Episode 118.1 - 'Dare the Whole World to Produce a Parallel': The Whaleship Essex, Part One

Beyond the Breakers

English - September 07, 2023 22:00 - 1 hour - 48.6 MB - ★★★★★ - 77 ratings
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Previous Episode: Episode 117 - The Whaleback Steamer Thomas Wilson ft. Kaylee Matuszak

Next Episode: Episode 118.2 - 'My God, Mr. Chase, what is the matter?': The Whaleship Essex, Part Two

This week begins our multi-part episode on the whaleship Essex, famously 'stove by a whale' in 1820, leading to an epic tale of survival, determination, and just a bit of cannibalism.

Part I focuses on the history of whaling industry in (first) Britain's American colonies and (then) the young United States, with special attention to the island of Nantucket.

Sources:

Bouk, Dan and D. Graham Burnett. "Knowledge of Leviathan: Charles W. Morgan Anatomizes His Whale." Journal of the Early Republic, Fall 2008, pp. 433 - 466.

Dolin, Eric Jay. Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America. W.W Norton & Company, 2008.

Ellis, Richard. The Great Sperm Whale: A Natural History of the Ocean's Most Magnificent and Mysterious Creature. University Press of Kansas, 2011.

Jacob, Karl. "Nantucket's Bid for Survival During the War of 1812." Nantucket Historical Association, 2023, https://nha.org/research/nantucket-history/history-topics/nantuckets-bid-for-survival-during-the-war-of-1812/

Lu, Donna. "Nearly 200 stranded pilot whales die on Tasmanian beach but dozens saved and returned to sea." The Guardian, 22 Sep 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/22/nearly-200-stranded-pilot-whales-die-on-tasmanian-beach

Michaels, Debra. "Lucretia Mott (1793 - 1880)". National Women's History Museum. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/lucretia-mott

Philbrick, Nathaniel. In the Heart of the Sea. Penguin Books, 2000.

Philbrick, Nathaniel. "'Every Wave Is a Fortune': Nantucket Island and the Making of an American Icon." The New England Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 3, Sep 1993, pp. 434 - 447.

Shoemaker, Nancy. "Oil, Spermaceti, Ambergris, and Teeth." RCC Perspectives, no. 5 (New Histories of Pacific Whaling), 2019, pp. 17 - 22.

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