWitt Clinton poured a keg of fresh Lake Erie water into salty New York Harbor. This "Wedding of the Waters" symbolized his confidence that "the great ditch" would enrich America. The invitation and medals here celebrate the promise of the canal.
179. SIAHH2_160310_300.JPG: Upriver to Cincinnati, 1840–1860 The Ohio River brought prosperity and people to Cincinnati -- and carried away pork. By the 1850s, Cincinnati was the Midwest's leading commercial and manufacturing city, almost four times the size of Chicago. Through the early 1800s, the city supplied southern plantations and towns with flour, whiskey, manufactured goods, and especially pork. The city's location also profited from the goods shipped upriver and destined for northern Ohio by canal. Cincinnati's rapid growth attracted many free black people and immigrants. In 1850, almost 30 percent of the city's population was German-born.
180. SIAHH2_160310_303.JPG: The Buckeye State During the 1850s, steamboats carried much of the commerce on the Ohio River. Faster boats like the Buckeye State could demand higher freight and passenger rates. In May 1850, with 200 people aboard and no cargo, the Buckeye State ran 480 miles upstream from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh in 43 hours, the fastest time ever.
181. SIAHH2_160310_306.JPG: "[Pigs are] brought in from the country in large herds, on the outer edge of the city there are large buildings where about 1,000 a day are slaughtered and cleaned, then they're brought into the city where they are cut up and salted and put in barrels, that's how they're sent from here to other countries." -- Prussian immigrant Ernst Stille, Cincinnati, July 1848
182. SIAHH2_160310_309.JPG: Maritime Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a loose system of abolitionists who provided food, shelter, clothing, and safety to countless people escaping slavery for freedom. Many fugitive slaves stowed away on steamboats and sailed to freedom, often with the help of African Americans on board. Others escaped along the banks of waterways that led north. "There was no stopping" John P. Parker of Ripley, Ohio, was once enslaved. He helped other people escape north across the Ohio River. One night he and several others heard about a group of five hiding along the riverbank in Kentucky: Early in the night, seven of us armed with muskets in a little flotilla of three boats quietly rowed across the river to the spot where the people we were to rescue were seen. We found them all right, scared and hungry. Just as quietly as we came, we stole away... After that there was no stopping until we delivered our charges at Red Oak Station of the Underground Railroad.
183. SIAHH2_160310_316.JPG: Bullboat, 1860 Native peoples along the upper Missouri made small boats like this to travel along the shoreline, carrying wood and other supplies. Formed by stretching animal hides over a supple wood frame, bullboats were typically made by women. French, British, and American fur traders also used bullboats to bring their furs down the Missouri.
184. SIAHH2_160310_321.JPG: The Far West The U.S. Army chartered steamboats to supply outposts in Montana and the Dakota Territory during its Indian campaigns. In the summer of 1876, the Far West covered 700 miles of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers in only 54 hours. It bore the news of the Sioux and Cheyenne victory over Gen. George Custer's cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The two tall spars at the front of the boat could be lowered into the river bottom and, with the aid of the capstan and engine power, lift the vessel over shallow areas or obstructions, a bit or "hop" at a time. This practice was called "grasshoppering."
185. SIAHH2_160310_327.JPG: Into the West, 1860–1880 The Missouri River led explorers, trappers, and migrants into the American West. From the 1820s on, the river was the starting point for tens of thousands of people looking for new lives along the California, Mormon, Oregon, and Santa Fe trails. Many travelers on the Missouri encountered the Hidatsa and Mandan peoples, who lived in villages along the river. They grew corn, beans, and tobacco and used the river for trade and travel. In the late 1840s, the town of Mua-iduskupe-hises, a Mandan term that means "like a fishhook," had more residents than any nearby white settlement.
186. SIAHH2_160310_330.JPG: Downriver to New Orleans, 1820–1890 New Orleans was a seaport as well as a river port, and a vital connection between the American heartland and the rest of the world. By the 1820s, cotton, grain, pork, and other agricultural products floated down the Mississippi River to the city's docks. The rise of the steamboat brought trade upriver and opened the Midwest to settlers and goods. By 1850, New Orleans was the second busiest port in the United States and the fourth largest in the world. At various points in its history, France, Spain, and the United States had all claimed the city. Its residents and visitors created a rich mixture of languages, religions, foods, and traditions.
187. SIAHH2_160310_335.JPG: Packet Ship Ohio Coastal traffic between New Orleans and cities along the East Coast reflected the growing economic connections between American people and industries in the early 1800s. The Ohio carried passengers and cargo between Philadelphia and New Orleans. Cotton was the most common cargo shipped out of New Orleans in coastal packets like the Ohio in the 1830s.
188. SIAHH2_160310_338.JPG: Ocean Crossings Ocean liners were ships of transport for immigrants and machines of leisure, status, and national prestige. In the late 1800s, ocean liners were mainly in the business of delivering immigrants across the Atlantic and Pacific to American shores. Only a few years later, they began to compete for the business of tourists and travelers -- from ordinary families to the nation's wealthiest citizens. Ocean travel became big business -- safe and routine, except for horrifying exceptions like the Titanic.
189. SIAHH2_160310_344.JPG: Immigrant Ship Frisia In 1871, Hamburg-America Line steamers alone carried 4,200 cabin passengers and 24,500 steerage passengers into New York. The Frisia, launched by the company the following year, brought nearly 47,000 immigrants to the United States between 1872 and 1885.
190. SIAHH2_160310_347.JPG: Atlantic Crossings By 1870, more than 90 percent of immigrants to America arrived by steamship. As vessels grew safer, larger, sturdier, and faster, ocean crossings became less of an ordeal. In the same period, the American economy prospered and a class of wealthy Americans was eager to travel in luxury. Steamship companies designed their finest accommodations with these passengers in mind. High style and high society made ocean liners famous, but the ships relied on the immigrant trade as their main source of income into the 1920s. Rich and poor crossed the ocean just a few decks apart.
191. SIAHH2_160310_349.JPG: China to New York Ng Shee Lee brought this lacquered trunk with her from China after a visit in 1906. Her husband, Lee B. Lok, emigrated from Guangdong Province, China, in 1881. He paid $1,000 to upgrade his identity papers from laborer to merchant status before returning to China in 1896 and marrying Ng Shee Lee. They returned to the United States and had seven children, whom they raised while running a successful store in New York City's Chinatown. Japan to Hawaii Around 1902, Kumataro Sugimoto emigrated from Kumamoto, Japan, to Hawaii to work on sugar plantations. He was about 40 years old. Like many immigrants working as contract laborers, he traveled to Hawaii in hopes of creating a better life for himself and his family.
