Items related to Women Sailors and Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime...

Women Sailors and Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime History - Hardcover

  • 3.62 out of 5 stars
    499 ratings by Goodreads
 
9780375500411: Women Sailors and Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime History

Synopsis

For centuries the sea has been regarded as a male domain. Fisherman, navy officers, pirates, and explorers roamed the high seas while their wives and daughters stayed on shore. Oceangoing adventurers and the crews of their ships were part of an all-male world — or were they?

In this illuminating historical narrative, maritime scholar David Cordingly shows that in fact an astonishing number of women went to sea in the great age of sail. Some traveled as the wives or mistresses of captains. A few were smuggled aboard by officers or seaman. A number of cases have come to light of young women dressing in men’s clothes and working alongside the sailors for months, and sometimes years. In the U.S. and Britsh navies, it was not uncommon for the wives of bosuns, carpenters, and cooks to go to sea on warships. Cordingly’s tremendous research shows that there was indeed a thriving female population — from female pirates to the sirens of legend — on and around the high seas. A landmark work of women’s history disguised as a spectacularly entertaining yarn, Women’s Sailors and Sailor’s Women will surprise and delight readers.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

David Cordingly was for twelve years on the staff of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, where he was curator of paintings and then head of exhibitions. He is a graduate of Oxford and the author of Under the Black Flag, an acclaimed history of piracy. Cordingly lives with his wife and family by the sea in Sussex, England.

From the Inside Flap

s the sea has been regarded as a male domain. Fisherman, navy officers, pirates, and explorers roamed the high seas while their wives and daughters stayed on shore. Oceangoing adventurers and the crews of their ships were part of an all-male world or were they?

In this illuminating historical narrative, maritime scholar David Cordingly shows that in fact an astonishing number of women went to sea in the great age of sail. Some traveled as the wives or mistresses of captains. A few were smuggled aboard by officers or seaman. A number of cases have come to light of young women dressing in men s clothes and working alongside the sailors for months, and sometimes years. In the U.S. and Britsh navies, it was not uncommon for the wives of bosuns, carpenters, and cooks to go to sea on warships. Cordingly s tremendous research shows that there was indeed a thriving female population from female pirates to the sirens of legend on and around the high seas.

Reviews

The shipwrecked sailor is a familiar figure, but what of the woman lighthouse keeper who rescued him? Readers of sea lore know the pirate Calico Jack, but what about his mistress Anne Bonny and her lover, Mary Read? An Oxford-trained maritime museum curator, Cordingly (Under the Black Flag) writes back into naval history these and other women who went to sea with their lovers, either as wives or as cross-dressing "cabin boys." Although he sometimes wanders away from his primary subject to describe great moments in maritime history only distantly connected to women, his tales are so compelling it's hard to begrudge him the digressions. And while many of his anecdotes are quite titillating, his understated British voice keeps readers from feeling embarrassed for keyhole peeping. For instance, his sangfroid account of how a cross-dressing woman sailor's testimony led to a male sailor's execution for the crime of sodomy allows readers to draw their own conclusions. The only shortcoming to this delightful volume is its lack of illustrations. (Mar. 2)Forecast: Published in conjunction with a companion exhibit in Newport News, Va., and the author's tour of maritime museums, this book will find solid sales among female adventure fans and the many devoted readers of Patrick O'Brian's seafaring sagas.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.



A distinguished nautical historian provides an absolutely fascinating glimpse into the lives of the intrepid women who went to sea during the great age of sail. Countless females set sail for reasons of adventure, romance, or duty in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Included among their numbers were the wives or mistresses of ships' officers, prostitutes, female pirates, and women disguised as male sailors. Women undertook a variety of tasks at sea, often acting as nurses, surrogate mothers, and additional deckhands. In quite a few cases, a woman was called on to take command of a vessel because of the death or the illness of the captain. Most interesting is the author's examination of how the men reacted to and related to the women who toiled alongside them in a predominantly male province. A significant contribution to both women's history and maritime scholarship. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Cordingly (Under the Black Flag), former curator of paintings and head of exhibitions for the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, here offers a fascinating survey of the role of women on shore and at sea during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, the great age of sail. Recent studies of this period reveal that "a surprising number of women went to sea," some smuggled aboard, some as the wives or mistresses of captains, and some dressed in men's clothing, working undiscovered (often for an entire voyage) alongside their shipmates. Set out in the form of a voyage, the author's historical narrative begins at the seaports; follows the varied stories of women sailors, sailors' women, and men without women at sea; examines the mystic relationship between women and water; moves on to adventures in foreign ports; and returns (with a brief investigation of lighthouses and female lighthouse keepers) to the seaports. Almost as action-packed as the sea yarns of C.S. Forester or Patrick O'Brian, Cordingly's carefully documented account presents a facet of maritime life that might surprise even Horatio Hornblower or Jack Aubrey. Recommended for public and academic libraries.DRobert C. Jones, Central Missouri State Univ., Warrensburg
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

