Sea Control - Sea Control 562 - Rendered Obsolete with Dr. Jamie Jones

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Links1. Rendered Obsolete - Energy Culture and the Afterlife of US Whaling, by Jamie L. Jones, University of North Carolina Press, 2023. 2. Jamie L. Jones Twitter handle.

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. My guest today is Dr. Jamie L. Jones, and we're going to discuss her book, Rendered Obsolete Energy Culture and the Afterlife of U.S. Whaling. So, Jamie, would you mind starting by telling us a little bit more about yourself, please? Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm really excited to be here. My name is Jamie Jones. I am an associate professor in the English department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. And before coming here, I taught at the University of Michigan for a few years. And before that, I was working on my PhD studies in American Studies at Harvard University. Well, thank you for joining us here today. As a reminder to the listeners, all opinions today are our own and not representative of any institution with which we might be otherwise associated. So your work links a couple of seemingly disparate topics. Did you start with the subject of whaling and discover it was linked to oil, or was it vice versa, and how did you make that linkage? Yeah, so I started researching whaling and energy culture through whaling. And to be honest, I got interested in the topic through Herman Melville's Moby Dick. You know, this was a book I encountered in college and then reread later on, on my own when I wasn't in school and really fell in love with it.

And the book really, Moby Dick really does everything that I think in some ways my own interests wanted to help me understand, which is to sort of just explain what the whaling industry was. And for a long time, no one was telling me that whale oil was a kind of precursor to petroleum, but it just seemed to me that there were so many correspondences between whale oil extraction and production and consumption and what would come to be called energy. But I had to get over this big anachronism problem with my book because whale oil, no one would have called it an energy resource. No one would have called anything an energy resource in the 19th century, at least in the early and middle parts of the 19th century. And so I had to sort of think through how to overcome this anachronism problem and how to think about linking these two very different kind of concepts, oil production in the 19th century and energy as a kind of larger category that wouldn't really come into usage until the 20th century.

What is whaling culture and what linkages did you identify between those industries? Yeah, so whaling culture is a really capacious term to describe everything from the technology and tools and infrastructure of the whaling industry. And very roughly speaking, the whale oil industry of the United States in the 19th century was a very particular form of whaling in which sailors would set off in large ships on many years long voyages to acquire whale oil by killing whales at sea, rendering their bodies on offshore factory ships and bringing back that oil, which would then go into the American and overseas consumer market as an illuminant for lamps, for public and private lighting, and to some extent also as a lubricant for machinery. So when we think about the wheeling industry in the 19th century United States, we think about wheeling and whale oil as a really important ingredient of urbanization, of the kind of consolidation of the population in American cities, and also of industrialization. You know, whale oil was lubricating all of those big machines making textiles in the northeast of the United States and other things as well. So whaling culture sort of contains all of the economic and technological and industrial ingredients of that industry. And it also contains the stories that people told about the whaling industry.

People were really curious about the whaling industry in port cities that sort of saw and hosted some of the main whaling infrastructure, mainly in the northeast of the United States. But in a lot of other places, too, you would open up the newspaper and you could read incidents from the whaling industry alongside accounts of the price of whale oil. You would read about shipwrecks or interesting things or scientific discoveries made by scientists who were coming along on board whaling ships. And so whaling was a source of really popular kind of public curiosity, cultural consumption, and pop culture. And so whaling culture is my way of encompassing all of those things. How did Melville predict whaling's decline in Moby Dick, and how did that decline play out? Yeah, so Melville wrote Moby Dick during the years that I would call kind of peak whale oil. So the whale oil industry in the United States began to decline pretty precipitously in the 1860s, mainly because a cheaper replacement for whale oil, which was petroleum, came into the American marketplace after the first American oil boom, which was in Pennsylvania in the 1860s.

And once folks realized, hey, we can get this illuminating oil and lubricating oil a lot more easily, it's a lot cheaper to produce and transport to the American consumers, then whale oil certainly, it seems to be like a lot more of it than there is of whale oil, then whale oil started to drop off. There were other factors that contributed to the decline of the whaling industry. The Civil War was another really important factor. A lot of whaling infrastructure, including a lot of whaling ships, were destroyed in the course of the Civil War. Confederate raiders saw whaling ships, which were mostly sent out from northern ports as a source of the Union's economic power, and they went after them here and abroad. And the Union Navy also requisitioned a lot of whaling ships in order to be used for naval purposes, including being sunk in harbors to create physical blockades that would make it harder for supplies to get into southern ports. So that's the story that I tell of the decline

of the whale oil industry. Now, Herman Melville himself went whaling long before this happened, and he wrote and published Moby Dick before this happened. Herman Melville went whaling in the early years of the 1840s and he wrote and published Moby Dick in 1851. And what I argue in my book is that Melville kind of foresees or imagines what it's going to be like when whaling comes to an end. It's not because Melville was a fortune teller. You know, there was nothing about Herman Melville that was magic or clairvoyant.

