BOOK REVIEW
FIVE STARS
The Whalemen by Edouard A. Stackpole
Like the buffalo and passenger pigeon, the whale was unrelentingly hunted. This epic story spans the epoch beginning before the Industrial Revolution to the end of the age of sailing ships. America rode the wave of this heroic adventure story from its Revolutionary War of independence up to it’s ruinous Civil War. The end of whaling was abrupt.
Excerpts from The Whaleman:
Beginning with colonists in flimsy open boats, the industry expanded as enterprising Americans sent ships to every corner of the world, adding to their new country’s wealth and enlarging their knowledge of its geography. Born before the steam engine, the whaling business thrived for more than three centuries, dependent only upon the strength and courage of the brave souls who manned the ships.
In 1857 - New Bedford’s greatest whaling year - 10,000 men were making their living on New Bedford’s 329 sailing vessels, bringing in oil and bone worth $6,178,728 (more than $165 million today).
In the late 1800s, as the use of petroleum and natural gas accelerated, the world no longer needed whale oil for its lamps. Additionally, the need for whalebone to make women’s corsets disappeared with the invention of celluloid.
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