Women on the Waterfront

The English artist Thomas Rowlandson was an astute observer of sailors and their women, and his engravings provide a vivid picture of life in the waterfront taverns of London around 1800. The faces of his sailors are gnarled and weather-beaten, and their expressions are drunkenly happy or leery and lustful. They are dressed in short blue jackets, loose white shirts, and either baggy trousers or the distinctive garments known as petticoat-breeches. They have brightly colored handkerchiefs knotted around their necks and curiously shapeless black hats jammed on their heads. In one cartoon, entitled Despatch, or Jack preparing for sea, a sailor sits on the knee of one young woman while he gropes her companion's breast. In his spare hand he has a drink, and he is shouting encouragement to two musicians who stand beside him scraping away on their fiddles. In another cartoon a sailor and his woman dance an energetic hornpipe while their companions drink and smoke and look on with approval. A couple can be seen making love on the floor, and the whole atmosphere of the tavern reeks of tobacco smoke and strong liquor.

The women in Rowlandson's pictures are young and pretty and buxom. They wear little caps with feathers and ribbons on their heads, necklaces around their shapely necks, and low-cut, high-waisted dresses that emphasize their generous figures. Some of the women are barmaids and others are sailors' wives or sweethearts or whores. All of them appear to be having a good time.

These tavern scenes provide a stark contrast with the descriptions of life in London's East End some fifty years later. Bracebridge Hemyng contributeda chapter on sailors' women to Henry Mayhew's great work London Labour and the London Poor, first published in 1851. Among the women Hemyng met during his forays into the sailors' districts of Wapping and Limehouse was China Emma. She was short and rather stout with a pale face and a vacant expression. She lived in Bluegate Fields, a narrow street off the Ratcliffe Highway, and she was looked after by an eccentric Irishwoman who endeavored
to stop her from drinking herself to death. China Emma had acquired her nickname because she lived with a Chinese sailor, but she was not Chinese herself. She was born on Goswell Street to parents who kept a grocery. Her mother died when she was twelve years old and her father took to drink. Within three years he was dead, and Emma went to stay with her sister, who soon went off with a man, leaving Emma to fend for herself. She was unable to get any work and things looked bad until she met a sailor. She moved in with him, and they lived as man and wife for six years. Unhappily, like thousands of other sailors, he contracted yellow fever in the West Indies and died. One of his shipmates gave her the news and brought her back the silver snuffbox that her sailor had kept his tobacco quids in.

China Emma moved from street to street and kept herself going by working as a prostitute. Sometime after she moved to Bluegate Fields, she met a Chinese sailor named Apoo, who became her regular partner. He sent her money when he was away, but by now Emma had become an incurable drunkard.
Apoo had no patience with her drinking and sometimes resorted to drastic measures. He used to tie her arms and legs together and take her outside into the street: "He'd throw me into the gutter, and then he'd throw buckets of water over me till I was wet through; but that didn't cure; I don't believe anything would; I'd die for a drink; I must have it, and I don't care what I does to get it."

Emma sometimes had melancholy fits when she wished she were dead. Several times she attempted suicide by throwing herself into the Thames, but her attempts were always foiled. On one occasion she leapt out of the first-floor window of a waterfront house in Jamaica Place, but a passing boatman fished her out of the water with a boat hook. As she explained to her interviewer, "I've no luck; I never had since I was a child."

China Emma and Rowlandson's buxom wenches represent two stereotypes of sailors' women. The former is a pathetic example of the downtrodden victims who attracted the attention of Victorian clergymen and social reformers; the latter are in the tradition of the charming girls with names like
Pretty Nancy and Sweet Poll of Plymouth who appear in so many sailors' songs and ballads. Both these stereotypes existed and were typical of their times, but they were only the most visible of the sailors' women to be found in every port.

