23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cherchez Les Femmes!, March 13, 2001
This review is from: Women Sailors and Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime History (Hardcover)
Women have been held to have particular power over the sea. Mermaids, of course, enchanted the sailors, as did the Sirens. And yet, there is an ancient superstition that women are not good for ships. The contradiction between woman as sea power and woman as sea jinx is hard to understand. It is discussed, but not resolved, in _Women Sailors & Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime History_ (Random House) by David Cordingly, a wide-ranging look at women and the high seas during the great age of sail. Cordingly has been on the staff of the fine National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, and his wonderful book _Under the Black Flag_ was a revealing account of what pirates actually did. His current book is an entertaining miscellany of feminine and nautical lore, and while it is not a feminist tract, it is clear that women have played a larger role in seafaring than history generally gives them credit for.
Some of their roles are direct ones. Hannah Snell, for instance, served as a marine in the Royal Navy, sent to India on the sloop _Swallow_ in 1747. She was a bit of a hero in the siege of Pondicherry, shot eleven times in the legs. She revealed herself as a woman to her shipmates when she arrived home, and they would not have believed it had her sister not assured them of the truth. She was the only woman sailor to be granted a pension by The Royal Hospital at Chelsea. Once she was fully recovered from her wounds, and her identity was open, she became a celebrity, performing on the stage, having her portrait painted, and issuing a vivid account of her life story.
Most of the women at sea were, of course, women without a subterfuge of being men. Lower rates were allowed to have wives and families on board, especially the warrant officers known as "standing officers." These were the gunners, boatswains, and carpenters who, once assigned to a ship, were attached to that one ship more or less for good, sometimes from her launch to her breaking up. If the wives were aboard at wartime, they were expected to fulfill nursing duties or carry powder to the guns. They were never recorded in the official muster book, and so they only appear in letters or court-martial transcripts. Sometimes wives at sea played a heroic role. When her husband, the captain of the _Neptune's Car_, bound from New York to San Francisco in 1856, fell ill and collapsed, Mary Patten took effective command of the ship and brought it in safely. As a book about "sailors' women," this one tells about the wives the sailors left behind them, and also the prostitutes. It recounts the affairs of Nelson, John Paul Jones, and the ever-ready Captain Augustus Hervey, who had affairs with aristocratic ladies wherever his ship was in port, and if his reports are to be believed, they initiated action as often as he did, and gave him presents in token of his powers.
Cordingly has obviously had fun compiling these diverse tales and descriptions, which also include stories of ruthless female pirates, heroic lifesaving female lighthouse keepers, and Tahitian temptresses. He has illuminated an aspect of seafaring life that does not make it into most history books, and his book is an entertaining look at what we usually think of as an all-male world. Over and over, the men couldn't have managed without the women.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Women in 18th and 19th Century Maritime Culture., January 31, 2004
This review is from: Women Sailors and Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime History (Hardcover)
Seafaring life in the 18th and 19th centuries has fascinated modern history enthusiasts and captured the imaginations of novelists and filmmakers. In "Women Sailors and Sailors' Women", author David Cordingly explores an aspect of lives spent at sea that has traditionally received little attention: the women who directly or indirectly participated in the maritime lifestyle. What is often thought of as a very male culture was populated with women as well. So who were they? In answering this question, David Cordingly starts in port and takes us on a journey out to sea and back again, discussing the diverse roles of women in the sailors' lives, on land and at sea. These women were the wives, mistresses, and prostitutes of sailors, and some were sailors themselves. The book starts in port with the relationship of prostitutes to sailors, who these women were, and how they came to be. Then we go out to sea with women who disguised themselves as men and served alongside them, including the two infamous female pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. We learn that warrant officers' wives were commonly allowed on warships and captains' wives may have been equally common residents on merchant ships. Both of these circumstances led to some interesting stories, including the origin of the term "son of a gun" and the heroic tale of Mary Patten, who captained her husband's ship around Cape Horn during a violent storm in 1856, saving its cargo and becoming an American hero. Cordingly takes a chapter to address the concept of mermaids and the mythical relationships between women and water. And he explores the legend of the stereotypical sailor who has "a wife in every port". There is a chapter on women lighthouse keepers and their daring rescues. And finally, the book returns to port and to the sailors' wives who await their husbands' return. We learn what they have been doing and how they have fared without their husband's wages. "Women Sailors and Sailors' Women" is recommended reading for anyone interested in the history of maritime culture. It fills in some gaps in the sailors' lives and reminds us that many women witnessed and participated in great naval battles as well as the constant battle with nature at sea. Because a global survey would be too vast, David Cordingly has confined his study to Anglo-American maritime culture in the 18th and 19th century. "Women Sailors and Sailors' Women" is a fairly quick-paced, engaging read, and full of fascinating facts and characters that will entertain anyone with even a passing interest in the subject.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Fascinating, little-known history", April 1, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Women Sailors and Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime History (Hardcover)
I read this book in one sitting. By covering the role of women and the sea, mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries, the author has brought to life stories that have been ignored for years. He covers everything from real women who disguised themselves as men to go to sea, to fictional and mythical creatures such as mermaids. All of the "true life" stories are wonderful, such as the young sea captain's wife who quelled a mutiny and sailed a clipper ship around Cape Horn when her husband was struck down by an illness.
David Cordingly manages to cover quite a vast subject without being overly verbose.
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