Anyone could swear like a sailor! Within the larger culture, sailors had pride of place in swearing. But how they swore and the reasons for their bad language were not strictly wedded to maritime things. Instead, sailor swearing, indeed all swearing in this period, was connected to larger developments. This book traces the interaction between the maritime and mainstream world in the United States while examining cursing, language, logbooks, storytelling, sailor songs, reading, images, and material goods. To Swear Like a Sailor offers insight into the character of Jack Tar - the common seaman - and into the early republic. It illuminates the cultural connections between Great Britain and the United States and the appearance of a distinct American national identity. The book explores the emergence of sentimental notions about the common man - through the guise of the sailor - appearing on stage, in song, in literature, and in images.

Anyone could swear like a sailor! Within the larger culture, sailors had pride of place in swearing. But how they swore and the reasons for their bad language were not strictly wedded to maritime things. Instead, sailor swearing, indeed all swearing in this period, was connected to larger developments. This book traces the interaction between the maritime and mainstream world in the United States while examining cursing, language, logbooks, storytelling, sailor songs, reading, images, and material goods. To Swear Like a Sailor offers insight into the character of Jack Tar - the common seaman - and into the early republic. It illuminates the cultural connections between Great Britain and the United States and the appearance of a distinct American national identity. The book explores the emergence of sentimental notions about the common man - through the guise of the sailor - appearing on stage, in song, in literature, and in images.

On 2 July 1812, Captain David Porter raised a banner on the USS Essex proclaiming 'a free trade and sailors rights', thus creating a political slogan that explained the War of 1812. Free trade demanded the protection of American commerce, while sailors' rights insisted that the British end the impressment of seamen from American ships. Repeated for decades in Congress and in taverns, the slogan reminds us today that the second war with Great Britain was not a mistake. It was a contest for the ideals of the American Revolution bringing together both the high culture of the Enlightenment to establish a new political economy and the low culture of the common folk to assert the equality of humankind. Understanding the War of 1812 and the motto that came to explain it - free trade and sailors' rights - allows us to better comprehend the origins of the American nation.

On 2 July 1812, Captain David Porter raised a banner on the USS Essex proclaiming 'a free trade and sailors rights', thus creating a political slogan that explained the War of 1812. Free trade demanded the protection of American commerce, while sailors' rights insisted that the British end the impressment of seamen from American ships. Repeated for decades in Congress and in taverns, the slogan reminds us today that the second war with Great Britain was not a mistake. It was a contest for the ideals of the American Revolution bringing together both the high culture of the Enlightenment to establish a new political economy and the low culture of the common folk to assert the equality of humankind. Understanding the War of 1812 and the motto that came to explain it - free trade and sailors' rights - allows us to better comprehend the origins of the American nation.

Liberty on the Waterfront American Maritime Culture in the Age of Revolution Paul A. Gilje Winner of the 2005 SHEAR Book Prize Winner of the 2004 John Lyman Book Award for U.S. Maritime History from the North American Society for Oceanic History "In its ambitious sweep and encyclopedic detail, Gilje's rendering of American maritime culture during the tumultuous century from 1750 to 1850 is unlikely to be surpassed."--"William and Mary Quarterly" ""Liberty on the Waterfront" dramatically alters past perceptions of sailors and their worlds afloat and ashore. . . . A broad-based and skillfully crafted piece of social history."--"Journal of American History" "This well-written, well-illustrated volume should become the standard, most accessible single source on seamen in antebellum America for many years to come."--"Reviews in American History" "In its ambitious sweep and encyclopedic detail, Gilje's rendering of American maritime culture during the tumultuous century from 1750 to 1850 is unlikely to be surpassed."--"William and Mary Quarterly" Through careful research and colorful accounts, historian Paul A. Gilje discovers what liberty meant to an important group of common men in American society, those who lived and worked on the waterfront and aboard ships. In the process he reveals that the idealized vision of liberty associated with the Founding Fathers had a much more immediate and complex meaning than previously thought. In "Liberty on the Waterfront: American Maritime Culture in the Age of Revolution," life aboard warships, merchantmen, and whalers, as well as the interactions of mariners and others on shore, is recreated in absorbing detail. Describing the important contributions of sailors to the resistance movement against Great Britain and their experiences during the Revolutionary War, Gilje demonstrates that, while sailors recognized the ideals of the Revolution, their idea of liberty was far more individual in nature--often expressed through hard drinking and womanizing or joining a ship of their choice. Gilje continues the story into the post-Revolutionary world highlighted by the Quasi War with France, the confrontation with the Barbary Pirates, and the War of 1812. Paul A. Gilje is Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of "Rioting in America" and "The Road to Mobocracy: Popular Disorder in New York City, 1763-1834." Early American Studies 2003 360 pages 6 x 9 43 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-1993-7 Paper $26.50s 17.50 World Rights American History

"The Road to Mobocracy" is the first major study of public disorder in New York City from the Revolutionary period through the Jacksonian era. During that time, the mob lost its traditional, institutional role as corporate safety valve and social corrective, tolerated by public officials. It became autonomous, a violent menace to individual and public good expressing the discordant urges and fears of a pluralistic society. Indeed, it tested the premises of democratic government.
Paul Gilje relates the practices of New York mobs to their American and European roots and uses both historical and anthropological methods to show how those mobs adapted to local conditions. He questions many of the traditional assumptions about the nature of the mob and scrutinizes explanations of its transformation: among them, the loss of a single-interest society, industrialization and changes in the workforce, increased immigration, and the rise of sub-classes in American society. Gilje's findings can be extended to other cities.
The lucid narrative incorporates meticulous and exhaustive archival research that unearths hundreds of New York City disturbances -- about the Revolution, bawdy-houses, theaters, dogs and hogs, politics, elections, ethnic conflict, labor actions, religion. Illustrations recreate the turbulent atmosphere of the city; maps, graphs, and tables define the spacial and statistical dimensions of its ferment. The book is a major contribution to our understanding of social change in the early Republic as well as to the history of early New York, urban studies, and rioting.

America between the Revolution and the Civil War was a society in full adolescence. Vibrant, cocky, feeling its own strength, and ready to take on the world, America was driven by an upstart economy and a capitalist bravado. The early republic, argues Paul Gilje in his cogent introduction, was the crucial period in the development of that trademark characteristic of American society modern capitalism. In this collection of essays, eight social and economic historians consider the rise of capitalism in the early American republic. Expanding upon traditional interpretations of economic development encouraged and controlled by merchants and financiers these essays demonstrate the centrality of common men and women as artisans, laborers, planters and farmers in the dramatic transitions of the period. They show how changes in the workshop, home, and farm were as crucial as those in banks and counting houses. Capping these fundamental changes was the rise of consumerism among Americans and the development of a "mentality of capitalism" that ensured the success of this new economic system with all its benefits and costs. Contributing authors include Paul A. Gilje, Jeanne Boydston, Christopher Clark, Douglas R. Egerton, Cathy D. Matson, Jonathan Prude, Richard Stott, and Gordon S. Wood.