192. SIAHH2_160310_352.JPG: Pacific Crossings Starting in 1867, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company established a line from Hong Kong to San Francisco. It carried American merchants, missionaries, and government officials to Asia, but the company made most of its money ferrying Chinese laborers to and from the United States. The U.S. economy slowed in the 1870s, and competition for jobs increased. Chinese laborers faced growing prejudice and discrimination. In 1882, Congress passed an Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese laborers from entering the country and prohibited any Chinese person from becoming a citizen. It was the first federal law to restrict immigration on a racial or ethnic basis.
193. SIAHH2_160310_355.JPG: Chinese crews, 1905 The Pacific Mail Steamship Company hired Chinese workers exclusively to crew its ships and run its port facilities. Only its ships' officers were American or European. "The saving therefrom, in wages, food, &c., will be very great," wrote the company president. But by 1915, pressure from sailors' unions and discriminatory government labor rules had begun to force hundreds of Chinese seamen out of their jobs. In this image Chinese crew handle mooring lines near the stern of the Pacific Mail steamer Siberia. About 227 Chinese crew worked aboard Siberia on each of its 11 roundtrip voyages between Hong Kong and San Francisco.
194. SIAHH2_160310_357.JPG: E Pluribus Unum (Except the Chinese) The U.S. government guards the Temple of Liberty against the Chinese.
195. SIAHH2_160310_360.JPG: Voices from Gold Mountain After 1910, immigrants arriving on the West Coast passed through the immigration inspection station at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. Many were detained there for weeks or months. Rage, loneliness, and joy are among the emotions reflected in these rhymes from immigrants to the United States, or "Gold Mountain." These verses are from San Francisco's Chinatown and were written in the early 1910s. I am a man of heroic deeds; I am a man with pride and dignity. My bosom encompasses the height of Heaven and the brilliance of Earth; Everywhere they know me as a truly noble man. In search of wealth -- Greed led me on the road to Gold Mountain. Denied landing upon reaching the shore, I am filled with rage. With no means to pass the border, what can a person do? To chase after a pin-head gain, I endured the separation from my mother. Drifting on a voyage of thousands of miles, I reached the Flowery Flag Nation to take my chances. Sorrow is to be so far away from home. I must burden Mother to send me clothes for my stay. Unable to prepare the homebound whip, stranded in a foreign land, O, when can I repay her kindness in raising me? In a sojourn in San Francisco, Luck and wealth grace me as spring arrives. With trunks full of yellow eagles, it's time to head home; * Right away my boat ticket and visa are prepared and ready. O, truly wonderful -- I bid farewell to all my good friends. I am returning home with purses and bags stuffed full. Soon, I will see my parents' brows beaming with joy. * "Yellow eagles" is a term used by the Chinese in America for U.S. gold coins.
196. SIAHH2_160310_365.JPG: "Comfort, Courtesy, Safety, Speed" Beginning in the 1920s, shipowners tried to sell all passengers on the pleasures of the journey. A few wealthy travelers -- and immigrants by the millions -- filled ocean liners in the late 1800s and early 1900s. At the time, steamship lines did not try to attract the potential travelers in between. But in the 1920s, changing immigration laws halted the flow of immigrants and eroded the shipping lines' profits. Then they began to market their ships as delightful ocean-going experiences for nearly everyone -- smart, modern, safe, affordable, and fun.
197. SIAHH2_160310_368.JPG: The Mauretania The Mauretania was built for speed -- to recapture the prize for the fastest Atlantic crossing, called the Blue Riband. The ship boasted the first steam-turbine engines on a passenger liner. But the Mauretania was luxurious and versatile as well as fast. The British government also insisted that the vessel be capable of conversion into an armed warship. In September 1909, the Mauretania won the Blue Riband with an average speed of 26.06 knots (30 mph). The record stood for 20 years.
198. SIAHH2_160310_373.JPG: The Mauretania The Mauretania was built for speed -- to recapture the prize for the fastest Atlantic crossing, called the Blue Riband. The ship boasted the first steam-turbine engines on a passenger liner. But the Mauretania was luxurious and versatile as well as fast. The British government also insisted that the vessel be capable of conversion into an armed warship. In September 1909, the Mauretania won the Blue Riband with an average speed of 26.06 knots (30 mph). The record stood for 20 years.
199. SIAHH2_160310_376.JPG: Style Afloat English architect and landscape designer Harold A. Peto planned the Mauretania's interiors. Typical of ocean-going style at the time, he treated the ship's most elaborate spaces in a mixture of historic styles that matched the look of fashionable hotels, clubs, and apartment houses. The ship's builders hired 300 woodworkers from Palestine for two years to carve the ship's decoration. Smoking Room This smoking room evoked a late-Renaissance Italian palazzo. Men traveling in first class retired to this room after dinner to drink, talk, and play games. Dining Saloons The first-class dining saloon was inspired by mid-16th century French ch�teaux. Above its oak splendor rose a dome dotted with the signs of the zodiac. The same space in third class was simple and utilitarian. Both spaces had communal tables and swivel chairs, holdovers from the 1800s.
200. SIAHH2_160310_381.JPG: The Black Gang Coal-fired steamships like the Mauretania stayed on schedule only through the backbreaking labor of the boiler-room crew. The "black gang" included trimmers, who shifted coal inside the bunkers; coal-passers, who brought it by the barrowful to each boiler; and firemen, who worked the fires. Stoking and tending the furnaces took considerable skill. It was also relentless, dangerous, hellishly hot, and amazingly dirty work.
201. SIAHH2_160310_388.JPG: Skylight and Plaster Panels from R.M.S. Majestic Ocean liner skylights (lanterns) brought filtered daylight into various interior spaces of the ship, adding elegance to dining areas, libraries, and lounges. The skylight above was one of several installed in the White Star Liner Majestic. These plaster panels decorated the first-class dining saloon on the Majestic. They depict early vessels and naval battles. When the Majestic was broken up in 1914, the shipbreakers installed the panels under this skylight in their boardroom.
202. SIAHH2_160310_392.JPG: Seagoing tourists New immigration laws dramatically cut the flow of immigrants to the United States in the 1920s. Facing a devastating loss of income, steamship companies converted their steerage spaces into low-cost cabins marketed to middle-class tourists and business travelers. Steamship lines also began to experiment with cruising -- sending their ships on leisure trips to scenic spots around the world. The Mauretania made 54 cruises between 1923 and 1934.
203. SIAHH2_160310_403.JPG: Life Vest from the Titanic This canvas and cork life vest is from an unknown survivor of the Titanic disaster. Chicago physician Dr. Frank H. Blackmarr was headed to Europe on the Carpathia and tended to survivors aboard the rescue ship. The vest may have been a gift or memento from one of the survivors.
