Despite a concerted effort by the establishment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to create an image of professional, respectable men, Jack’s licentious proclivities ashore have continued to form a key part of his popular image.[1] Yet what did sailors themselves record on the subject of sex? Christopher McKee has argued that ‘most […]
Visitors to Salem, Massachusetts are likely to make a beeline for anything related to the celebrated witch trials. A few older tourists will notice the sites connected to Nathaniel Hawthorne (my generation was probably the last to read The Scarlet Letter in school as an obligatory part of the American canon). Both the witch trials […]
Over Thanksgiving, I had the privilege to participate in what was apparently the first ever conference devoted to Charles Dibdin the Elder (1745-1814). In what follows, I will not reproduce information easily enough discovered on the conference website, nor will I suggest that the conference reached a consensus (it did not). There were some shared […]
Department of Historical Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden, 9th September 2014 A recent workshop by the Universities of Gothenburg and Portsmouth brought together academics, archivists and heritage professionals to discuss the methodologies, data and potential beneficiaries of mapping port towns. Dr Tomas Nilson and Dr Brad Beaven opened proceedings and explained that the history of port […]
The first time I considered sailors in port as an academic subject was back in 1993, when—as a graduate student in search of a dissertation topic—I read the first chapter of Marcus Rediker’s Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Reactions to Devil varied, to be sure, but few have offered a coherent alternative […]
There remains a stereotypical image of Jack Tar as a man with loose morals who enjoyed himself ashore whenever he got the opportunity. Yet, how far this stereotype stands up has increasingly been questioned by historians.[1] This article does not intend to join in this debate per se but rather to reflect on the stereotype […]
