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Whaling Wives — Silas J. Costello

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A COLLECTION OF SUPPLEMENTAL ESSAYS ABOUT WHALING HISTORY WRITTEN BY SILAS COSTELLO, FOR THE WEBCOMIC GOING TO WEATHER. Adelaide’s suggestion that Barzillai permit her to accompany him on his voyage was certainly not an unheard of one. By the mid 19th century captains’ wives joining their husbands became a more and more common phenomenon as the voyages grew longer. There’s a stereotype of sailors considering women bad luck aboard a ship (with the reality being that a woman present could become a distraction or destabilizing to the fraternity of the space). Whatever superstition may have existed, it didn’t hold in reality on whaleships. It was unremarkable enough that there are a number of logbooks and journals where the captain’s wife was present throughout the voyage and no one ever bothered to mention it in their own accounts. How these women perceived their place on a whaler, as well as how others perceived them, were multitudinous. Whaling wives from New Bedford, mid 19th c. Some s

Adelaide’s suggestion that Barzillai permit her to accompany him on his voyage was certainly not an unheard of one. By the mid 19th century captains’ wives joining their husbands became a more and more common phenomenon as the voyages grew longer. There’s a stereotype of sailors considering women bad luck aboard a ship (with the reality being that a woman present could become a distraction or destabilizing to the fraternity of the space). Whatever superstition may have existed, it didn’t hold in reality on whaleships. It was unremarkable enough that there are a number of logbooks and journals

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