Respectability at sea: captains' cabins on Maine-built merchant ships, 1875-1900

Abstract

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, shipyards in and around Bath, Maine, specialized in the niche maritime market of building and managing large, square-rigged sailing ships for the global bulk commodities trade. The captains’ cabins aboard these ships were elaborately domestic, full of carpets, sofas, mirrors, lamps, and numerous other furnishings that would have been perfectly acceptable in an upper-middle class parlor ashore. These cabins were a product of the tight-knit maritime communities of coastal Maine, reflecting cultural standards that the captains and ship owners shared. The material space of the cabin allowed captains to maintain an image of the same middle-class respectability at sea that they embraced ashore, and this respectability was essential for navigating the personal, genteel business networks of global maritime commerce.