The women we hear least about are the close relatives of sailors and in particular their mothers and sisters. We catch glimpses here and there. Captain John Cremer, more familiarly known as Ramblin' Jack, came from a seafaring family in the East End of London and left a journal describing his adventures at sea. He was born around 1700 on East Lane, Bermondsey, on the south bank of the Thames a mile or so downstream from the Tower of London. His father was master of a merchant ship, and his uncle was a captain in the navy. "As to my mother's family; she was a master ropemaker's daughter, which had three rope-walks joining on the back of East Lane, and called Cantor's Rope-walks to this day." The rope-walks can be seen alongside the adjoining timber yards on old maps of London. They were long, narrow sites where strands of hemp were twisted to form the lengths of rope used for the rigging and anchor cables of ships. Jack's father was captured by the French and died around 1706, leaving his mother a house in Deptford and about £14 a year. We hear nothing more about Jack's
mother beyond the fact that her brother, who was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, arranged for Jack to join the crew of his ship, HMS Dover, in 1708.

Another glimpse of a sailor's family of this period is provided by Ned Ward, a London publican and journalist, whose best-known and least reliable work is a satirical pamphlet about life in the Royal Navy entitled The Wooden World Dissected. He also published his observations on London life
in a series of articles in The London Spy, which came out in book form in 1703. Unlike the navy, of which he had no firsthand experience, he had an intimate knowledge of London's streets, taverns, fairs, and customs. On one occasion around Christmastime, he and a friend took a stroll along the north bank of the Thames to Wapping, where they ventured into a public house to refresh themselves with a bowl of punch.

"The first figure that accosted us at our entrance was a female Wappineer, whose crimson countenance and double chin, contain'd within the borders of a white calico hood, and her fiery-face look, in my fancy, was like a red-hot iron glowing in a silver chafing dish." The woman was the landlady of the pub and the mother of two sailors. One of her sons was sitting glumly in the corner smoking a short pipe of stinking tobacco. After she had served Ward and his friend, she subjected her son to a torrent of abuse for his idleness. She complained that she worked as hard as any woman in the parish but could not afford to support him, and urged him to get off his backside and sign on to one of several ships that were bound for the West Indies. He agreed to do so and had no sooner left the pub than in walked his sailor brother, Bartholomew, with a hat full of money clutched under his arm. He explained that he had been paid off when his ship reached the Downs and had made his way around to the Thames on a local vessel. He
greeted his loud and corpulent mother with enthusiasm.

"Sure never any seafaring son of a whore had ever such a good mother upon shore as I have. 'Ounds, mother, let me have a bucket full of punch, that we may swim and toss in an ocean of good liquor, like a couple of little pinks in the Bay of Biscay." The mother and her favorite son had been drinking for a while when the sailor's sister, Betty, entered the tavern, "and there was such a wonderful mess of slip-slop licked up between brother Bat and sister Bet that no two friends, met by accident in a foreign
plantation, could have expressed more joy in their greeting."

The Wapping landlady was one of many sailors' women who earned a living in the taverns along the Thames, and in other British seaports. In the eighteenth century, as today, alehouses were often run by families. In most cases the landlord was formally in charge, but it was the landlady and her daughters who did much of the work and who set the tone for the establishment. We see them in numerous engravings doling out drink for the sailors, and joining in their noisy celebrations as the men savored their precious few weeks ashore before returning to their ships. There were women licensees of alehouses, but they were a minority and were usually the widows of former landlords. According to the 1796 directory for Liverpool, no less than 27 percent of licensed victuallers were female, but in most
places the proportion was much lower.

The sailors' women who were most in evidence in the East End of London were not landladies or sailors' mothers but the women described by Ward as strumpets or trulls. They were to be found plying their trade in the brothels that centered around the Ratcliffe Highway. This street lay to the north of the wharves on the riverfront at Wapping. It was described in 1600 by John Stow as "a continual street, or filthy straight passage, with alleys of small tenements or cottages builded, inhabited by sailors and
victuallers." Most sailors were young and unmarried, and every tide brought them flocking ashore from the hundreds of ships moored in serried ranks in the Pool of London. They were looking for women and drink, and the establishments along the Ratcliffe Highway provided for their needs. During the course of the seventeenth century, the neighborhood attracted prostitutes of several nationalities, including an influx of Flemish women who had a reputation for their sexual expertise and Venetian courtesans who
were too expens...

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Buy Used

Condition: Good
Item in good condition. Textbooks...
View this item

FREE shipping within U.S.A.

Destination, rates & speeds

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780375758720: Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0375758720 ISBN 13:  9780375758720
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2001
Softcover

Search results for Women Sailors and Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime...

