STEAMBOAT JACK: THE DEGENERATE SCION OF A NOBLE LINE? CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE AMERICAN SAILOR AND THE MEANING OF MARITIME IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY GREAT LAKES MARITIME WORLD by Dana S. Brown A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida May 2013 © Copyright Dana S. Brown 2013 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The late Christian mystic and philosopher Thomas Merton offered an interesting perspective on cultivating a positive attitude when attempting to accomplish what, at the time, might seem an insurmountable task: Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.1 Although I view this thesis as a personal success I cannot take full credit for it truly could not have happened without the assistance received through personal and professional relationships. While I am wholeheartedly indebted to my thesis committee, Dr. Sandra L. Norman, Dr. Stephen D. Engle, Dr. Kristen Block and Dr. Theodore J. Karamanski Loyola University Chicago, Illinois for their support and guidance throughout the entire research and writing process, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to share ideas, laughs and oftentimes tears, with some very special people. My gratitude to Dr. Derrick White for offering his expertise in African American history, Dr. Jane Caputi for introducing me to a more theoretical approach to 1 Jim Forest, Living With Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton. Revised Edition. (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2008), 174-175. iv my work, and Dr. Eric Hanne for teaching me how to ask different types of questions. The fruitful research at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio is credited to the tireless efforts of Anne Sindelar, Reference Supervisor while a special thank you to Bob Graham, Archivist for the Historical Collections of the Great Lakes at Bowling Green State University, for answering every email and endless phone calls. A special thank you to Dr. Roald Kverndal for encouraging me to continue exploring church maritime history. I owe my love for history and courage to pursue a master’s degree to Dr. Michael Doyle, Dr. Bruce Geelhoed, Dr. Stephanie Beswick and Dr. John Parkinson, Ball State University, Muncie Indiana and Dr. Warren Mackey, Chattanooga State Technical Community College. To my colleagues in the graduate program, Chris Rodgers and Therese Aloia your friendship and support made even the toughest moments seem like a day at the beach. I love you all and have such deep respect for your commitment to the field. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge personal friends outside of the academe including Dr. Mariam Jafarieh, K.C.Valentine, Andrew Yuncza, and Terrence Black. To Dave Ormesher – Dave, you never really know how you influence another person’s life. For the men and women working on the Great Lakes, “Although ill-fated winds continue to blow sail on, sail on.” v ABSTRACT Author: Dana S. Brown Title: Steamboat Jack: The Degenerate Scion of a Noble Line? Cultural Representations of the American Sailor and the Meaning of Maritime in the Nineteenth Century Great Lakes Maritime World Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Sandra L. Norman Degree: Master of Arts Year: 2013 By the nineteenth century, ships and sailors were firmly entrenched as symbols of American progress and nationalism; however, the development of the Great Lakes maritime world challenged the meaning of “maritime” and the cultural symbolism of the American sailor. A growing anxiety that the influence and power of New England traditions would diminish as the nation moved westward resulted in a shared discourse between religious reformers and influential leaders of Cleveland, Ohio. Their language ascribed the symbolism of Jack Tar as essential for maintaining cultural hegemony. This thesis examines how this power struggle transpired at the intersection of race, class and geopolitical rivalry, altering the depiction of Jack Tar to Steamboat Jack. vi DEDICATION To my beloved, Captain Paul A. Brown. STEAMBOAT JACK: THE DEGENERATE SCION OF A NOBLE LINE? CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE AMERICAN SAILOR AND THE MEANING OF MARITIME IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY GREAT LAKES MARITIME WORLD CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 1 CHAPTER TWO. MINISTERING ANGELS PERCHED ALOFT: EARLY SAILOR REFORM ORGANIZATIONS AND THE WESTWARD EXPANSION OF THE UNITED STATES ................................................................................................. 33 CHAPTER THREE. STEAMBOAT JACK: EARLY CLEVELAND, CONTESTED SPACES AND THE WESTERN SEAMEN’S FRIEND SOCIETY ............................. 61 CHAPTER FOUR. BLACK JACKS AND IRON ORE TERRIERS: THE QUEST FOR WHITENESS IN THE GREAT LAKES MARITIME WORLD .......................... 89 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 124 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................ 130 Primary Sources ................................................................................................ 130 Newspapers and Periodicals ............................................................................. 132 Websites ........................................................................................................... 134 Secondary Sources ............................................................................................ 135 vi CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Over the last fifty years, scholarship in the field of nineteenth-century American maritime history has experienced dramatic changes. Early scholarship’s reliance on more traditional methodologies crafted commemorative maritime narratives that highlighted military, technological advances in shipbuilding, and the economic impact of maritime commerce. The 1960s, however, ushered in a cadre of new scholars anxious to expand inquiry beyond the conventional representations of the American sailor and seafaring life.2 Labor, social, and cultural historians interested in enlarging the American maritime historiography introduced a diverse range of narratives by interrogating cultural and racial identities, in addition to contextualizing the portrayal of sailors and seafaring life in folklore and literature. Accordingly, those left out of the story were now given a voice within the histories, thus advancing a divergence from the prevailing interpretations of “Jack Tar” as a white, adventurous male seafarer.3 Despite efforts to detach from normative views of seafaring life, the present state of the field still has tendencies to inculcate the reader into viewing American 2 For early works from the early twentieth century see Robert G. Albion. Forests and Sea Power: The Timber Power of the Royal Navy 1652-1862, revised edition (U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1999) and the nearly 60 works of Naval Historian Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison. Both men are credited for laying the foundation of maritime history as a subfield of history. Albion penned an equal amount of works. 3 For more information on the varying definitions of “Jack Tar” see Jesse Lemisch, Jack Tar versus John Bull: The Role of the New York’s Seamen in Precipitating The Revolution (New York: Routledge, 1997), 3-10. 1 maritime history as that of “the sea” – more specifically, the blue waters off the Atlantic seaboard. The privileging saltwater sailors in the American maritime historiography gained the attention of scholars whose interests seek a more interdisciplinary approach to studying sailors and the seafaring life on the water and in port. Mark Raffety’s “Recent Currents in the Nineteenth- Century American Maritime History,” examines the deeper complexities and the “contradictory directions” of American maritime history contending this fragmentation of the field is due in part to this emerging interest in maritime history across the disciplines. He speculates whether establishing some type of consensus in the field is possible or even necessary seeing how the field as whole suffers from a sense of isolation from the broader United States historiography, thus questioning altogether the practicality of studying seafarers and seafaring life as something unique.4 This thesis proposes to question the wider implications of why the saltwater sailor is privileged in both academic scholarship and public perception. In addition, I also interrogate how this privileging contributed to the stagnant symbolism of the American sailor as it relates in historicizing American maritime heritage. Largely, my inquiries and subsequent research propose a more inclusive interpretation of nineteenth- century American maritime history; a narrative which takes place on the Great Lakes, yet holds to the larger, prevailing anxieties over the nation’s larger agenda in the promotion of Manifest Destiny and American exceptionalism during this period. By exploring the