Liberty on the Waterfront. Paul A. Gilje

my poor child

       Upon the ocean deep,

      While moaning winds above him

       Their constant vigils keep.

      Farewell, then, child of sorrow

       Thy grave is in the sea,

      But long shall live thy virtues

       Enshrined in memory.

      The poem is simply signed RA, and only the note attached to the document makes it clear that this is a sister's and not a mother's lament.¹¹³

      The image of the helpless daughter at sea was mainly myth, for daughters, like most women, remained on shore. The real danger for young girls on the waterfront was from sexual exploitation. Lanah Sawyer, the daughter of a sea-man, was seduced by a self-proclaimed gentleman who met her in the streets. He brought her to a house of ill-repute, Mother Carey's nest of Chickens, and spent the night with her. The defense lawyers not only brought Sawyer's morals into question, but also attacked all girls of her class. They argued that the only reason a well-dressed man would express interest in a sewing girl was for sex. Lanah's father was “well known amongst the seafaring People” and shortly after the jury acquitted the seducer, a riot broke out that led to the destruction of several houses of prostitution.¹¹⁴

      Young women like Lanah Sawyer probably saw their behavior differently from the image portrayed by the defense lawyers in 1793. Yes, their station in life brought them out into the streets. And a young woman might even flirt with a man, whether he was a gentleman who deigned to pay her some attention, or a sailor with money in his pocket to buy a small favor or take her on a carriage ride. Like their male counterparts, many of these girls sought some liberty and autonomy in a world marked by dependence, especially female dependence, while also seeking some enjoyment and pleasure. Fifteen-year-old Margaret Graham was just such a girl in the summer of 1805. Her father, Archibald Graham, had knocked down a Portuguese sailor who had grabbed Margaret on the street. A few days later the Portuguese sailor sought revenge, stabbing and killing Archibald in a second brawl. The night of her father's murder, Margaret was in the company of other young women her age visiting waterfront houses with “fiddling and dancing.”¹¹⁵

      The boundary between this type of activity and prostitution was often vague. The playful Moll of popular song and the sailor's imagination may have been a Margaret Graham eager for some music and excitement. She might also be a young woman willing to exchange sexual favors ranging from a kiss to sexual intercourse for a treat. From the perspective of Archibald Graham, a rigger who knew all too well the dangers of the waterfront for a young girl, this was precisely what he feared. Ironically, his death may well have propelled Margaret in the very direction he had hoped to avoid. The greatest predictor of prostitution was the death of a parent, especially of the father.¹¹⁶

      Unfortunately, the record betrays only brief glimpses of women like Margaret Graham. We do know that economic circumstances, women's work paid barely a living wage, convinced many women to take advantage of the market for commercial sex. The reformer's portrait of a prostitute as a young woman entrapped in a form of bondage brought to an early grave through dissipation and disease is not accurate. There were varying degrees of prostitution. Some was casual and viewed as an occasional supplement to meager wages. Some was more continual and professional. As such, it might lead to economic security, or a more sordid life, or it might be abandoned for marriage or another occupation.¹¹⁷

      Sailors availed themselves of the prostitutes that worked the waterfront. New York's poorest and most competitive brothels sprang up along Water Street and Corlear's Hook.¹¹⁸ Wherever the haunts of sailors, whether Fell's Point in Baltimore, or Ann Street on Boston's North End, there were sure to be houses of prostitution. There was an interracial component to much of this activity. As a young boy Horace Lane was taken aback by the black dancing girls of one New York waterfront dive.¹¹⁹ In every port there was some mixture of races—black women sleeping with white men and black men sleeping with white women.¹²⁰ While waterfront workers were not the only clients of a city's prostitutes, wherever a sailor went, he sought out practitioners of the world's oldest profession. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., stated that Indian women, even married Indian women, served as prostitutes for sailors in California.¹²¹ William McNally described how in the Mediterranean, in places like Port Mahon, Minorca, prostitutes were allowed aboard American warships.¹²²

      There is no easy characterization of waterfront women. Male liberty ashore and at sea placed serious constraints on women's lives. Some women no doubt sold their bodies, while others established stable relationships with men. Some sought the pleasures of the dance hall; others sought solace in religion. Many strove for survival in a tough, competitive world.

      From the mid-1700s to the early nineteenth century, however harsh the reality and however varied the experience of women, the waterfront was not immune to the rise of the cult of domesticity. This ideal even reached whalemen who were out in the Pacific for years at a time. The scrimshander aboard a whaler that reeked of boiled blubber, opened the pages of Godeys Lady's Book and traced the outlines of a woman primmed in the latest middle-class fashions on a tooth wrenched from a sperm whale's mouth and polished with shark skin.¹²³ The image of the mother, like that of the sweetheart, gained greater force in the nineteenth century with rise of the sentimentality of the Romantic era. Although middle-class values did not permeate all of the laboring classes, they had some impact. Seafaring became sentimentalized and there was increased concern with the family.¹²⁴ Emiline Fish wrote her husband, Nathan, “with four Babys making known their several claims, and not less than two or three attacht to my elbow,” but she invoked the saccharine ideal of domesticity when she urged him to return so that he could “feel sensibly ‘there is no place like Home.'” He replied with even more sentimentality by wishing “myself at home where I could be employed about the Garden and rock the cradle and do some useful chores.”¹²⁵ The concern with the companionate marriage also became evident with the increase in the number of captains—especially those on long-distance voyages in whalers and clipper ships—who brought their wives aboard.¹²⁶

      11. A sailor illustrated his Valentine poem to his love with a couple holding hands. The man's waistjacket, vest, and stance all indicate his maritime profession. The inscription reads: “When I'm far away and landsmen spread their wiley snares / Heed not what these flatterers say, but think on him whom the ocean bears / On one whom when the furious blast tears up and whitens o'er the sea/ High on the yard as quivering Mast, oft heaves a sigh and think on thee. / When gay trm'd sparks around thee swarm, like humming birds round some sweet flower / And praise with purtness evr'y Charm, and oft confess their witty power / Say wilt thou then forget, that youth who scorns all flattery / That youth who boils midst torrid heat, inspite of perils sighs for thee.” “When I am far Away.” Kendall Whaling Museum.

      Obviously, only a few couples enjoyed the privilege of going to sea together. There were also limits on how closely real life followed the domestic ideal. Cynthia Congdon felt the reach of these ideals even as she labored as a seamstress in her small seaport town in Rhode Island. In 1841 she tenderly confided to her journal, “last night I dreamed of my absent friend. He returned and I felt the soft kiss of love on my cheek. And heard his endearing voice. This was too much happiness for me to sleep and I awoke and found it was all a dream.”¹²⁷ Like William Widger, Cynthia's understanding of gender roles could also be a source of anxiety. Cynthia was not concerned with infidelity. Instead, this proud and strong woman, who continued to work as a seamstress and be an intricate part of the East Greenwich maritime community, focused on her dependent status. In 1844, after her marriage to John Congdon, Cynthia wrote, “I dreamed that Mr. Wall called to see me and after walking around the room he says to me ‘With the best information I can obtain your Husband is no more.’ Oh said I Mr. Wall! don't tell me so and my great distress waked me with the tear dropping on my cheeks. It affected me so much that I slept no more that night. What shall I do without my Husband. God only knows.”¹²⁸

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      A Sailor Ever Loves to Be