204. SIAHH2_160310_408.JPG: Camera Bernice Palmer Ellis was aboard the Carpathia when it came to the rescue of the Titanic passengers. She used this camera, which she had received as a gift in the winter of 1912, to take these photographs of the survivors and the icebergs. "I saw the floating deck chairs..." -- Bernice Palmer Ellis, January 22, 1986
205. SIAHH2_160310_414.JPG: A Disaster in Song, 1912 Singers and songwriters found different meanings in the loss of the Titanic. At first, many songs mourned the loss of the passengers and applauded the bravery of the crew. But as time went by, songs began to focus on a reckless captain, an arrogant shipping line, and cowardly passengers and crew. The wreck was a moral lesson, according to some, that pride ends in disaster and that the poor always suffer at the hands of the rich. These songs express some of the grief, pride, and outrage that the disaster inspired.
206. SIAHH2_160310_417.JPG: Titanic Giant ocean liners were the technological and industrial marvels of the early 1900s -- far larger than any other machines on earth. They had grown longer, heavier, faster, and more luxurious with nearly every passing year. Liners were works of art for ship designers and sources of national pride. The White Star Line called their flagship Titanic "practically unsinkable."
207. SIAHH2_160310_420.JPG: The Wreck of the Titanic On April 14, 1912, during the Titanic's first voyage, the ship struck an iceberg and sank in less than three hours. Some 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers and crew perished. A few of the Titanic's passengers were among the wealthiest and most famous people of the day, such as John Jacob Astor IV and Benjamin Guggenheim. But most were immigrants headed for the United States. Some 150 bodies were recovered from the North Atlantic, and about half were never identified. The best-known shipwreck in history inspired songs, books, movies, and an underwater expedition that found the fractured vessel on the ocean floor in 1985.
208. SIAHH2_160310_423.JPG: "Practically Unsinkable" The Titanic was more than a ship and a tragedy. Over the years, people have come to see it as a moral lesson and a cautionary tale. The luxurious vessel was created in an era of advancing technology, economic progress, and social privilege. Even the ship's name smacked of pride. News of the wreck brought disbelief at first, and then profound grief and doubt. If the Titanic could go down, was anything in the modern world safe and certain? The loss of the Titanic undermined people's faith in technology and progress.
209. SIAHH2_160310_426.JPG: Skylight and Plaster Panels from R.M.S. Majestic Ocean liner skylights (lanterns) brought filtered daylight into various interior spaces of the ship, adding elegance to dining areas, libraries, and lounges. The skylight above was one of several installed in the White Star Liner Majestic. These plaster panels decorated the first-class dining saloon on the Majestic. They depict early vessels and naval battles. When the Majestic was broken up in 1914, the shipbreakers installed the panels under this skylight in their boardroom.
210. SIAHH2_160310_448.JPG: Mauretania in dazzle paint Ocean liners were pressed into service to carry troops and supplies, especially during the first world war. Even the luxurious British liner Mauretania carried more than 53,000 American troops to Europe in 1918 and 1919. For protection at sea, ocean liners during wartime were painted in "dazzle" patterns to confuse submarines at a distance.
211. SIAHH2_160310_457.JPG: Modern Luxury Cabins aboard the United States looked modern and metallic, marked by glass, aluminum, plastic, and man-made textiles. There was nothing opulent or Victorian about the ship's interior design. All of the artifacts here were used on the United States. The aluminum panel, painted by Constance Smith, is from the "Duck Suite," one of the ship's deluxe passenger suites. After one cruise, these woman's evening shoes were found in a ceiling light fixture.
212. SIAHH2_160310_469.JPG: Answering the Call 1917-1945 Merchant seamen and ships played a vital role in winning both world wars of the 20th century. A world at war put immense demands on American shipyards and sailors. During World War II, the maritime industry responded with merchant ships by the thousands. Though not part of the U.S. Navy, these ships delivered the troops, supplies, and equipment that won the war. Thousands of merchant seamen gave their lives on these vessels, in a wartime role as dangerous as serving in the armed forces.
213. SIAHH2_160310_472.JPG: Building Ships for Victory The shipbuilding industry turned out thousands of cargo ships for wartime service. The United States learned how to mass-produce merchant ships during World War I. Three decades later, convoys of American Liberty and Victory ships delivered tons of fuel, ammunition, and other supplies to fight World War II. At least 1,500 merchant ships were sunk during the war. On the home front, the vast enterprise needed to construct these vessels changed the lives of tens of thousands of American workers and their families.
214. SIAHH2_160310_474.JPG: Electric welders at Hog Island, about 1918
215. SIAHH2_160310_479.JPG: A Merchant Fleet for the Great War The United States entered World War I in April 1917. Within days, the federal government created the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to construct a fleet of merchant ships. The EFC hired the American International Shipbuilding Corporation to build and operate the largest shipyard in the world, Hog Island, near Philadelphia. At its peak, Hog Island employed some 30,000 workers and launched a vessel every 5.5 days. Its workers built 122 ships in four years, and although none saw service before the end of the war, many carried supplies during World War II. At Hog Island, the United States learned how to build large ships quickly on a grand scale from prefabricated parts.
216. SIAHH2_160310_482.JPG: The Shipbuilder's Bridge for Pershing
217. SIAHH2_160310_485.JPG: Hog Islanders Many of Hog Island's tens of thousands of workers had no factory experience -- they were trained on the spot. Most were men, but some 650 women worked in the yard. By the end of World War I, thousands of women worked in war industries, as everything from welders to clerks.
218. SIAHH2_160310_490.JPG: "Ships, ships, and more ships is the call of the hour... We must have more ships to win the war." -- Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, February 16, 1918
219. SIAHH2_160310_500.JPG: Typical Wartime Freighter, 1919 The federal government's massive investment in shipbuilding was a boon to American industry. In gratitude, the Association of Northwestern Shipbuilders presented this silver model to outgoing Emergency Fleet Corporation Director-General Charles Piez in April 1919.
220. SIAHH2_160310_505.JPG: Five ships were launched in 48 minutes, Memorial Day, 1919
221. SIAHH2_160310_509.JPG: Plate puller, about 1918 Workers used this tool to align pre-punched holes in standardized hull plates before riveting them.
222. SIAHH2_160310_523.JPG: Silver dollar launching, 1942 Launching gangs were responsible for ensuring a smooth transition as the ship slid from land to water. Shipwright Archie Green received this coin from his crew leader to commemorate the successful launching of a C3 cargo ship in San Francisco.
223. SIAHH2_160310_527.JPG: World War II Shipyards and the U.S. government learned invaluable lessons about shipbuilding during World War I. The United States began increasing the size of its merchant fleet in 1936, well before it entered the Second World War. The goal quickly became building sturdy, reliable ships in a hurry -- faster than German submarines could sink them. By 1943, American shipyards turned out three a day -- nearly 3,300 over the course of the war. To build the merchant fleet, the U.S. Maritime Commission expanded existing shipyards and built new ones along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts. To simplify and speed construction, the ships they produced would be virtually identical. The types of ships designed for emergency construction were called "Liberty" and "Victory" ships.
