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

The Library at Sailors' Snug Harbor

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 relies 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 further document their literary interests and ambitions. 

SUNY Maritime College is home to an additional, largely unexplored, treasure trove of data on sailors' reading habits: 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 its residents.

Six library borrowing registers are among the 375 linear feet of records, photographs, and bound volumes that comprise the Sailors' Snug Harbor archival collection at the Stephen B. Luce Library. These borrowing registers list books and magazines circulated to the residents from 1884 through 1909 A sample page, selected at random from the earliest pages is provided here. Items listed on the sample page include:In a tantalizing twist, at least one of the books in the Sailors' Snug Harbor library was donated by Herman Melville, whose brother, Captain Thomas Melville, ran the institution from 1867-1884. The Melville family spent many holidays at the Harbor during Thomas's tenure (Rocco). Among the twenty or so volumes from the Snug Harbor Library in the SUNY Maritime Archives is an 1813 edition of John Turnbull's A voyage round the world, in the years 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803, and 1804. The cover bears the label of the Sailors' Snug Harbor library and the title page is inscribed "Herman Melville April 10th 1847 New York." 

It's lucky that any of the library materials survived. Though the archives includes the 6 library registers, a number of the pages were later re-used for other administrative correspondence.  Of the content of the library, about 20 volumes were transferred to the archives, including the item signed by Melville. It would require painstaking transcription and analysis to draw any conclusions about sailor reading habits based on the registers. For now, it's fun to imagine the old salts passing their time in the reading room (picture at top) with the papers, books, and periodicals of their choice.

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