Dress for a 19th century Whalesman

[Monterey Jack]

I find myself in need of clothing befitting a man on a whaler circa 1890. Any help is greatly appreciated! Not exactly piratical, but at least seafaring!

[Red Cat Jenny]

At fourteen, Jamie McKenzie made his first whaling voyage on the bark Reindeer. Upon his return, he posed for this daguerreotype portrait, which he presented to his cousin, Mary E. Smith, at Edgartown. By age twenty-three, he was the first officer of the merchant vessel Simoda. In January 1862, he was washed overboard and lost

[Matusalem]

I have been to the following 3 places, perhaps they can point you in the right direction (2 0' them bein' public school field trips thus a result of yer tax dollars at work):

New Bedford Whaling Museum

Nantucket Whaling Museum

Mystic Seaport

I got some nautical photos dated 1900ish but I'm in florida at the moment, and I don't have access to a scanner, so you might have to wait a couple of days..

[Coastie04]

Been to Mystic Seaport quite a bit myself. They have people wandering around the area somewhat dressed the part (to varying degrees), but I've also seen their resource library, so I'm sure they'd have additional resources available if you had the chance to visit. Plus, they have a whaling ship, which would give you a good idea of the conditions you would have been living in. For an officer, probably better than you would have guessed (including many of the various captains bringing their wives aboard with them), but the foremast jacks shared the crowded fo'c's'le.

Coastie

[Matusalem]

Well, I'm at home friday night nursing a 24 hour flu, and I happened to grab me 2 of my beloved hometown books off the living room shelf. I would reccomend anyone looking for historical photos to get the Images of America books from Arcadia Publishing, they do towns all over the US. If you're looking for Whaling, fishing, etc. , the books about New Bedford & Nantucket are available.

And Coastie, I like your page icon of the HMS Bounty, my book's got one o'those too!....hmm , maybe not the same ship,but they look close.

And going back to the subject, Sailors from the late 18th century typically wore pea coats, which my sources tell me were introduced about 1850-1860ish (though I'm not sure about the exact cut). Here's a 1920 photo of the US Volunteer Life Savings Corps at the Church St pier (which is now the US Coast Guard Station) in their fife & drum band. That's my great-grandfather on the second upper left, as well as other relatives in the photo) . Their pea coats are pretty much identical to the one

I wear now, which is a 1970's navy issue made of kersey wool. (100 times better than anything made nowadays)

New Bedford, Massachusetts was the premier whaling town back in the day, and my town was about 2 towns across the way down the coastline (Fall River + Mount Hope Bay = Bristol, R.I.). Herreshoff was the big shipbuilder in town, here's a photo of their workers circa 1900:

And a few feet down the street was the US Rubber company, here's a classic New England 1880 photo of some workers, a few years before they started hiring cheap labor from french-speaking canada (like my family):

[Matusalem]

Ebay's always a good source when looking for historical photos from the 1800's(daguerreotypes/ambrotypes/tintypes), check this man out:

Dag photo of a sailor