224. SIAHH2_160310_529.JPG: "Wendy the Welder" and "Rosie the Riveter" Women entered the work force in history-making numbers during World War II. At the peak of wartime production in 1943, women made up more than 10 percent of the work force in most of the shipyards. Although "Rosie the Riveter" was their symbol, there actually were few women riveters. "Wendy the Welder" is closer to the truth, since women helped assemble the first generation of welded ships. These women are chipping excess metal from a welded joint at Baltimore's Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyards.
225. SIAHH2_160310_536.JPG: Traveling Schoolchildren World War II scrambled American society. Jobs in shipyards brought men, women, and families to parts of the country they had never visited before. In their new homes, they often lived and worked among people of many different backgrounds. In 1942, Photographer Dorothea Lange took this photograph in Richmond, California, noting, "Every hand up signifies a child not born in California."
226. SIAHH2_160310_538.JPG: Absentees Sabotage Ships Work incentive posters were used to pressure shipyards and their workers to keep up production. Posters stressed the importance of shipbuilding to the nation. Missing a day of work was unpatriotic.
227. SIAHH2_160310_546.JPG: Merchant Mariners Educational Resources Listen to the stories of Merchant Mariners and shipyard workers and work with primary sources to uncover the answers to historical questions about World War II. Seamen in the Merchant Marine came from all corners of American society. Recruiting standards differed from those of the armed forces, so thousands of men excluded by the military served their country aboard merchant ships. They ranged in age from 16 to 78. Some men had weak hearts, poor vision, or other disabilities, but their service was essential to the war effort. The Merchant Marine was more racially integrated than any of the branches of the service. Young men trained as ships' officers at the U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps, established in 1938 at the Merchant Marine Academy in King's Point, New York. By the end of the war, 6,000 new officers had been trained.
228. SIAHH2_160310_550.JPG: In their own words Meet several merchant mariners who sailed on cargo vessels, including Liberty ships, during World War II. Each survived the perils of wartime service. Hear their stories, in their own words.
229. SIAHH2_160310_552.JPG: Free Time on a Liberty Like other sailors in downtime at sea, Liberty ship crews played cards, read, and tried to distract themselves from the intensity of wartime service. The crews included members of the Armed Guard of the U.S. Navy, shown here in navy uniforms, who manned the guns aboard ship.
230. SIAHH2_160310_555.JPG: "But for the lives that were lost on these ships...we wouldn't have our freedom today." -- Capt. Frank Medeiros, USMS (Ret.)
231. SIAHH2_160310_562.JPG: Perils of War During World War II, the seamen of the U.S. Merchant Marine suffered a higher casualty rate than any service branch. As many as 9,500 perished at sea, from their wounds, or in prisoner of war camps. At the end of the war, they received no government pensions or benefits and could not take advantage of the GI Bill. Celebrations for returning heroes usually overlooked them. Only in 1988 were seamen of the Merchant Marine granted the same benefits as other veterans. By then, fewer than half the men who had served on Liberty ships were still alive.
232. SIAHH2_160310_565.JPG: Waldemar Semenov and the SS Alcoa Guide On April 16, 1942, a German submarine surfaced near the SS Alcoa Guide off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and opened fire with its deck gun. Unarmed and without an escort, the ship sank in two hours. But Junior Engineer Waldemar Semenov and 26 of his shipmates survived. In two lifeboats, the men drifted for three days until they were spotted by a search plane. The next day, the USS Broome, a Navy destroyer, picked them up. Semenov's ordeal didn't drive him from the sea. He continued to work as a merchant seaman until his retirement in 1987.
233. SIAHH2_160310_567.JPG: Compass Junior engineer Waldemar Semenov and his shipmates used this compass to guide their lifeboat toward Florida after a German submarine sank their ship in the Atlantic, April 1942.
234. SIAHH2_160310_570.JPG: Liberty Ship Liberty ships were as crucial to the Allied war effort during World War II as any tank or fighter plane. Nearly everything the Allies needed to fight in Europe and the Pacific arrived in ships -- tanks, locomotives, tractors, tires, ball bearings, ammunition, fuel, food, and cigarettes, to name only a few. Naval vessels were first in line for new steam turbine engines, so Liberty ships were built with tried-and-true reciprocating steam engines -- reliable but slow. By the end of the war, 2,600 Liberty ships had entered service.
235. SIAHH2_160310_574.JPG: "There weren't any parades for the United States Merchant Marine." -- Rear Admiral Thomas Patterson, United States Merchant Service (Ret.)
236. SIAHH2_160310_577.JPG: You bet I'm going back to sea, 1942
237. SIAHH2_160310_580.JPG: Merchant Seamen The seamen of the Merchant Marine kept open a lifeline of supplies to fighting forces overseas. During World War II, U.S. shipyards turned out cargo vessels faster than the ships could be supplied with crews. Recruiters urged men to join the Merchant Marine, and volunteers came from across the country. Some had never seen the ocean and others came out of retirement. Merchant seamen ran the ships that carried supplies and men through dangerous waters in the North Atlantic and the Pacific. Thousands paid with their lives. By war's end, some 290,000 men had served in the Merchant Marine.
238. SIAHH2_160310_583.JPG: Teamwork Wins: You Build 'Em, We'll Sail 'Em, 1943 People and ships to win the war was the theme of posters produced by the United States Maritime Commission, the government agency responsible for the nonmilitary maritime war effort.
239. SIAHH2_160310_586.JPG: Victory Ship Faster freighters had a better chance of surviving a transoceanic crossing in hostile waters. As steam turbine engines became available later in the war, a few shipyards began building more powerful cargo vessels -- called Victory ships. American shipyards built about 550 by the end of 1945. After the war, their greater speed made them more valuable as commercial freighters.
240. SIAHH2_160310_588.JPG: "They built 18 brand new shipyards just for Libertys. And put 650,000 Americans -- women, men, young people, old people -- building these ships. They became the largest fleet of ships ever built in the history of the world in such a short period of time." -- Rear Adm. Thomas Patterson, United States Merchant Service, Ret.
241. SIAHH2_160310_593.JPG: The Shipyards The shipyards that built the Liberty ships were located along the East, West, and Gulf coasts. At the peak of Liberty ship production in 1943, there were 18 yards specializing in Liberty ship assembly. Naval vessels were also under construction at different locations.
242. SIAHH2_160310_608.JPG: Modern Maritime America Maritime activity is as important as ever, and it affects the lives of people everywhere. The Internet isn't the only home of a worldwide web. Maritime commerce connects people and markets around the globe. Ships deliver things we need, such as vehicles, fuel, clothing, toys, electronics, and food, and then take us on vacation. We hardly give maritime activity a second thought, yet we all depend on the vessels, ports, and workers who keep those global maritime connections going.
243. SIAHH2_160310_611.JPG: Personal Connections What do the ships of modern maritime commerce have to do with you? Most of us take for granted the vital activity in the nation's ports, along its inland and coastal waterways, and on the high seas. Explore how your life is connected to the goods, resources, and materials that have spent time at sea. And consider how the way we live has an impact on the waters, both at home and around the globe.
