Abstract

"Mending Movement: Sailcloth Repair in the New England Maritime World, 1780-1850"

Emily Whitted, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (ewhitted@umass.edu)

For the post-revolutionary New England maritime economy, the efficient movement of people and goods around the Atlantic world relied on the strength of woven fabric and the means to repair it successfully. Sails underwent extensive wear and required regular maintenance and repair work completed by male sailors onboard ships while at sea or by sailmakers while in ports. What can the examination of sailcloth repair reveal about the role of mending, rather than making, within maritime business practices? “Mending Movement: Sailcloth Repair in the New England Maritime World, 1780-1850” examines the economic impact of sailcloth repair as both a routine practice for sailors as part of “ship’s duty” and a customized, client-based practice by sailmakers.

Using extant material culture such as sailcloth-bound journals and archival documents such as sailmakers’ account books and ship logs from collections at the Nantucket Historical Association, The New Bedford Whaling Museum, Mystic Seaport, and the John Hay Library, this paper contributes to the interdisciplinary discourse between the history of technology, material culture studies, and business history. A wealth of scholarship on the Atlantic maritime business world, including works by Jeffrey Bolster, Peter Linebaugh, Marcus Rediker, and Michael Jarvis, has discussed the daily labor of sailors as well as the larger political and economic networks that predicated the movement of ships. But by focusing on ship sails as a technology of maritime movement, practices of sailcloth repair offer insights into the implied and explicit economic value of repair and maintenance within maritime early American businesses. Examining the roots of early sailcloth repair practices also offers lessons for the twenty-first century business world by engaging with the recent gusts of interest in wind-powered sailing for large-scale shipping as well as intentional practices of repair work to counteract overconsumption.