Stock Image

Cordingly, David
Published by Random House, 2001
ISBN 10: 0375500413 ISBN 13: 9780375500411
Used Hardcover

Seller: SecondSale, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.

Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars 4-star rating, Learn more about seller ratings

Condition: Good. Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00085650742

Contact seller

Buy Used

US$ 5.89
Convert currency
Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

Quantity: 1 available

Add to basket

Stock Image

Cordingly, David
Published by Random House, 2001
ISBN 10: 0375500413 ISBN 13: 9780375500411
Used Hardcover

Seller: SecondSale, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.

Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars 4-star rating, Learn more about seller ratings

Condition: Very Good. Item in very good condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00077103305

Contact seller

Buy Used

US$ 5.89
Convert currency
Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

Quantity: 3 available

Add to basket

Stock Image

Cordingly, David
Published by Random House, 2001
ISBN 10: 0375500413 ISBN 13: 9780375500411
Used Hardcover

Seller: Wonder Book, Frederick, MD, U.S.A.

Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars 5-star rating, Learn more about seller ratings

Condition: Very Good. Very Good condition. Very Good dust jacket. A copy that may have a few cosmetic defects. May also contain light spine creasing or a few markings such as an owner's name, short gifter's inscription or light stamp. Seller Inventory # Y01I-00566

Contact seller

Buy Used

US$ 5.91
Convert currency
Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

Quantity: 1 available

Add to basket

Stock Image

Cordingly, David
Published by Random House, 2001
ISBN 10: 0375500413 ISBN 13: 9780375500411
Used Hardcover

Seller: Once Upon A Time Books, Siloam Springs, AR, U.S.A.

Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars 4-star rating, Learn more about seller ratings

hardcover. Condition: Good. This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear . This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear . Seller Inventory # mon0003200811

Contact seller

Buy Used

US$ 2.51
Convert currency
Shipping: US$ 3.95
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

Quantity: 1 available

Add to basket

Stock Image

David Cordingly
Published by Random House, 2001
ISBN 10: 0375500413 ISBN 13: 9780375500411
Used Hardcover

Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.

Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars 5-star rating, Learn more about seller ratings

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Former library book; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1.41. Seller Inventory # G0375500413I4N10

Contact seller

Buy Used

US$ 6.49
Convert currency
Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

Quantity: 1 available

Add to basket

Stock Image

David Cordingly
Published by Random House, 2001
ISBN 10: 0375500413 ISBN 13: 9780375500411
Used Hardcover

Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.

Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars 5-star rating, Learn more about seller ratings

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Former library book; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1.41. Seller Inventory # G0375500413I4N10

Contact seller

Buy Used

US$ 6.49
Convert currency
Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

Quantity: 1 available

Add to basket

Stock Image

David Cordingly
Published by Random House, 2001
ISBN 10: 0375500413 ISBN 13: 9780375500411
Used Hardcover

Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.

Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars 5-star rating, Learn more about seller ratings

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Former library book; Missing dust jacket; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1.41. Seller Inventory # G0375500413I4N11

Contact seller

Buy Used

US$ 6.49
Convert currency
Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

Quantity: 1 available

Add to basket

Stock Image

Cordingly, David
Published by Random House Publishing Group, 2001
ISBN 10: 0375500413 ISBN 13: 9780375500411
Used

Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.

Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars 5-star rating, Learn more about seller ratings

Condition: Very Good. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Seller Inventory # 3947615-75

Contact seller

Buy Used

US$ 6.75
Convert currency
Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

Quantity: 1 available

Add to basket

Stock Image

Cordingly, David
Published by Random House Publishing Group, 2001
ISBN 10: 0375500413 ISBN 13: 9780375500411
Used

Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.

Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars 5-star rating, Learn more about seller ratings

Condition: Good. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 4045966-6

Contact seller

Buy Used

US$ 6.75
Convert currency
Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

Quantity: 2 available

Add to basket

Stock Image

Cordingly, David
Published by Random House Publishing Group, 2001
ISBN 10: 0375500413 ISBN 13: 9780375500411
Used

Seller: Better World Books: West, Reno, NV, U.S.A.

Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars 5-star rating, Learn more about seller ratings

Condition: Very Good. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Seller Inventory # 3947615-75

Contact seller

Buy Used

US$ 6.75
Convert currency
Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

Quantity: 1 available

Add to basket

There are 29 more copies of this book

View all search results for this book