244. SIAHH2_160310_615.JPG: Gas & Go Where does most of the oil imported to the United States end up? If you guessed gas tanks, you're right. The American barrel of oil contains 42 gallons. On average, 19 of those gallons are refined into gasoline for cars and small trucks. 9 are made into fuel oil for diesel fuel used by large trucks, buses, and trains, and for heating buildings. 4 more become jet fuel. 10 gallons left are for other products (such as lubricants, kerosene, plastics and asphalt for paving roadways, etc.)
245. SIAHH2_160310_618.JPG: Fueling Our Lifestyles Online Resources How does maritime activity impact you? Share your photos on Flickr. In 2007, the United States imported around two-thirds of its energy, mainly in the form of some 13 million barrels of crude oil per day. Seventy percent of this oil was transported by huge ships from oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria, and other nations. The rest was imported via pipeline, mainly from Canada and Mexico. Also in 2007, the United States imported around 3.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Together, these imports of oil and gas represented 20 to 25 percent of the world's total daily energy use.
246. SIAHH2_160310_624.JPG: Food from the Sea If you like seafood, you've got a lot of company. Seafood consumption in the United States has risen steadily since the 1990s. At the same time, many of America's regional fisheries have declined, due to over-fishing, pollution, habitat destruction, disease, and other factors. Fisheries that historically helped feed the nation -- Atlantic cod, Chesapeake oysters, and Columbia River salmon -- have all but disappeared. Still, all-you-can-eat seafood restaurants are found in most American cities, and fresh seafood is available in supermarkets and seafood specialty stores everywhere. If American fisheries are in such crisis, what are we eating? Bering Sea Fishery The Bering Sea, which lies between Alaska and Russia, is tremendously productive. American fishermen are permitted to fish within 200 miles of the shores and islands of Alaska, waters that support the largest commercial fisheries in the United States. After a shift to warmer air temperatures in the 1970s, the population of pollock in the Bering Sea increased by 400 percent. Commercial fishing is rigorously managed to ensure the survival of the species and viable fisheries.
247. SIAHH2_160310_628.JPG: Factory Trawler Alaska Ocean Alaska Ocean is one of the largest factory trawlers in the U.S. fleet. It operates in the North Pacific and the Bering Sea for about eight months a year, fishing for two abundant species, pollock and hake. The crew harvests roughly 300 metric tons of fish per day. Independent observers live aboard and monitor the harvest to document the bycatch -- the catching of any species other than those targeted. This model, built by Erik A. R. Ronnberg Jr., highlights the factory deck. The fish butchering is mechanized, but dozens of workers are needed to operate the machinery and keep the product sanitary during packing and freezing.
248. SIAHH2_160310_631.JPG: Fishing for World Markets Factory trawlers are large vessels that pull enormous nets and process the catch at sea. They produce frozen fish fillets, minced fish for making fish sticks, and other products that feed people around the world. Largely unregulated for decades, fleets of trawlers nearly emptied the waters of cod in the North Atlantic until restrictions were enforced in the 1980s. In the North Pacific the story is different. Within the zone for exclusive fishing by U.S. vessels, a consortium of companies has divided the quota of fish available to the fleet. This has ended the race for fish, which often resulted in crew injuries and wasteful fishing practices. Factory Trawler Alaska Ocean Alaska Ocean is one of the largest factory trawlers in the U.S. fleet. It operates in the North Pacific and the Bering Sea for about eight months a year, fishing for two abundant species, pollock and hake. The crew harvests roughly 300 metric tons of fish per day. Independent observers live aboard and monitor the harvest to document the bycatch -- the catching of any species other than those targeted. This model, built by Erik A. R. Ronnberg Jr., highlights the factory deck. The fish butchering is mechanized, but dozens of workers are needed to operate the machinery and keep the product sanitary during packing and freezing.
249. SIAHH2_160310_633.JPG: Global Connections As part of a fast-paced, global economy, ships have been transformed, along with maritime industries and life at sea. Ships have connected the markets of the world for centuries, and in the 21st century oceangoing commerce crisscrosses the globe in ever-larger vessels. New ships, some so huge they can only call at the world's biggest ports, feature innovative designs and new technologies to serve specialized purposes. With growing concerns about the effects of large-scale shipping on the environment, modern maritime industries are investing in new technologies to address pollution and waste. Still, the work of connecting the nations and markets of the world by water endures.
250. SIAHH2_160310_635.JPG: Containing Modern Life Containers are 20- and 40-foot-long steel boxes that can be carried on ships, trains, and trucks. Standardized containers were introduced in the 1950s, and shippers recognized their value for moving manufactured goods and some bulk cargoes. The container that leaves a factory in Asia filled with consumer goods is the same one that delivers those goods to distribution centers all around the United States. The container system, which eliminates multiple cargo handling costs, is one of the factors behind the global expansion of manufacturing centers to places where labor costs are low. Container ship Emma Maersk At launching in 2006, Emma Maersk was the world's largest container ship. It can carry 11,000 twenty-foot containers, or the equivalent of a double-stack train that stretches for 22 miles. To help protect the environment, the ship's fuel tanks sit in the center of its double hull and a waste-heat recovery system reduces fuel consumption and emissions. With automated monitoring systems, a crew of only 13 operates the vessel.
251. SIAHH2_160310_638.JPG: A Vehicle for Vehicles Ro-Ros, or "Roll On/Roll Off" vessels, are designed with built-in ramps for loading and unloading vehicles. They became increasingly important in the 1960s as automobile manufacturers began shipping their cars and trucks to other countries. The new generation, called PCTCs, for "Pure Car Truck Carriers," is designed to carry passenger vehicles as well as heavier wheeled and general cargo. PCTC Jean Anne Launched in 2005, the Jean Anne was the first PCTC built at a U.S. shipyard. Some 4,300 automobiles can fit on its 10 decks. Three decks move up and down to accommodate trucks or other large vehicles. The Jean Anne carries vehicles from San Diego to the Hawaiian Islands, a trip that takes about a week.
252. SIAHH2_160310_641.JPG: Container ship Emma Maersk At launching in 2006, Emma Maersk was the world's largest container ship. It can carry 11,000 twenty-foot containers, or the equivalent of a double-stack train that stretches for 22 miles. To help protect the environment, the ship's fuel tanks sit in the center of its double hull and a waste-heat recovery system reduces fuel consumption and emissions. With automated monitoring systems, a crew of only 13 operates the vessel.
