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The Business of Whaling in America in the 1850's

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

David Moment
David Moment
Affiliation:
Doctoral Candidate atHarvard Graduate School of Business Administration
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Abstract

The glamor of the American whale fishery has tended to obscure its economic outlines and significance. For certain areas one of the first successful efforts at natural resources exploitation, the fisheries developed centers of highly specialized technical and administrative skills. Capital amassed in whaling was a far from inconsequential economic force when it was shifted into other channels of investment. The shifting process itself highlights the circumstances surrounding a dying industry and provides an example of variant national investment patterns.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1957 , pp. 261 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1957

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References

1 Manuscript in Baker Library, Harvard Business School. See Bibliographical Notes at end of article.

2 Starbuck, Alexander, History of the American Whale Fishery from Its Earliest Inception to the Year 1876 (Waltham, Massachusetts, 1878), 331.Google Scholar For a description of published sources, see Bibliographical Notes at end of article.

3 See Hohman, Elmo Paul, The American Whaleman, a Study of Life and Labor in the Whaling Industry (New York, 1928).Google Scholar

4 See Brandt, Karl, Whale Oil, an Economic Analysis (Stanford University, 1940).Google Scholar

5 Starbuck, op. cit.

6 International Whaling Statistics, XXXVI (The Committee for Whaling Statistics, Oslo), 1956.

7 Charles M. Scammon, The Marine Mammals of the North-western Coast of North America, Described and Illustrated; Together with an Account of The American Whale Fishery (San Francisco, 1874). These barrels contained 13½ gallons.

8 See Pease, Zeph W. and Hough, George A., New Bedford, Massachusetts, Its History, Industries, Institutions, and Attractions (New Bedford, 1889).Google Scholar

9 Whalemen's Shipping List and Merchants' Transcript, New Bedford, weekly, 1843–1914.

10 See Starbuck, op. cit.

11 See Hohman, op. cit., for a finely detailed account of these practices and others aimed at bilking the whalemen.

12 See Scammon, op. cit.

13 The best description of whaling's sacred objects, rites, and rituals is in Melville's Moby Dick.

14 See Starbuck, op. cit.

15 See Tower, Walter S., A History of the American Whale Fishery (Philadelphia, 1907).Google Scholar

16 Ibid.

17 The entry “left” means that the man either missed the boat's sailing from a port or was intentionally marooned by the captain. The latter was more likely the case near the end of the voyage.

18 Business manuscript in Baker Library, Harvard Business School.

19 Manuscript at The Old Dartmouth Historical Society and Whaling Museum, New Bedford.

20 Manuscript in Baker Library.

21 One of Matthew Howland's letters to Capt. Pomeroy of the George Howland on her seventh voyage expresses irritation at the captain's draft for $4,800 for provisions in the Pacific.

22 See Hohman, op. cit.

23 A three-volume W.P.A. survey examined at the Old Dartmouth Historical Society and Whaling Museum in New Bedford.

24 In Representative Men and Old Families of Southeastern Massachusetts, Vol. 1 (Chicago, 1922).

25 Business manuscript in Baker Library.

26 See Ellis, L. B., History of New Bedford (New Bedford, 1892).Google Scholar

27 Ibid.

28 See Pease & Hough, op. cit.

29 Although the members of crews who returned home were charged for “interest and insurance,” they never did share in the proceeds from the insurance on wrecked vessels.