Seafaring Women - Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways and Sailors' Wives

Zusatztext “This is a book to inform! stimulate! and amuse—an irresistible diversion.” —Baltimore Sun One of the best books of 2001* “A valuable addition to nautical literature and a useful contribution to the study of women’s history....[Cordingly’s] book leaves no doubt that women have played a far larger role in the nautical life than is commonly understood.” —Jonathan Yardley! The Washington Post* “Cordingly transcends the ideological limits of gender history and brings a world to life.” —The Wall Street Journal “Revisionism at its most delightful. With no particular gospel to preach! Cordingly works his way through layer after layer of overlooked and unconnected written records! finding evidence of women almost everywhere.” —Houston Chronicle “Cordingly brings a wide range of research together in one expansive volume.” —Boston Herald Informationen zum Autor David Cordingly was for twelve years on the staff of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, where he was curator of paintings and then head of exhibitions. He is a graduate of Oxford and the author of Under the Black Flag, an acclaimed history of piracy. Cordingly lives with his wife and family by the sea in Sussex, England. Klappentext For centuries, the sea has been regarded as a male domain, but in this illuminating historical narrative, maritime scholar David Cordingly shows that an astonishing number of women went to sea in the great age of sail. Some traveled as the wives or mistresses of captains; others were smuggled aboard by officers or seamen. And Cordingly has unearthed stories of a number of young women who dressed in men's clothes and worked alongside sailors for months, sometimes years, without ever revealing their gender. His tremendous research shows that there was indeed a thriving female population-from pirates to the sirens of myth and legend-on and around the high seas. A landmark work of women's history disguised as a spectacularly entertaining yarn, Women Sailors and Sailor's Women will surprise and delight.Chapter 1 Women on the Waterfront The English artist Thomas Rowlandson was an astute observer of sailors and their women, and his engravings provide a vivid picture of life in the waterfront taverns of London around 1800. The faces of his sailors are gnarled and weather-beaten, and their expressions are drunkenly happy or leery and lustful. They are dressed in short blue jackets, loose white shirts, and either baggy trousers or the distinctive garments known as petticoat-breeches. They have brightly colored handkerchiefs knotted around their necks and curiously shapeless black hats jammed on their heads. In one cartoon, entitled Despatch, or Jack preparing for sea, a sailor sits on the knee of one young woman while he gropes her companion's breast. In his spare hand he has a drink, and he is shouting encouragement to two musicians who stand beside him scraping away on their fiddles. In another cartoon a sailor and his woman dance an energetic hornpipe while their companions drink and smoke and look on with approval. A couple can be seen making love on the floor, and the whole atmosphere of the tavern reeks of tobacco smoke and strong liquor. The women in Rowlandson's pictures are young and pretty and buxom. They wear little caps with feathers and ribbons on their heads, necklaces around their shapely necks, and low-cut, high-waisted dresses that emphasize their generous figures. Some of the women are barmaids and others are sailors' wives or sweethearts or whores. All of them appear to be having a good time. These tavern scenes provide a stark contrast with the descriptions of life in London's East End some fifty years later. Bracebridge Hemyng contributeda chapter on sailors' women to Henry Mayhew's great work London Labour and the London Poor, first published in 1851. Among the women Hemyng met during his fora...

Product details

• Authors: David Cordingly
• Publisher: Random House USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 12.03.2002
• EAN: 9780375758720
• ISBN: 978-0-375-75872-0
• No. of pages: 286
• Dimensions: 130 mm x 203 mm x 18 mm
• Subjects: Non-fiction book; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Seefahrt : Geschichte, Frau : Geschichte, Politik