Leon Fink
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199731633
- eISBN:
- 9780199894420
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199731633.003.0026
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
Merchant shipping offers an ideal setting for examining the changing regulatory regimes applied to workers across the 19th and 20th centuries. Given powerful nation-states and a global marketplace in ...
More
Merchant shipping offers an ideal setting for examining the changing regulatory regimes applied to workers across the 19th and 20th centuries. Given powerful nation-states and a global marketplace in the 19th century, recruitment and regulation of merchant seamen became a high priority and a vexing problem for western powers like the United States and Great Britain. After World War I, the deskilling impact of steam and diesel power, hypercompetition among shipping powers, and a worldwide reach for cheap labor threatened wage and living standards established by previous collective bargaining and political accommodation. No occupational sector looked with greater hope to the International Labor Organization in 1919 for restoring a semblance of order and humane treatment. Given the diversity of the international seafaring workforce, however, regulation—whether global or national in inspiration—inevitably reflected regulators' racial, ethnic, and imperial designs. When ethnic, political, and economic differences prevented global regulations from taking hold, national actors, by the mid-1930s, took charge. Despite its failures, the International Labor Organization and especially its maritime division were among the few broadly international bodies to survive the wreckage of economic depression, another world war, and the large-scale collapse of democracy with both machinery and aspirations intact.Less
Merchant shipping offers an ideal setting for examining the changing regulatory regimes applied to workers across the 19th and 20th centuries. Given powerful nation-states and a global marketplace in the 19th century, recruitment and regulation of merchant seamen became a high priority and a vexing problem for western powers like the United States and Great Britain. After World War I, the deskilling impact of steam and diesel power, hypercompetition among shipping powers, and a worldwide reach for cheap labor threatened wage and living standards established by previous collective bargaining and political accommodation. No occupational sector looked with greater hope to the International Labor Organization in 1919 for restoring a semblance of order and humane treatment. Given the diversity of the international seafaring workforce, however, regulation—whether global or national in inspiration—inevitably reflected regulators' racial, ethnic, and imperial designs. When ethnic, political, and economic differences prevented global regulations from taking hold, national actors, by the mid-1930s, took charge. Despite its failures, the International Labor Organization and especially its maritime division were among the few broadly international bodies to survive the wreckage of economic depression, another world war, and the large-scale collapse of democracy with both machinery and aspirations intact.
Stephen Conway
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199210855
- eISBN:
- 9780191725111
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199210855.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This chapter begins by exporing the European orientation of the Royal Navy and a great deal of British and Irish merchant shipping. The focus then turns to maritime towns and cities, where seafarers ...
More
This chapter begins by exporing the European orientation of the Royal Navy and a great deal of British and Irish merchant shipping. The focus then turns to maritime towns and cities, where seafarers from many nations interacted. The next section looks at the mobility of the maritime labour force: the tendency for sailors to work on ships (naval vessels and merchantmen) of different nations is particularly striking. The world of cross‐Channel smugglers is then examined. Once the network of connections has been sketched, consideration is given to the more tricky issue of attitudes. The evidence is patchy, especially at the level of the common seaman, but there are some insights if we look carefully enough. Patriotic utterances can readily be found, but so too can indications of other forms of belonging, including a sense of occupational solidarity, uniting sailors of different nations.Less
This chapter begins by exporing the European orientation of the Royal Navy and a great deal of British and Irish merchant shipping. The focus then turns to maritime towns and cities, where seafarers from many nations interacted. The next section looks at the mobility of the maritime labour force: the tendency for sailors to work on ships (naval vessels and merchantmen) of different nations is particularly striking. The world of cross‐Channel smugglers is then examined. Once the network of connections has been sketched, consideration is given to the more tricky issue of attitudes. The evidence is patchy, especially at the level of the common seaman, but there are some insights if we look carefully enough. Patriotic utterances can readily be found, but so too can indications of other forms of belonging, including a sense of occupational solidarity, uniting sailors of different nations.
Matthew Taylor Raffety
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226924007
- eISBN:
- 9780226924014
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226924014.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
In the years before the Civil War, many Americans saw the sea as a world apart, an often violent and insular culture governed by its own definitions of honor and ruled by its own authorities. The ...
More
In the years before the Civil War, many Americans saw the sea as a world apart, an often violent and insular culture governed by its own definitions of honor and ruled by its own authorities. The truth, however, is that legal cases which originated at sea had a tendency to come ashore and force the national government to address questions about personal honor, dignity, the rights of labor, and the meaning and privileges of citizenship, often for the first time. By examining how and why merchant seamen and their officers came into contact with the law, this book exposes the complex relationship between brutal crimes committed at sea and the development of a legal consciousness within both the judiciary and among seafarers in this period. It tracks how seamen conceived of themselves as individuals and how they defined their place within the United States. The work reveals much about the ways that merchant seamen sought to articulate the ideals of freedom and citizenship before the courts of the land—and how they helped to shape the laws of the young republic.Less
In the years before the Civil War, many Americans saw the sea as a world apart, an often violent and insular culture governed by its own definitions of honor and ruled by its own authorities. The truth, however, is that legal cases which originated at sea had a tendency to come ashore and force the national government to address questions about personal honor, dignity, the rights of labor, and the meaning and privileges of citizenship, often for the first time. By examining how and why merchant seamen and their officers came into contact with the law, this book exposes the complex relationship between brutal crimes committed at sea and the development of a legal consciousness within both the judiciary and among seafarers in this period. It tracks how seamen conceived of themselves as individuals and how they defined their place within the United States. The work reveals much about the ways that merchant seamen sought to articulate the ideals of freedom and citizenship before the courts of the land—and how they helped to shape the laws of the young republic.
Robb Robinson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781786941756
- eISBN:
- 9781789623222
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781786941756.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter describes Sir Edwin Lutyens's memorial to 35,000 fishermen and merchant seamen killed in the Great War, which have no grave but the sea. It recounts the crucial role the fishermen played ...
More
This chapter describes Sir Edwin Lutyens's memorial to 35,000 fishermen and merchant seamen killed in the Great War, which have no grave but the sea. It recounts the crucial role the fishermen played that was often acknowledged by key figures in the country's political and military establishment immediately after the war and in the first years which followed. It also discusses the publication of a small number of books that highlighted the fishermen's activities in the Great War that told much of the scale and scope of their contribution. The chapter refers to the new navy known as the Auxiliary Patrol that had been dispersed and disbanded very rapidly after the return of peace. It summarizes the scale and scope of the engagement of fishermen and coastal communities from around the British Isles on the maritime front line during the Great War.Less
This chapter describes Sir Edwin Lutyens's memorial to 35,000 fishermen and merchant seamen killed in the Great War, which have no grave but the sea. It recounts the crucial role the fishermen played that was often acknowledged by key figures in the country's political and military establishment immediately after the war and in the first years which followed. It also discusses the publication of a small number of books that highlighted the fishermen's activities in the Great War that told much of the scale and scope of their contribution. The chapter refers to the new navy known as the Auxiliary Patrol that had been dispersed and disbanded very rapidly after the return of peace. It summarizes the scale and scope of the engagement of fishermen and coastal communities from around the British Isles on the maritime front line during the Great War.