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Captain Ahab Had a Wife
New England Women and the Whalefishery, 1720-1870
This book is available to read until 28th January, 2026
- 392 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
Available until 28 Jan |Learn more
About this book
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the whaling industry in New England sent hundreds of ships and thousands of men to distant seas on voyages lasting up to five years. In Captain Ahab Had a Wife, Lisa Norling taps a rich vein of sources — including women’s and men’s letters and diaries, shipowners' records, Quaker meeting minutes and other church records, newspapers and magazines, censuses, and city directories — to reconstruct the lives of the “Cape Horn widows” left behind onshore.
Norling begins with the emergence of colonial whalefishery on the island of Nantucket and then follows the industry to mainland New Bedford in the nineteenth century, tracking the parallel shift from a patriarchal world to a more ambiguous Victorian culture of domesticity. Through the sea-wives' compelling and often poignant stories, Norling exposes the painful discrepancies between gender ideals and the reality of maritime life and documents the power of gender to shape both economic development and individual experience.
Norling begins with the emergence of colonial whalefishery on the island of Nantucket and then follows the industry to mainland New Bedford in the nineteenth century, tracking the parallel shift from a patriarchal world to a more ambiguous Victorian culture of domesticity. Through the sea-wives' compelling and often poignant stories, Norling exposes the painful discrepancies between gender ideals and the reality of maritime life and documents the power of gender to shape both economic development and individual experience.
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Yes, you can access Captain Ahab Had a Wife by Lisa Norling in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
CONCLUSION
1.
Eliza
Brock
diary,
February
1855,
Logbook
136,
NHA.
2.
Eliza
Williams,
āāJournal,āā
2
February
1860.
3.
In
addition
to
the
relevant
entries
in
Eliza
Brockās
diary,
see
also
Joan
Druettās
account
in
Petticoat
Whalers,
109.
4.
My
sense
of
this
aspect
of
Victorian
gender
roles
is
particularly
inļ¬uenced
by
Pierre
Bourdieuās
concept
of
habitus,
as
developed
in
Outline
of
a
Theory
of
Practice;
see
also
the
sources
cited
in
the
Introduction,
note
9.
5.
Libby
Spooner
to
Caleb
Spooner,
3
December
1858,
CC;
Susan
McKenzie
diary,
2
November
1869,
Susan
Stimson
McKenzie
File,
NBFPL.
6.
Springer
and
Robillard,
āāHerman
Melville,āā
135.
Notes
to
Pages
262ā70
:
327
TsengĀ
2000.7.6Ā
11:28Ā
OCV:0
6116Ā
Norling
/
CAPTAIN
AHAB
HAD
A
WIFEĀ
/Ā
sheet
343
of
391
TsengĀ
2000.7.6Ā
11:28Ā
OCV:0
6116Ā
Norling
/
CAPTAIN
AHAB
HAD
A
WIFEĀ
/Ā
sheet
344
of
391