But he was just someone who really understood the industry and understood that a kind of industry premised on infinite economic growth with a finite natural resource was going to come to an end at some point or another. And so what I find out in Moby Dick is that Melville is really interested in imagining what happens next. What will people do with the infrastructure of whaling, with the stories told about whaling? where will whaling laborers go, what will happen to wealthy whaling ports when this industry goes bust, he's really interested in the end of that boom and bust cycle. And so there are all these ways in which Melville kind of imagines the end of the industry and the post-industrial condition of whaling ports like New Bedford, Massachusetts or Nantucket, Massachusetts. One way he does this is through his main character in Moby Dick, Ishmael.

Ishmael is not a kind of simple Melville substitute figure in Moby Dick. Ishmael has a very different experience of whaling than Herman Melville did. Like Herman Melville went whaling on the biggest, baddest, newest ship in the U.S. whaling fleet when he went whaling. But Ishmael doesn't leave from the main kind of industrial center of whaling, New Bedford. Ishmael goes to New Bedford and then decides to go to Nantucket because Nantucket was the kind of old whaling port. Ishmael doesn't decide to go on the biggest, baddest, newest ship in the fleet. He goes on the oldest kind of quaintest fleet. I mean, Ishmael is really like a

like a hipster going to the record store and buying the vinyl albums in the age of Spotify and streaming. You know, he's the guy who's really interested in the old fashioned quaint vintage thing. And I think that that is a way for Melville of signifying his interest in what happens when whaling starts to become obsolete. This is a little bit more of a logistical question, but you mentioned the ease of transport of petroleum compared to whale oil. How did whale oil get moved from point A to point B once it was extracted from the whale? You know, that's a great question. And I really hope that there is some really interested grad student listening to this podcast, he's going to take up that question and write the book that we need about it.

That's a great question. I don't know the answer. And I don't think that there's a good history out there that addresses that question of how whale oil gets transported. So in some ways, that's conjecture on my part. I mean, I'm sure. I mean, we know, for example, that like, a lot of whale oil that was produced in Nantucket in the 18th century and very early 19th century made its way to the British marketplace on ships, but how whale oil made its way very particularly? What were the means of distribution? It's a great question. It's an open question. And I really hope someone out there can write that book because I don't know how to, and I really, really want to read it. Not a problem. How did whaling culture migrate inland?

Yeah. So this is one of the important parts of my book to me personally, as someone who grew up in the Midwest and who lives in the Midwest right now. You know, I grew up in Indiana and I teach in Illinois and I really wanted to demonstrate and show folks who do live along the coast in that maritime culture is something that really belongs to all of us. You know, when I teach my undergrads here in Illinois, sometimes, you know, every now and then I'll have a student in my classroom who's never even seen the ocean. But I want to teach them that they too have a stake in learning about the history of the ocean. And I just tell them, go out to I-57 or I-75 or I-74 near Champaign-Urbana here and have a look around. And a lot of those containers that they see on the

back of semi-trucks are maritime objects that probably came across the ocean at least once and probably many, many times that they are kind of like intimately connected to this infrastructure of maritime transport, even here in the middle of the continent. And so what I find is that there are a lot of maritime objects and even maritime and marine bodies that made their way from the oceans to the very middle of the continent as early as the 19th century, and probably even earlier than that, too. One of the pieces of whaling pop culture that I talk about in my book is this kind of ludicrous story of a whale that this sideshow entrepreneur kind of impresario figure took out of the ocean, bought from a whaling captain, a whale, like a

literal huge whale, probably a blue whale, put on these railroad cars and transported across the country as a kind of sideshow attraction. You could pay a certain amount of money for a ticket, go into a tent and see the body of this dead whale in Chicago or Michigan or Illinois or Kentucky or Ohio. I mean, this thing traveled around the middle of the country in one form or another, one stinky, stinky form or another for up to two years. And that's just a kind of absurd limit case in the way that whaling culture made its way inland. But I think it's a really important kind object lesson in how maritime objects make their way to the middle of the country and how whales and whaling continue to tell stories about American energy and American industry during

and after the industry's kind of dominance in the American economy. But that's only one kind of part of this story. I think it's important to realize that whaling stories, whales, whaling infrastructure are really important to people everywhere, even if they don't live within kind of short walk or drive of the ocean so that question of why i should care about maritime stuff i actually get that a fair amount and a great a great answer for your students is like look at every single thing on your body touching your body right now it probably came from someplace on the other side of the ocean via a ship in one of those containers yeah absolutely your watch it's probably from someplace else your shirt is probably from vietnam your socks probably came

from malaysia we won't talk about the labor practices that enable that but they traveled across the ocean to get here that's right absolutely i mean everything you touch everything you buy probably comes over the sea and you know i think scientists are also helping us understand that in the age of climate change right things that happen to and in the oceans are affecting all of us all around the planet that you know sea level rise isn't just a concern for someone with coastal real estate, that it's a symptom of a problem affecting all of us. I mean, we've got wildfire smoke in the skies of Illinois today. So this is something that I think that we're all kind of oceanic subjects. Can you tell us about your experience

