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Myths and stereotypes surrounding seafarers in the Age of Sail persist to this day. Sailors were celebrated for their courage, strength, and skill, yet condemned for militancy, vice, and fecklessness. As sail gave way to steam, sailing-ship mariners became nostalgic symbols of maritime prowess and heritage, representing a timeless, heroic masculinity in an era when the modernizing industrial world was challenging assumptions about gender, class, work, and society.
Drawing on British seafaring memoirs from the late nineteenth century, Making Men in the Age of Sail argues that maritime writing moulded the reading public’s image of the merchant seaman. Authors chronicled their lives as they grew from boy sailors to trained seafarers, telling colourful tales of the men they worked with – most never doubted that the sailing ship had made them better men. Their testimony reinforced and preserved conservative perspectives on seafaring manhood as Britain’s economic and technological priorities continued to evolve in the new steamship age.
Offering a gender analysis of the image of the seafarer, Making Men in the Age of Sail brings the history of British sailors into wider debates about modernity and masculinity.
“Making Men in the Age of Sail is a complex and enlightening achievement which clearly reflects the finely-honed skills of a long career in history writing. Milne succeeds in uncovering the tensions and paradoxes of the self representation of a masculine standard. He also reveals some of the implications of this cultural representation for broader questions of gender, emotion, class, race, nation, workforce, and modernity. This is an evocatively and sympathetically written account which makes the merchant seafaring community come alive.” The Great Circle, Australian National Maritime Museum
"Milne presents a complex picture of merchant seamen and their perceptions of themselves as a breed apart. His emphasis on the closing days of sail allow for a natural comparison to the mean who served on steam ships." Social History
"Milne has produced one of those rare, approachable, and encompassing works that successfully bridges the fields of literature, history, and gender studies without dropping the complexities of any field to indulge in the others." Jahrbuch für Kommunikationsgeschichte