Merchant Seamen, Sailortowns, and the Shaping of U.S. Citizenship, 1843-1945
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2018 Merchant Seamen, Sailortowns, and the Shaping of U.S. Citizenship, 1843-1945 Johnathan Thayer The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2805 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] MERCHANT SEAMEN, SAILORTOWNS, AND THE SHAPING OF U.S. CITIZENSHIP, 1843-1945 JOHNATHAN THAYER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2018 © 2018 Johnathan Thayer All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in History in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 05/09/2018 Joshua B. Freeman ____________________ ________________________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee 05/09/2018 Helena Rosenblatt ____________________ ________________________________________ Date Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Kathleen D. McCarthy Joshua Brown THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Merchant Seamen, Sailortowns, and the Shaping of U.S. Citizenship, 1843-1945 by Johnathan Thayer Advisor: Joshua B. Freeman This dissertation argues that merchant seamen, because of their inherent transience, diversity, and the unique nature of their work, occupied a marginal position in U.S. society, and that that marginalization produced a series of confrontations with shoreside people, communities, institutions, and the state, most specifically over the nature and definition of citizenship. This argument is developed through examination of a series of encounters and negotiations that merchant seamen provoked from the piers, back alleys, and boardinghouses of the nation’s “sailortowns” from the 1830s through World War II, including: 1) nineteenth century maritime ministry projects in the Port of New York that originated during the 1830s, in which merchant seamen and evangelical reformers confronted each other within Manhattan’s lower wards and engaged in contestations over sailors’ liberty, mobility, and masculinity; 2) the 1897 U.S. Supreme Court case Robertson v. Baldwin, in which four merchant seamen argued that their imprisonment as punishment for breaking contract through desertion constituted a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment; 3) an analysis of the 1915 Seamen’s Act that focuses on the outbreak of industrial maritime labor unionism in New York that sparked a national reckoning with seamen’s rights following the Titanic disaster; 4) a tour of the iv “million dollar home for sailors” at 25 South Street in lower Manhattan, and an analysis of the ideological and economic motivations behind the war that the Seamen’s Church Institute waged on the city’s sailortown and its indigenous economies from 1913-1945; and, 5) an examination of the “alien seamen problem” that became a national political issue during the 1920s, emerging alongside restrictive and exclusionary immigration legislation from 1917-1936, and the alien seamen immigration raids that took place in New York in 1931. The dissertation concludes by addressing the question of how merchant seamen responded to the Great Depression through the lens of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which empowered the federal government to impose unprecedented regulation and control over the U.S. merchant marine and its labor pool. The narrative ends with the coming of World War II, in which merchant seamen, acting as civilians recruited for work transporting war cargo through combat zones, suffered a higher casualty rate than any branch of the armed services and yet were excluded from postwar benefits despite the extent of their sacrifices. Merchant seamen, because of their persistent transience, “bluewater masculinity,” and extreme multiculturalism, have always been perceived as inherently alien, and therefore have constantly posed challenges to the boundaries of U.S. citizenship. In response, attempts by both civil society and the state to counter these challenges have consistently attempted to marginalize and exclude merchant seamen from the full protections and rights of citizenship. These competing forces anchor an argument for a history of merchant seamen that locates them at a vanguard position in the history of U.S. citizenship, lending new perspective to the role that merchant seamen played in U.S. v history; not just during the “Age of Sail,” to which historians have given ample attention, but through late nineteenth and twentieth century histories of philanthropy, law, labor, immigration, and war. vi Acknowledgements Thank you to my committee members, especially my advisor, Dr. Joshua B. Freeman, whose wisdom, patience, and kindness have consistently steered this project down the path of good sense. Thank you to Dr. Kathleen D. McCarthy, whose ability to recommend precisely the right text during a discussion or ask exactly the right questions of my writing has transformed this project in countless ways, all for the better. Thank you to Dr. Joshua Brown, whose unique perspective and feedback has left me considering next steps in new ways. It’s hard to overstate the amount of gratitude I owe Dr. Ben Alexander, my mentor while a master’s student in archival studies, and now, my colleague and friend. No one has offered me more professional support, pushed me harder as an academic, nor has had such unbridled, and at times reckless confidence in my abilities as a young archivist and scholar. Thank you Ben. Thank you to the Seamen’s Church Institute of New York and New Jersey for giving me my first job as an archivist, and for being consistent supporters of my work, both in developing an archives program over the past eight years and in my second role as an academic researcher. Thank you to Dr. Michael Skaggs for his professionalism and keen eye as a copy editor. Thank you to the members of my cohort at the Graduate Center, especially Scott Ackerman, John Winters, Sarah Litvin, and the other members of the CUNY Public History Collective. Sarah, in particular, has been a tremendous collaborator and friend, and someone to whom I will turn for inspiration for many years to come. vii Thank you to my fellow archivists, librarians, and information workers. I see you, I hear you, I’m with you. I dedicate this manuscript first to my family: my mother Colleen, my father George, my sister Liz, my partner Muriel, and my cat and writing partner Chichi. Second, I dedicate this work to the members of the American Merchant Marine Veterans Association, especially the Edwin J. O’Hara chapter of New York for showing me the ropes and for fighting the good fight. Finally, this is for my students: past, present, and future. Let’s keep up the good work. viii Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter One………………………………………………………………………………7 Chapter Two……………………………………………………………………………...69 Chapter Three…………………………………………………………………………...118 Chapter Four……………………………………………………………………………176 Chapter Five…………………………………………………………………………….262 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….......313 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………335 ix LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table/Figure Page 1 Image from Gunn’s Physiology depicting a typical scene from a sailors’ boardinghouse……………………………………………………………........................20 2 Image from Gunn’s Physiology depicting “land sharks” preying on a sailor……………………………………………………………………………………...23 3 The Floating Church of Our Saviour, moored at the foot of Pike Street in Manhattan in February 1844……………………………………………………………..39 4 The Rev. Benjamin C. C. Parker, chaplain of the Floating Church of Our Saviour from 1843-1859…………………………………………………………………41 5 Sailors’ boardinghouse at 52 Market Street, owned and operated by SCI in 1894………………………………………………………………………………………63 6 Steam launch J. Hooker Hamersley, acquired by SCI to intercept seamen on ships coming into port before they were contacted by boardinghouse runners and crimps…………………………………………………………………………………….64 7 Rev. Archibald R. R. Mansfield, Superintendent of SCI from 1894- 1934……………………………………………………………………………………..184 8 SCI’s 13-story headquarters at 25 South Street towered over its neighbors along the East River waterfront when it opened in 1912……………………………….191 x 9 Total number of boarders at 25 South Street as recorded by New York State and Federal censuses, 1915-1940………………………………………………...192 10 The auditorium at 25 South Street……………………………………...198 11 Mother Roper at work with an elderly sailor…………………………...200 12 The writing room at 25 South Street……………………………………202 13 Letter from a sailor to Mother Roper…………………………………...203 14 The lobby at 25 South Street……………………………………………206 15 The printing office at 25 South Street, where issues of SCI produced issues of its monthly magazine …………....…………………………………………...210 16 Average age of boarders at 25 South Street…………………………….211 17 Marital Status of boarders at 25 South Street 1930-1940 (not recorded prior to 1930)…………………………………………………………………………...211 18 Marital status of boarders at 25 South Street 1930………………..........212 19 Marital status of boarders at 25 South Street 1940………………..........212 20 Exterior of 25 South Street……………………………………………..214 21 Boarder arriving at 25 South