aboard the Charles W. Morgan and what you learned? Yeah. So the Charles W. Morgan is the last extant wooden whaling ship from the 19th century American whaling fleet. And it is currently an object in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. If anyone's nearby or has the opportunity to go visit, it's an extraordinary vessel in a lot of ways,

and it is being beautifully cared for by the curators and the shipwrights at Mystic Seaport. So about 10 years ago, a little more than 10 years ago, the museum decided that it needed to embark on a new campaign of fundraising to restore the ship, which was falling into disrepair, as all ships do. And the president of the museum at the time decided to do something really audacious, which was restore the ship to sailing condition. Since 1941, the ship had just sort of been sitting in the museum as a floating museum exhibition, but it had never been taken out to sea since its

arrival at the museum in 1941. And so it was a really audacious move to decide to restore the ship, but it was a really inspiring and inspired decision on the part of the museum to do that. And as part of the process, the museum brought on a ton of academics as consultants on the restoration and the exhibition of the museum, like how to tell good, appropriate, up-to-date historical stories about the whaling ship. And I was part of that group. I was very, very lucky to be part of that group to sort of think about what do we tell, like what are the stories we get to tell about this whaling ship? And then afterwards, I applied to be what they called a 38th Voyager. And this was a program where folks who weren't sailors or who weren't museum curators could have the opportunity to join the voyage of the Charles W. Morgan in 2014 on its kind of trip around the northeast of the United States after it had been restored to sailing condition. So what did I learn? I mean, I learned a lot about what whaling was like that I hadn't been able to learn from the history books. You know, like how constrained and how small those spaces below decks were, where a lot of that labor of whaling was actually happening.

It gave me an even greater appreciation of the kind of physical difficulty of rendering a whale's body for oil in the middle of the ocean. I got a much better understanding of the labor of a sailing ship from spending some time on board the ship, watching the sailors kind of operate the vessel, do, you know, handle the sails and manage all of the lines on board the vessel. I learned a lot from talking to those sailors. But it was an opportunity for me just to think about the place of these historical vessels in the contemporary kind of American maritime or coastal landscape. Like I joined the voyage on a kind of funny leg, like each 30th voyager was allowed to join the vessel on one leg of his voyage. And I sailed from two ports that were not really classic whaling ports. I sailed from Newport to Martha's Vineyard. And so it was a beachy, summery vacationers kind of crowd on board at, you know, who were kind of visiting the ship

at Newport and Martha's Vineyard. And it was interesting to see how folks kind of received this industrial ship from the past in the middle of their beach vacations. I also met the ship when arrived in New Bedford, which was a historical whaling port. And I think there was where I really had the opportunity to think about the way that folks in New Bedford understood whaling history as a source of the town's economic power in the past, and how folks in the present still understood the loss of whaling to New Bedford as part of the story of the town's own economic decline. And while I was with the ship in New Bedford on its tour, I was able to join the crowd at the port side ceremony, welcoming the ship back to New Bedford. And there were a lot of

local dignitaries and politicians who made speeches. And one of them was Senator Elizabeth Warren, who made the explicit connection like this kind of era of New Bedford's history, providing oil to light the world in the 19th century is a precursor to the 21st century industry of offshore wind that New Bedford was just beginning then to develop. New Bedford can once again become the city that lights the world, or at least, you know, part of the folks on the grid in the Northeast. And it was interesting to sort of hear people kind of make that explicit connection, which I've been thinking about for a long time myself in the 19th century between 19th century whale oil and 21st century energy. And it was also a really humbling experience.

Shout out to all those sailors out there. Being on the Morgan made me really, really, really seasick. And so it was a really, really humbling experience to be on board that ship and made me really empathetic and admiring of all of those maritime laborers out there who are battling the elements that are far worse than a summer sail between Newport and Martha's Vineyard. It happens to the best of us. Unfortunately, that is all that we have time for today. I'd like to thank my guest, Dr. Jamie Jones. Jamie, where can we find you online and what are you working on next? Yeah, thanks for asking. So I'm online. A lot of my research is available at my University of Illinois faculty profile. You just Google my name at University of Illinois. I'm on Twitter at JamieLJones8, number eight. When you have a name that has Jones in it, you've got to add something to it to make yourself a little bit stand out. And what I'm working on next is probably, I've got two projects going on right now. I'm working on the other side of that energy transition from the 19th century. I'm interested in thinking about what was actually happening on the ground at that Pennsylvania oil boom and how the stories from the Pennsylvania oil industry made their way into U.S. pop culture. And I'm also still interested in thinking about what the legacy of 19th century maritime history is in 21st century art, literature, and pop culture.

So making those connections from the 19th century to the present. And, yeah, I'd love to hear from anyone in your audience. Well, thank you again for joining us. Those projects come to fruition if you just drop us a note here. We'd love to have you back and discuss those. To the listeners, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. We'll be right back.

We'll be right back.