253. SIAHH2_160310_645.JPG: Transporting Oil around the World Tankers have carried oil around the world since the 1870s. As demand for oil grew, so did the ships. The largest oil tanker today is the ULCC class, or Ultra Large Crude Carrier, which can carry up to 2.5 million barrels of oil. VLCCs (Very Large Crude Carriers) transport roughly 2 million barrels of oil on a single voyage. Smaller tankers carry oil along coasts and inland waterways. As a result of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, modern oil tankers are built with double hulls. If the outer hull is breached, the inner one will contain the cargo and prevent it from spilling. Oil tanker Meridian Lion The oil tanker Meridian Lion was built in 1997 and was still in service ten years later. It can transport 2,127,173 barrels of oil on a single voyage, making it a member of the VLCC class. Meridian Lion plies the long-haul route from the Middle East to North America. Its double-hull construction helped on December 20, 2007, when it deliberately ran aground in the Suez Canal to avoid colliding with another oil tanker that had lost its steering. No oil was lost, and no one was injured on either vessel in the accident.
254. SIAHH2_160310_649.JPG: Cruise ship ms Zuiderdam The Zuiderdam began service in 2002 and is the first ship in Holland America Line's Vista-class series. The ship carries 1,848 passengers with a crew of 800. Its full diesel-electric power plants save energy, and its azimuth thruster system permits better maneuverability in tight harbors than a traditional propeller and rudder. Descended from a venerable Dutch shipping company whose ships carried thousands of immigrants to the United States, Holland America is now American-owned and headquartered in Seattle.
255. SIAHH2_160310_653.JPG: LNG Tanker Methane Shirley Elisabeth LNG ships are among the world's most expensive and difficult to build. Methane Shirley Elisabeth is one of the newest types. Its double hulls, separated by six feet of seawater, protect four gas tanks. The tanks, called membranes, consist of layers of stainless steel and other materials alternating with thick foam insulation. Inside, they are lined with stainless steel corrugated in two dimensions to keep the frozen gas from sloshing around.
256. SIAHH2_160310_655.JPG: Transporting Oil around the World Tankers have carried oil around the world since the 1870s. As demand for oil grew, so did the ships. The largest oil tanker today is the ULCC class, or Ultra Large Crude Carrier, which can carry up to 2.5 million barrels of oil. VLCCs (Very Large Crude Carriers) transport roughly 2 million barrels of oil on a single voyage. Smaller tankers carry oil along coasts and inland waterways. As a result of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, modern oil tankers are built with double hulls. If the outer hull is breached, the inner one will contain the cargo and prevent it from spilling. Oil tanker Meridian Lion The oil tanker Meridian Lion was built in 1997 and was still in service ten years later. It can transport 2,127,173 barrels of oil on a single voyage, making it a member of the VLCC class. Meridian Lion plies the long-haul route from the Middle East to North America. Its double-hull construction helped on December 20, 2007, when it deliberately ran aground in the Suez Canal to avoid colliding with another oil tanker that had lost its steering. No oil was lost, and no one was injured on either vessel in the accident.
257. SIAHH2_160310_658.JPG: Leisure at Sea Decades ago, passenger ships introduced plush surroundings, shipboard activities, and plentiful food to ease the anxiety and discomfort that sometimes accompanied an ocean voyage. Today, these distractions are essential elements of a vacation on the water. As much as exotic ports of call, the cruise ship itself is now the main destination of a sea-going holiday. Cruising is the fastest growing market in merchant shipping around the world. Ship Model, ms Zuiderdam [2000] Cruise ship ms Zuiderdam The Zuiderdam began service in 2002 and is the first ship in Holland America Line's Vista-class series. The ship carries 1,848 passengers with a crew of 800. Its full diesel-electric power plants save energy, and its azimuth thruster system permits better maneuverability in tight harbors than a traditional propeller and rudder. Descended from a venerable Dutch shipping company whose ships carried thousands of immigrants to the United States, Holland America is now American-owned and headquartered in Seattle.
258. SIAHH2_160310_674.JPG: Leisure The steamship United States was the fastest ocean liner ever built. It crossed the Atlantic in a record-setting eastbound time of 3 days, 10 hours, 40 minutes in 1952. But during the 1960s, commercial flights overtook sea voyages as the most popular way to cross the oceans. No ship could hope to compete with the speed of jet aircraft. Ads for ocean travel focused on fun and relaxation for all aboard, first class through fourth. As Cunard Line put it in its 1950s ad campaign, "Getting There is Half the Fun."
259. SIAHH2_160310_681.JPG: Celebrities Aboard Waiters and stewards often encountered celebrities on board. Singer and actress Judy Garland is seen here at dinner in 1956.
260. SIAHH2_160310_696.JPG: River Pilots Steamboat pilots learned from experience, and the nation's western rivers were strict, fickle teachers. Knowing the channel wasn't nearly enough. The required learning included the locations of snags, rocks, sandbars, and landmarks, the depth of the water, and the strength of the current. As soon as they learned these vital facts, some changed. From the feel of the boat, the color of the water, and ripples and swirls, they had to deduce new information about what lay ahead. They put this knowledge to use day and night, in all kinds of weather, and in all seasons.
261. SIAHH2_160310_699.JPG: Reading the River River pilots guided steamboats up and down the heartland's great rivers, a skill still practiced on inland towboats. In the heyday of the riverboat, pilots were the heroes and celebrities of river commerce. They faced shipboard explosions and fires as well as snags, ice, shifting channels, and all the other obstacles of a changing river. A journey's success, the ship owners' fortunes, and the lives of the passengers rested on how well pilots read the river.
262. SIAHH2_160310_704.JPG: Show Boat and Popular Theater, 1900s Life along the Mississippi River inspired one of the greatest American musicals, Show Boat. The plot follows a family of performers who travel up and down the river on the Cotton Blossom Floating Theater. But much of the story's drama lies in the daily lives and complex racial relations of people along the river. "Ol' Man River" and other songs from Show Boat are American classics and poignant reminders of how rivers wind their way through people's lives as well as the American landscape.
263. SIAHH2_160310_706.JPG: "Ol' Man River" Sheet Music, 1927 The musical Show Boat premiered in 1927 at the National Theater in Washington, D.C. This sheet music is for the song about one of the play's main characters -- the river itself.
264. SIAHH2_160310_716.JPG: "Uncle Sam's Tooth Pullers" The snag boats operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were sometimes called "Uncle Sam's Tooth Pullers," referring to how the vessels extracted whole trees and logs that hindered navigation. U.S. Snag Boat No. 2 is shown pulling stumps from the river bottom.
265. SIAHH2_160310_722.JPG: River Conditions The great rivers of the West and Midwest remade themselves continuously. Their currents piled up sandbanks, scoured away riverbanks, gathered trees and debris in underwater snags, built ice floes, and even changed course. Shipbuilders and pilots had to adapt to these changes. Riverboats were designed to ride high in the water so they could slip across shallows. Pilots learned and relearned the river on every trip. Still, hundreds of steamboats wrecked on the rivers in the 1800s, and hundreds of passengers and crew lost their lives.
