Material texts in Historical Archaeology. Exploring material dimensions of 19th century whaling logbooks

Summary

Global growth of whaling activity in the 19th century brought the incorporation of remote and unknown areas such as Antarctica to the modern capitalist world. Logbooks were the official records of the activities of whaling voyages. Even before maps, written words in logbooks comprised the first records written in-situ about the experience of these newly incorporated spaces. Thee logbooks were often produced as a process, day by day, while the action was taking place. Due to the rich and detailed information in these records, logbooks have been traditionally studied with a main focus on their content. The goal of this work is to read beyond the words by exploring some of the material aspects of manuscript logbooks that we consider particularly meaningful. Logbooks were part of the material world of whaling expeditions, and we study these books/objects in their material dimension. Both the content as well as the physical form containing and organizing the text gain analytical relevance. These analyses focus on a set of logbooks of whaling expeditions departing from New England. We believe that the material aspects of these manuscripts could be part of the discussions about the exploration of new or unknown spaces in the 19th century.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

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