"A Medium in Which I Seek Relief": Manuscripts of American Sailors 1919-1940

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.

Six library registers are among the 375 linear feet of materials that comprise the Sailors' Snug Harbor archival collection.  The registers span from 1884 through 1909, containing thousands of entries demonstrating the residents' reading habits and interests. Contemporary scholars are lucky that the registers survived; administrators had began to re-use the ledgers, taping business documents over some of the pages. 

It would be difficult to draw conclusions from the registers without a robust transcription project; however, even a casual browse reveals that these retired mariners had diverse reading tastes. This sample page dated October 8-10th, 1884 (transcribed below) lists periodicals, classic novels, popular fiction, and first-hand narratives written by soldiers and seamen.

Transcription

*Links to public domain versions of the books in parenthesis

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