Abstracts
Abstract
This paper assesses the success of the loan libraries of the American Seamen’s Friend Society (ASFS). It contains an analysis of 20 reports submitted to the ASFS by shipboard librarians between 1865 and 1867. Analysis of the reports themselves and how they were represented in ASFS publications reveals the paradoxical relationship the ASFS had with stereotypes of seamen. In the ASFS’s images of sailors and in their administration of the loan libraries, those sailors were kept in a position of moral dependency. The paper concludes by suggesting that Herbert Blumer’s model of social problems as constituted by collective action is a fruitful way to consider seamen’s benevolence in general, and a productive framing to move forward with studies of loan libraries in particular.
Keywords:
- literacy,
- religious conversion,
- sailors,
- books and reading,
- merchant mariners
Résumé
Cet article évalue le succès des bibliothèques de prêt de l’American Seamen’s Friend Society (ASFS). Il présente une analyse de 20 rapports soumis à l’ASFS par des bibliothécaires navigants entre 1865 et 1867. L’analyse de ces rapports et de leur présentation dans les publications de l’ASFS révèle la relation paradoxale que l’ASFS entretenait avec les stéréotypes associés aux marins. Dans l’image que l’ASFS se faisait des marins et dans sa gestion des bibliothèques de prêt, ces marins devaient adopter une posture de dépendance morale. L’article conclut en proposant que le modèle de Herbert Blumer, selon lequel les problèmes sociaux sont constitués par l’action collective, offre une perspective fructueuse permettant de considérer la bienveillance des marins en général, et un cadre pertinent pour poursuivre les études sur les bibliothèques de prêt en particulier.
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Appendices
Biographical note
Jane McCamant is a librarian and archivist living in Boston. She holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago and has published on the history of moral and religious education in the United States. This article was originally researched and written in 2009 at the Frank C. Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies and was then revised for presentation at the annual meeting of the North American Society for Oceanic History. It won the Clark G. Reynolds Student Paper Award in 2013.
Bibliography
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