The JSAMN to The Terror Pipeline
reblog and put your "soap and candles" gift in the tags, like the simple thing someone can get you if they don't know what to get you that you will always be excited about
i want to FLUSTER that man. i want to make him BLUSH. i want to make him feel VULNERABLE AROUND ME. i want to make him WEAK IN THE KNEES. i want to kiss him
1831 Horace Vernet - Portrait of a Young Woman
(Toledo Museum of Art)
glancing down at mens chest hair while theyre talking like it's cleavage
Happy pride month from some fancier-than-my-usual corner of the 1770s!
We're renovating and found a secret hiding place behind the wall.
Inside was a children's book of riddles from 1835.
Why is testosterone a controlled substance grow up like who cares
Daguerreotype of a father carrying toddler who couldn't hold still for the camera but whose cuteness is immortalized regardless, c. 1850s
is that a book of poetry in your pocket or is your penis just poignant and insightful and beautiful
Sauron will not have forgotten the Sword of Elendil. The blade that was broken shall return to Minas Tirith.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: The Return of the King (2003) dir. Peter Jackson
Another A'whalin Essay. This is technically a repurposing of an old ask I got here, but there's more information now! More fellows!
I am reasonably fun to hang out with and my company is enjoyed by well over 10 people worldwide
would you put a discarded fruit sticker on my forehead in whimsical jest yes or no
I've seen you answer a few asks about whaling history before, so hopefully I'm not offbase asking you questions out of the blue? But anyway, how did people bathe (or keep clean if not by bathing) during long sea voyages?
Not off base at all! Out of the blue whaling history questions are some of my fav asks to receive; I find them thrilling. I can’t help but write an essay every time.
It was particularly hard to keep clean on a whaler, and whalemen were often disparaged by those in other maritime professions. In 1839, naval Lieutenant Charles Wilkes said of the crew of the whaleship America,
“I have seldom seen at sea a more uncombed and dirty set of mariners than his crew.“
J.E. Haviland of the Baltic, 1856, complained of besmirching his journal pages with the grime that he was unable to scrub off his hands after tarring the rigging, self consciously saying:
“My hands + clothes would look beautiful for a ladies Parlor. I see they even collor the paper but I cannot get the tar out. The Old Man says he intends to have me tar down the rigging a few days before we get in New Bedford so that I shall not forget too soon that I have been a sailor.”
General ships’ work such as tarring could be messy, but a whaler’s work was even messier. When trying out blubber it was futile to attempt maintaining any semblance of cleanliness during the process. William Abbe of the Atkins Adams, 1859, said that during boiling, a watch would turn in to their bunks a few hours rest, merely ‘after wiping off your bare body with oakum to take off the thickest of the oil”.
But the gore and oil wasn’t forever. After the particular job was done the ship would be meticulously cleaned, and the whalers would tend to themselves too. As Herman Melville wrote,
“The crew themselves proceed to their own ablutions; shift themselves from top to toe; and finally issue to the immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow, as bridegrooms new-leaped from out the daintiest Holland. Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes, and humorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics; propose to mat the deck; think of having hanging to the top; object not to taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle. To hint to such musked mariners of oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short of audacity. They know not the thing you distantly allude to. Away, and bring us napkins!”
Haviland expressed gratitude in getting a chance to get clean after all the work of boiling blubber was done:
“I feel much better to day I have given myself a good wash + a clean shave + got in all clean clothes. You would not have known your own son if you could have seen him yesterday. I was nearly black with smoke + dirt. (with shame) I say it was the accumulation of 2 months dirt + 4 months beard. Everything looks as clean + bright as it did before we took the whale”
Being able to bathe was such a highlight that Abbe titled one of his journal pages “Washing myself!!” With TWO exclamation points!
“I write with pride in my fastidious journal that this morning I washed my face + hands with castile soap + fresh water — when shall I do the like again? When shall I write the pleasant and comfortable fact that I have shaved? The future and fair weather only can tell.”
The ship’s slop chest—its general store—had toiletries for sale, often at a very high premium. Whaling account books show men buying pounds of oil soap for their own personal stores. The fresh water was often rainwater collected for this purpose, rather than the casks set aside for drinking.
“This has been a rather squally day,” wrote Mary Lawrence, whaling wife who accompanied her husband on his ship Addison in the 1850s. “Considerable rain has fallen, and everybody on deck is using an abundant supply of rainwater for washing purposes.” She also added, though this is speaking of laundry rather than bathing, “Having stopped up the scuppers, the use the whole deck for one grand washtub.”
They’d use the sea, too. John Martin of the Lucy Ann, wrote of bathing via rain and sea whilst near the equator on January 24th, 1842.
“Towards noon the rain came down in torrents. The weather being sultry the watch on deck shipped off their shirts to it. John the boat steerer went entirely naked with the exception of a handkerchief tied around his privates. In the afternoon it cleared away, when I asked permission from the Captain for the crew to take a bathe over the side. He said we might do it if we rigged a studding sail over the side, which was soon done & all hands that could swim were to be seen jumping from different parts of the ship. Some went out to the end of the flying jib boom & jumped off there. Even the dog was thrown overboard & got his share of washing. I like bathing at sea but for one thing, and that is sharks. I always have a fear that one might be hovering about and give one a nip before he was aware of it.”
It was challenging for whalers to keep clean by nature of the job, but man when they were able to they really seemed to revel in it. For many of them it was more than just a bath; it was a symbolic return to a home they were long away from, or to the man they perceived themselves to be back on shore, or of a society that they felt cut off from in their line of work.
If you’re interested I also wrote a thing about doing laundry on whaleships too, yonder!
