Seafaring Labour: The Merchant Marine of Atlantic Canada, 1820-1914 - Paperback

by Eric W. Sager (Author)

Sager argues that sailors were not misfits or outcasts but were divorced from society only by virtue of their occupation. The wooden ships were small communities at sea, fragments of normal society where workers lived, struggled, and often died. With the coming of the age of steam, the sailor became part of a new division of labour and a new social hierarchy at sea. Sager shows that the sailor was as integral to the transition to industrial capitalism as any land worker.

Back Jacket

In this compassionate look at the effect of industrialization on the individual lives of sailors, Eric W. Sager examines the passing of the age of sail and how the life and working relationships of the able seaman were transformed as notions of craft and craftsmen were replaced by reliance on the skills and social relations of the new industrial workplace.

Author Biography

Eric W. Sager is professor emeritus of history at the University of Victoria.