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The Sailing Circle: 19th Century Seafaring Women From New York, is a collaborative exhibit produced by the Three Village Historical Society and the Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum. The Sailing Circle features wives who went to sea with their captain husbands on deep-water merchant, whaling ships and coasting vessels. The Sailing Circle was on exhibit at Mystic Seaport, America's leading maritime museum located in Mystic, CT, and at the Castle Gallery at the College of New Rochelle. It is now in the gallery at the Three Village Historical Society headquarters in Setauket.
Carrying a wife or child aboard ship was a privilege reserved for the captain. The captain's wife faced a dilemma to stay on land with friends and family yet be away from her husband, or to go to sea and raise a family and make a home in isolation and uncertainty.
Wives who chose to go to sea attempted to create domesticity amid an intensely male workplace. It's no wonder upon meeting a "sister sailor" - either in a distant port or even mid-ocean - these women formed a "sailing circle" akin to the "sewing circle" they had left on shore. The "sailing circle" offered a customary female network to an otherwise isolated existence on board ship.
Honolulu, a stop for many whaling ships, was the port where many women were left for months waiting the birth of their child. While the captains and crews continued their whaling voyage in the Pacific or into the Arctic waters, women were left either on their own or in the care of Hawaiian missionaries. The captain would return to port to resupply his vessel and retrieve his wife and infant child, now several months old. While older children may have been left at home in the care of relatives, the youngest children were generally taken along. Whaling families endured voyages from two to four years.
The families of coastermen led a somewhat more comfortable existence than the whaling family. Unlike whalers with their ocean crossing voyages, coasters, as their name indicates, stayed closer to the land. Smaller crews, larger living quarters and shorter voyages allowed for more of the comforts of home. Long Island Sound coaster wives may have plied the waters with their husbands all week long but on Sundays their vessels could be found docked at the nearest port.
The exhibit included over 100 objects, artifacts and prints from the collections of the two sponsoring institutions as well as the Oysterponds Historical Society, the William Steeple Davis Trust, several New England museums and a number of private Long Island collectors.
HOURS OF OPERATION
The exhibit gallery, featuring the “Sailing Circle” exhibition, and the bookshop, featuring such popular books as Washington’s Spies by Alexander Rose, and the two Images of America books, Stony Brook and The Setaukets, Old Field and Poquott are currently open for your perusal Monday through Friday from 10am-3pm and weekends by appointment. We hope to see you soon!
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Mystic Seaport - The Museum of America and the Sea - was founded in 1929 and is the nation's leading maritime museum housing the largest collection of boats and maritime photography in the world. Mystic Seaport is located one mile south of I-95 exit 90 in Mystic, CT. Visit the Mystic Seaport's Web Site for more information.
Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum Web Site
Teacher's guide for the sailing circle is available, to use alone or with the exhibit.
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Sailing Circle: A Seafaring Adventure For Young Historians by Kathy Mitra
Calendar, Exhibits & Programs
Membership information and an application to mail.
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For further information on the Society, its programs or publications,
Tel: (631) 751-3730
fax: (631) 751-3936
e-mail: info@tvhs.org
or write: Three Village Historical Society
93 North Country Rd
East Setauket, New York 11733
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