Captain Ahab Had a Wife - (Gender and American Culture) by Lisa Norling (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the whaling industry in New England sent hundreds of ships and thousands of men to distant seas on voyages lasting up to five years. In Captain Ahab Had a Wife, Lisa Norling taps a rich vein of sources -- including women's and men's letters and diaries, shipowners' records, Quaker meeting minutes and other church records, newspapers and magazines, censuses, and city directories -- to reconstruct the lives of the "Cape Horn widows" left behind onshore.

Norling begins with the emergence of colonial whalefishery on the island of Nantucket and then follows the industry to mainland New Bedford in the nineteenth century, tracking the parallel shift from a patriarchal world to a more ambiguous Victorian culture of domesticity. Through the sea-wives' compelling and often poignant stories, Norling exposes the painful discrepancies between gender ideals and the reality of maritime life and documents the power of gender to shape both economic development and individual experience.

Review Quotes

"[Norling] succeeds admirably, in an engaging style bolstered with evidence that she reads with skill and imagination . . . . [This book] gives a larger, more nuanced picture of whaling behind the scenes than anywhere else I know of." -- American Studies

"A subtle and nuanced account of changing ideals and behavior, of the mutual dependencies of women and men united and separated by economic endeavor." -- American Historical Review

"A thorough and penetrating history of the whaling masters' wives of Southern New England and the complex culture created through their interactions with their often absent husbands and each other." -- Sea History

"From its provocative title to its rich bibliography, Lisa Norling's Captain Ahab Had a Wife does not disappoint. This is an ambitious book, one that tackles important questions and analyzes them over an inconvenient span of time that few historians are brave enough to attempt at all, let alone in a first book. . . . A signal achievement in American women's and gender history, but anyone interested in the interplay between culture and economics in any period of American history would do well to read this book. Her thesis is provocative, but it is also thoroughly researched and cogently and engagingly argued. Scholars will ignore her at their peril." -- Journal of American History

"Nicely written, skillfully researched, and richly intriguing. Captain Ahab Had a Wife will prompt academic and public historians to rethink their approach to the industry and society of early Yankee whaling." -- New England Quarterly

"Norling's wonderful book about the New England whalefishery, is replete with people and paradoxes. . . . In exploring the evolution, of the whaling industry, Norling persuasively shows how gender and the economy were inextricably linked. . . . The questions raised by [this book] attest to Lisa Norling's thoughtful and nuanced presentation. Gracefully written, the book is about contradictions: between what society expected of women and men and what vicissitudes of life demanded and actually produced." -- William and Mary Quarterly

"The details of whaling and women's crucial role in this industry are here and well worth the read." -- Journal of the Early Republic

"This book is required reading, not only for whaling experts but also for anyone interested in maritime gender systems. . . . Norling's argument is an eye-opener for maritime gender studies, and it will be seminal for the study of maritime women. . . . Norling's beautifully-written, nicely-illustrated and elegantly-executed study on the wives of Captain Ahab serves as a show-piece of how to do research eminently well." -- International Journal of Maritime History

"With a deft pen Lisa Norling illuminates the everyday lives of families living in the whaling communities in Southeastern New England during the 18th and 19th centuries. . . . Anyone who is appreciative of well-written history will enjoy [this book]." -- Virginia Quarterly Review

"Wonderful. . . . The questions raised by [this book] attest to Lisa Norling's thoughtful and nuanced presentation. Gracefully written, the book is about contradictions: between what society expected of women and men and what the vicissitudes of life demanded and actually produced." -- William & Mary Quarterly

About the Author

Lisa Norling, associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota, is coeditor of Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920.