Alone at Sea: Gloucester in the Age of the Dorymen (1623-1939)

by Morris, John N.

• ISBN13: 9780981943077
• ISBN10: 0981943071
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-07-01
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

The grandson of a Gloucester fisherman lost at sea in the 1930s has honored his ancestor's memory with a comprehensive history of fishing the banks in the day when men set out from schooners-and were lost by the thousands-in dories.

Author Biography

A native of Gloucester, John N. Morris, PhD, is Director Emeritus of the Institute for Aging Research (IFAR) at Hebrew Senior Life in Boston, a Harvard-affiliated hospital and research program. He has published widely in his field. Morris’s ancestors have been fishermen going back to the seventeenth century. His father was a Gloucester fish cutter and his mother a fish packer. His grandfather, Stephen Olsson, spent four decades as a Gloucester doryman, until he drowned on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland in 1935. Morris’s book opens and closes with stories handed down from Grandpa. Morris is a board member of the group preserving one of the last of the surviving Gloucester schooners, the Adventure. He lives in northern Massachusetts, in the small town of Tyngsboro.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. v
Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Climb to Greatness (1623-1869)	p. 1
A Time Before the Dorymen	p. 3
A New Future?	p. 9
The Arrival of the Mackerel	p. 13
Period of Expansion	p. 19
The Mackerel Prosperity of the 1850s	p. 23
Civil War	p. 30
Dory Fishing Comes to Gloucester	p. 41
To Be a Dory Fisherman	p. 46
The Time of the Master Mariners (1870-1899)	p. 59
Reciprocity and the Bay	p. 62
Disaster on the Banks	p. 74
Immigrant Fishermen Come to Gloucester	p. 83
A Scarcity of Fish	p. 100
Fishing for Halibut Off Iceland	p. 105
Gloucester's Move into the Fresh-Haddock Fishery	p. 119
A Time of Transition (1900-1910)	p. 129
Stabilization of the Fleet and the Coming of the Auxiliaries	p. 134
An End of Innocence	p. 143
The Changing Fleet and the Changing Gloucester Fisheries	p. 152
Gloucester's Thriving Fresh-Fish Fleet	p. 163
The War Years (1911-1919)	p. 179
Cheap, Duty-Free Fish Enters Gloucester	p. 183
Gloucester on the Verge of War	p. 187
The World Changes: War Comes to Europe	p. 194
1915-An Altered Landscape	p. 199
1916-The Lull Before the Storm	p. 203
Winds of War in Early 1917	p. 213
1918-The War Comes to America	p. 231
1919-An Uncertain Transition	p. 255
"In a Breeze-of-Wind" (1920-1939)	p. 261
Economic Decline and the First of the International Fishermen's Races: Esperanto versus Delawana	p. 263
The Coming of the Racing Fishermen: Mayflower and Bluenose	p. 275
1922-"The Worst Has Passed" and the Races Go On: Puritan and Henry Ford	p. 290
1923-Yet Another Great Gloucester Racing Schooner: "Piney's" Columbia	p. 303
The Fisheries in the Mid- to Late 1920s, Beginning with the 1924 Turnaround	p. 319
The Great Depression	p. 331
The Mackerel Fishery in the Depression	p. 339
The Halibut Fishery in the Depression	p. 346
The End of an Era	p. 362
Epilogue	p. 372
Notes	p. 383
Glossary of Terms	p. 386
Fish Landings	p. 398
The Gloucester Fleet, Vessels Lost, Men Lost at Sea	p. 403
Photo Credits	p. 431
Index	p. 432
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.