266. SIAHH2_160310_724.JPG: Abraham Lincoln's Patent Model [replica] Shallow water was a chronic problem on western rivers. Lawyer Abraham Lincoln of Springfield, Illinois, thought inflatable rubber-cloth chambers could help boats float over shallow spots. He patented his idea in 1849, submitting a model along with his application. His "adjustable buoyant chambers" proved impractical, but Lincoln became the only president to hold a U.S. patent.
267. SIAHH2_160310_729.JPG: The Secretary's Tender Lighthouse tenders -- which carry mechanics, cargo, fuel, and water -- serve both lighthouses and lightships. This steamboat was named for scientist Joseph Henry, the first Secretary of the Smithsonian. He was the only civilian ever to lead the governing board of the U.S. Lighthouse Service. During its 24-year career, the Joseph Henry maintained day marks and lights along the Mississippi River.
268. SIAHH2_160310_731.JPG: Lighthouse Lens This lens was installed in the Bolivar Point lighthouse near Galveston, Texas, from 1907 to 1933. It is a Fresnel lens, named for French scientist Augustin Fresnel. He designed a beehive-like array of lenses and prisms that vastly improved the effectiveness of lighthouses in the 19th century. Built in seven sizes, or orders, Fresnel lenses diffused lamplight into a beam that could be seen miles away. This is a third order lens.
269. SIAHH2_160310_738.JPG: Safe Passages In fog or deep night, a lighthouse beam warns ships away from shoals and offers them a path to safety. Because the exact locations of lighthouses are marked on charts, the lights can help mariners fix their own locations. Lightships anchored in a harbor or channel serve the same purpose by marking shallow water or other underwater dangers. Snag boats and dredges keep waterways open to navigation. Because there are always new obstructions like fallen trees in rivers, or fresh flows of silt clogging harbors, these workboats are rarely idle.
270. SIAHH2_160310_739.JPG: Galveston Bay Storms In September 1900, one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history struck Galveston, Texas. More than six thousand people lost their lives during a two-day storm that destroyed most of the city. The lighthouse tower on Bolivar Point served as a refuge for 124 residents. In 1915, Galveston residents again survived a storm by taking shelter at the light station. At the height of the gale, the mechanism that rotated the lighthouse lens broke. To warn ships at sea, the keeper turned the huge lens by hand for nearly an hour.
271. SIAHH2_160310_742.JPG: Fancy power loom patent model William Crompton's invention allowed weavers to create more elaborate designs on power looms. Widely adopted in textile mills on both sides of the Atlantic, the power loom was used to produce fancy designs in silk, wool, and even in cotton. Cotton bale-tie patent model Curran Battle of Warrenton, Georgia, submitted this model of a cotton bale when he applied for a patent in 1878. The model demonstrates how his "new and useful improvement in bale-tie fastenings" worked.
272. SIAHH2_160310_744.JPG: Web of Cotton By the mid-1800s, the United States produced more cotton than any other nation in the world. Most of it left the country through New Orleans -- to be spun, woven, cut, and sewn into clothing and countless other products. The cotton industry linked millions of lives. Its sprawling network included enslaved workers on cotton plantations, merchants in New Orleans, sailors and shipowners, textile workers in New England and Great Britain, and customers around the world.
273. SIAHH2_160310_749.JPG: Cotton bale-tie patent model Curran Battle of Warrenton, Georgia, submitted this model of a cotton bale when he applied for a patent in 1878. The model demonstrates how his "new and useful improvement in bale-tie fastenings" worked.
274. SIAHH2_160310_755.JPG: Bell Buoy Lighted bell buoys marked shoals in both coastal and inland waters. Made about 1930, this bell buoy last served at Turkey Point in the upper Chesapeake Bay in the 1970s. The bell rang naturally with the motion of the waves. Acetylene gas stored inside the buoy fueled the light. Buoy tender crews inspected the buoy and replenished its fuel regularly. The parts of this buoy normally under water -- a counterweight and hardware for holding the mooring chain -- have been removed. They would extend about ten feet below the buoy.
275. SIAHH2_160310_758.JPG: Great Lakes, Mighty Rivers The Great Lakes and a network of rivers opened the vast American heartland to a nation moving west. Inland waterways are a road map to much of the nation's history. They guided the travels of Native Americans, explorers from Europe, and streams of newcomers who established businesses, towns, and cities. The same waters linked people back to hometowns, families, and markets on the East Coast and in Europe. Inland waterways helped hold together the people and economy of the nation as it grew throughout the 1800s.
276. SIAHH2_160310_761.JPG: Inland Waterways 1820-1940 The country's vast system of rivers and lakes has helped people settle the land and create communities. In the 1800s, explorers, traders, merchants, and farmers followed America's waterways toward new lands and lives. An inland shipping industry grew up to work these waterways, and it carried grain, lumber, ore, cotton, and other products to distant markets, as it does to this day. Where the landscape lacked useful water routes, people created them in the form of canals. From New Orleans to Minneapolis, great cities and small towns relied on the nation's inland waterways to thrive.
277. SIAHH2_160310_765.JPG: The "Philadelphia Wheel" The Indiana's propeller was manufactured by Spang & Co. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but its design is more of a mystery. A propeller designed by Richard Loper of Philadelphia is a close match. Widely used, it was sometimes advertised as the "Philadelphia Wheel." One of the intact blades is chipped and dented, suggesting a collision. Another blade is missing outside the yellow line, which marks where a piece broke loose, probably from hitting an object in the water. This piece struck the Indiana's sternpost, literally "shivered her timbers," and started the leak that sank the ship. The blade broke off completely when the ship struck the lakebed and was found at the wreck site. It is reproduced here in fiberglass.
278. SIAHH2_160310_772.JPG: Capstan The capstan was used to pull a line for any number of tasks: raising or lowering anchors, hoisting sails and cargo, or other heavy jobs. Crewmen inserted timbers into the holes, and several men pushed on each timber as they walked around the capstan.
279. SIAHH2_160310_775.JPG: The Steamboat Indiana's Last Voyage Constructed in 1848, the Indiana was an early propeller steamboat on the Great Lakes. Like most freighters on the Lakes, the Indiana was neither large nor luxurious. It moved people and cargo around the lakes for ten years before coming to an all-too-common end. On June 6, 1858, while carrying ore on Lake Superior, the Indiana went to the bottom. All 21 crew and passengers survived. One of the ship's propeller blades had loosened, striking the ship's sternpost, causing a serious leak. Located by a sport diver in 1972, the Indiana's pioneering propulsion machinery was raised seven years later by staff of the National Museum of American History.
280. SIAHH2_160310_777.JPG: Site Plan of the Wreck The Indiana is preserved nearly intact on the sandy bed of Lake Superior. The position of the remains indicates that the bow hit the lake bed first, splitting the hull timbers open and spilling the iron ore cargo forward. The stern is virtually intact except for the missing deck houses and other structures, which broke away while the ship was still on the surface.
