The Sailors' Snug Harbor Library
In The View from the Masthead Hester Blum makes the case that sailors "were a class of workers who attained an above-average degree of literacy and who participated in a robust culture of reading and writing" (25). In making this case, Blum relied on the findings of Harry Skallerup, who used signature estimates, charitable organizations' surveys, naval library records, and mechanics' library histories to quantify sailor literacy (see Books Afloat & Ashore: a History of Books, Libraries, and Reading Among Seamen During the Age of Sail, 1974). Blum expanded on Skallerup's research by examining sailor writings, which provide further evidence of their literary interests and ambitions.
SUNY Maritime College is home to an additional, largely unexplored, trove of data on sailors' reading habits: library records in the Sailors' Snug Harbor archives. Sailors’ Snug Harbor was the first home for retired seamen in the United States, dedicated to the welfare of “aged, decrepit, and worn out” mariners. Established through through the 1801 will of Robert Richard Randall (son of wealthy privateer Thomas Randall), the home opened on Staten Island in 1833. According to the Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, "by the turn of the century, Sailors’ Snug Harbor was reputedly the richest charitable institution in the United States and a self-sustaining community with farms, a dairy, a bakery, workshops, a power plant, a chapel, a sanatorium, a hospital, a concert hall, dormitories, recreation areas, gardens, and a cemetery." Omitted from this list of amenities was the library, which was used extensively by the residents.
- Novels and Tales (Goethe)
- Two Years Ago (Charles Kingsley - the Epub is for a 1901 edition, but Kingsley died in 1875)
- Harper's
- Scribner's
- Court of London (The mysteries of the court of London by George W M Reynolds)
- Camp and Field (Volunteers' Camp and Field Book: Containing Useful and General Information on the Art and Science of War, for the Leisure Moments of the Soldier by John P. Curry)
- Lady of Lyndon (The Lady of Lyndon by Louise Pilkington Blake)
- Seaside Library (presumably related to the Seaside Library editions of popular titles published by George Munro)
- Our Saturday Nights (Mark Mills Pomeroy)
- Three Spaniards (Three Spaniards: A Romance By George Walker)
- Hidden Perils (Mary Cecil Hay)
- King's Own (Frederick Marryat)
- Arabian Nights
- Christina North (Eleanor A. Towle)
- Brave Old Salt (Brave Old Salt, Or, Life on the Quarter Deck, A Story of the Great Rebellion by Oliver Optic)