BOOK REVIEWS David M. Williams and Andrew P. White as well as those from the humanities. The (comp.). A Select Bibliography of British and section on Maritime Law lists work on Irish University Theses About Maritime pollution and the maritime environment, and History, 1792-1990. St. John's, Newfound• on the exploitation of sea resources. It is land: International Maritime Economic particularly useful to have the Open Univer• History Association, 1992. 179 pp., geo• sity and the C.NAA. theses listed. graphical and nominal indices. £10 or $20, The subjects are arranged under twenty- paper; ISBN 0-969588-5. five broad headings; there are numerous chronological geographic and subject sub• The establishment of the International and divisions and an author and geographic British Commissions for Maritime History, index to facilitate cross referencing. Though both of which have assisted in the publica• it is mildly irritating to have details some• tion of this bibliography, illustrates the times split between one column and the steadily growing interest in maritime history next, the whole book is generally convenient during the last thirty years. However, the and easy to use. The introduction explains increasing volume of research in this field the reasons for the format of the biblio• and the varied, detailed work of postgradu• graphy, its pattern of classification and the ate theses have often proved difficult to location and availability of theses. This has locate and equally difficult to consult. This recently much improved and an ASLIB bibliography provides access to this "enor• number is helpfully listed for the majority of mously rich resource" (p. iv) in British and post-1950 theses. Irish universities. It developed from an The editors are to be warmly congratu• information technology programme involving lated for producing what will quickly the production of a database without which become an essential work of reference. If it the formidable mass of material presented provokes scholars of other countries to here could scarcely have been marshalled emulate them it will prove a doubly valuable and categorised so effectively. It ranges from work. It is also an excellent inauguration to a Glasgow M.D. thesis on scurvy of 1792 to a new series, which the International Mari• a Keele Ph.D. thesis of 1990 on documen• time Economic History Association is to be tary evidence for medieval maritime technol• commended for sponsoring. Professor Fisch• ogy in England and Wales. er, the series editor, hopes to publish two Taking the widest definition of maritime titles annually, free to members of the history as "the study of all things associated IMEHA, including original monographs, with man's relationship with the sea," (p. v) research guides and reprints. All maritime the editors have abolished the invidious historians must wish the venture a fair wind. distinction between maritime and naval history, and, it is hoped, addressed the needs P.K. Crimmin of future as well as current historians, in• Englefield Green, Surrey cluding science theses with relevant subjects 65 66 The Northern Mariner Joel Mendes & Theodore J. Karamanski Society is particularly frustrating. (eds.). The Maritime History of Chicago; A The second part of the guide is a par• Guide to Sources. Chicago: The Chicago tially annotated bibliography in seven sec• Maritime Society, 1990. xvii + 132 pp. US tions ranging from General Histories to the $19.95 + $3.50 postage and handling, paper. Modern Lakefront. It is complemented by a set of brief essays by Joel Mendes which This major contribution to the study of introduce the volume. Particularly useful is Great Lakes history is arranged in three sec• the attention paid to environmental studies tions. The first profiles thirty-two "research of the Chicago waterfront, perhaps hardly depositories" with collections of interest to surprising, given the controversial nature of the Chicago waterfront. These range from the long-proposed ship canal/sewer. The the standard historical "resorts" (the Chicago bibliography offers fairly good coverage of Historical Society, the Illinois State early government publications on the Chica• Archives, the National Archives' Great go Sanitary District as well as the Illinois Lakes office), to the rich diversity of univer• and Michigan Canal. More attention might sity and public libraries and their special have been directed to those critical primary collections, to the offices of the Board of sources: the local newspapers. Which papers Trade, the Naval Air Station, and the Cus• ran significant marine columns? toms Station. While some have virtually The final section of the guide offers a nothing to offer (e.g. the Customs Service), slightly amended version of the Great Lakes others offer surprises. For each, the guide timeline derived partly from a 1985 issue of provides information on address, names or Inland Seas. While it may fill a gap for contacts, admission policies, transportation Chicago area school children, it offers much to the site, duplication facilities and costs, less to the Society's members than the first finding aids, as well as the scope of collec• sections of the guide. As the compilers have tion as well as major or minor holdings. noted, "the definitive maritime history of What the difference was between major and Chicago remains to be written." (vii) What• minor holdings was never clear to this ever projects its members may produce in reviewer, nor may it have been to the volun• the ensuing years, the Chicago Maritime teers collecting the information. It is a Society has ensured that they should be well distinction which might well be dropped. grounded in the appropriate primary and The sorts of information which might be secondary material located in the region. reported was eclectic indeed. Thus, we learn that the Cudahy Library at Loyola holds a Walter Lewis copy of American Secretaries of the Navy Acton, Ontario (Naval Institute Press, 1980). If this were the only copy in Chicago, it would undoubtedly Colin Howell & Richard Twomey (eds.). be of some interest to naval historians in the Jack Tar in History: Essays in the History of neighbourhood. However, like several other Maritime Life and Labour. Fredericton, NB: items, its relevance to this guide is unclear. Acadiensis Press, 1991. 275 pp., figures, The cartoon stereotype of historians often revolves around an unnatural obsession with photographs, tables. $21.95, paper; ISBN 0- dates. Our compilers have drifted to the 919107-32-X. other extreme. Perhaps it is the fault of the finding aids in the various depositories, but This collection of fine, revisionist studies of the reporting on inclusive dates for various various groups who plied the oceans or who collections is wildly uneven. The information were socially, culturally, or economically on the holdings of the Chicago Historical intimately attached to those who did-men, women, African-Americans, seamen, master Book Reviews 67 mariners, captains, bachelors, and married the prevalent wages and hen system and its men-provides both depth and breadth to demise in 1832. Cadigan emphasizes that our understanding of maritime life and such laws little affected emerging industrial labour. Though not all-encompassing, here capitalist relations between planters and is nevertheless maritime and social history at servants in the early nineteenth century. its finest and most provocative, painting Perhaps the most innovative section portraits of maritimers whose faces have consists of four separate essays headed often been left only caricatured, if not blank. "gender, family and the world ashore." Citing Boasting an impressive array of scholars, cases of women disguised as men who went this book illustrates the apt use of many to sea, Dianne Dugaw traces changing qualitative and quantitative tools including notions of femininity as evidenced in ballads, court records, oral history, popular literature memoirs, diaries, and other personal and and folklore, statistics, and official accounts public records thereby opening up hitherto and frequently conceptual borrowing from neglected but historically significant dimen• the most current interpretations of class, sions of maritime history. Margaret S. gender, and race. Creighton in her look at American sailors The book consists of thirteen articles and mid-nineteenth century rites of man• arranged in five sections, together with the hood pursues a similar theme in examining editors' foreword and an afterword by social and sexual objectification of seamen labour historian Greg Kealey. Peter Line- and seawomen. Through her study of the baugh and Marcus Rediker provide an New England whalefishery between 1790 elegant and provocative look at interrelated and 1870, Lisa Norling looks at the working class and slave revolt, in which institutionalization of culturally based gender labourers at sea who shared a common stereotypes and divisions and their accom• consciousness as well as an anti-authoritar• panying sentimentalization. Lastly, Valerie ianism that often transcended nation and Burton deconstructs the myth of Bachelor race played a visible role in the late-eight• Jack in the context of class, gender and eenth century North Atlantic revolutionary power. Burton shows how the image of the world. Julius S. Scott contributed an illumi• seafarer reinforced not only notions of nating study of Afro-American sailor New• masculinity but capitalist labour relations in port Bowers, whose working life at sea took the merchant marine. him into