281. SIAHH2_160310_780.JPG: The "Philadelphia Wheel" The Indiana's propeller was manufactured by Spang & Co. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but its design is more of a mystery. A propeller designed by Richard Loper of Philadelphia is a close match. Widely used, it was sometimes advertised as the "Philadelphia Wheel." One of the intact blades is chipped and dented, suggesting a collision. Another blade is missing outside the yellow line, which marks where a piece broke loose, probably from hitting an object in the water. This piece struck the Indiana's sternpost, literally "shivered her timbers," and started the leak that sank the ship. The blade broke off completely when the ship struck the lakebed and was found at the wreck site. It is reproduced here in fiberglass.
282. SIAHH2_160310_789.JPG: Working the Lakes Miners, loggers, and farmers sent the riches of the Midwest to market across the Great Lakes. In the mid-1800s, the people streaming into the Midwest -- and the grain, lumber, and iron pouring out -- created a maritime industry across the Great Lakes. Fleets of ships served industries around the lakes and helped create thriving port cities, such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Chicago. For all their value and beauty, the waters were dangerous, too. Thousands of ships lie at the bottom of the Great Lakes.
283. SIAHH2_160310_797.JPG: Lumber and Grain, Coal and Ore Beginning in the 1840s, the Great Lakes became busy highways for moving wheat, corn, lumber, coal, and iron ore. Crops from midwestern farms crossed the lakes to markets in the East. Lumber from the region's vast pine forests made Chicago the world's busiest lumber port in the 1870s. Iron ore from the region traveled east on ships that returned filled with coal from Pennsylvania. To this day, iron ore makes up nearly half the cargo on the lakes.
284. SIAHH2_160310_798.JPG: The Mahoning Mine, Hibbing, Minnesota, 1899 Iron ore from the Mahoning Mine has been shipped down the Great Lakes since 1895. It remains the world's largest open-pit iron mine.
285. SIAHH2_160310_800.JPG: Grain elevators at Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada Thunder Bay was once the world's largest grain-handling port. The complex of elevators there still receives and stores grain for shipment across the Great Lakes.
286. SIAHH2_160310_803.JPG: Lakes Weather The Great Lakes are among the most dangerous waters in the world. Powerful gales churn the waters, especially in late autumn, and the Lakes freeze in winter. Experienced captains understand and respect the limits of the shipping season. Still, sudden changes in the weather have brought many ships and crews to grief. As commerce expanded after the mid-1800s, growing numbers of mariners faced the dangers of the Lakes. A four-day gale in 1869 wrecked 97 ships, and in 1871 there were 591 sinkings, collisions, groundings, and explosions -- one for every four boats on the Lakes. Between 1878 and 1897, the Lakes claimed almost 6,000 ships.
287. SIAHH2_160310_806.JPG: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald On November 9, 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald pushed across the waters of Lake Superior with a cargo of iron ore. A storm came up in the afternoon and pounded the ship through the night with winds up to 75 mph, blinding snow, and waves reaching 25 feet. That evening, the ship radioed another vessel, Avafors, with a warning: Fitzgerald: (shouting) "DON'T LET NOBODY ON DECK!" Avafors: "What's that, Fitzgerald? Unclear. Over." Fitzgerald: "I have a bad list, lost both radars. And am taking heavy seas over the deck. One of the worst seas I've been in." At 7 p.m., the Fitzgerald radioed another nearby ship, "We are holding our own." Less than two hours later, the Edmund Fitzgerald had disappeared from radar. No distress calls were ever received. Rescuers found a few empty lifeboats, buoys, and other bits of debris on the lake. Several days later, the remains of the ship were discovered in two pieces on the bottom of Lake Superior, only 17 miles from the safety of Whitefish Bay. All 29 crew members were lost. Every November 10, the bell at the Mariner's Church in Detroit, Michigan, rings 29 times in their memory.
288. SIAHH2_160310_818.JPG: Waterway Perils Even familiar waterways are unpredictable, for if left untended, they grow dangerous again. Waterways can't be simply explored and mapped. They must also be marked, inspected, and continually maintained to ensure watercraft safety. River bottoms, shorelines, and harbors change continuously, sometimes from one day to the next -- introducing a new danger where none existed before. Coastal and river travel are safe today largely because decades of vigilance and work. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard, and its forerunner, the U.S. Lighthouse Service, have kept them so.
289. SIAHH2_160310_821.JPG: Tending Waterways Busy harbors have hundreds of buoys and other aids to navigation to keep seaways safe. But like roads and airports, waterways take tending. Channels fill and shift, buoys drift off station, and lighthouses need fuel and repair. Small fleets of vessels carried out this indispensable work in the nation's harbors and rivers. In addition to maintaining every buoy -- from once a year to several times a week -- these ships delivered coal, water, mail, and supplies to lighthouses and lightships. And a vessel in distress sometimes found that the first ship to its aid was a buoy tender on its daily rounds.
290. SIAHH2_160310_823.JPG: The Steady Oak The engine room below, and its 750-horsepower steam engine, are from the U.S. Lighthouse Service's buoy tender Oak. Four officers and a 23-man crew were responsible for setting, inspecting, repairing, and replacing hundreds of buoys -- like the one to your right -- that marked channels and shoals in and around New York harbor. For more than 40 years, in all kinds of weather, the Oak carried out its duties in one of the world's most important ports. In 1964 the vessel was decommissioned and taken to a Coast Guard facility near Baltimore, where this engine and related equipment were removed for the Smithsonian.
291. SIAHH2_160310_826.JPG: The Oak's Crew Crew members aboard the Oak shoveled a lot of coal. They had to feed the engine's coal-fired boiler and deliver coal to lighthouses and lightships. The crew was relieved of most coaling duties when the engine was converted to an oil-burning system in 1934.
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Description of Subject Matter: On the Water: Stories from Maritime America
May 22, 2009 – Permanent
Marine transportation and waterborne commerce underlie American history like a strong and steady ocean current. Maritime trade established major cities, created connections between people and places, and opened the continent. This exhibition traces American maritime history from 18th-century sailing ships, to 19th-century steamboats and fishing craft, to today's huge container ships. Items featured include rigged ship models, patent models, documents, and images from the Smithsonian's National Watercraft Collection. American maritime history is brought to life through the stories of whaling crews, fishermen, shipbuilders, merchant mariners, passengers, and many others who work on the nation's waterways.
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2016 photos: Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Seven relatively short trips this year: two Civil War Trust conference (Gettysburg, PA and West Point, NY, with a side-trip to New York City), my 11th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including sites in Utah, Nevada, and California), a quick trip to Michigan for Uncle Wayne's funeral, two additional trips to New York City, and a Civil Rights site trip to Alabama during the November elections. Being in places where people died to preserve the rights of minority voters made the Trumputin election even more depressing. Number of photos taken this year: just over 610,000.
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