19th century industrial revolution times meant brilliant machines, inventions and factories. Workers were leaving rural areas en masse to find work in the city. Bloody hard, low paid and dangerous work mind you. And not only was the work shitty, but there was literally shit everywhere. Pollution, human excrement. Even dead horses on the streets.
But the worst work of all? Well, that was down on the docks where the ships came in. Every day, floods of seamen would wash in from foreign parts. A “release binge of seamen” one writer termed it; and with their vulgar tongues and unruly behaviour, straight to the pubs and brothels they’d go!
Enter the religious, do-gooder busybodies, the reformers (picture Ned Flanders with a waistcoat and tophat). Knowing they couldn’t convince the seamen to come to church, they formed the American Seamen’s Friends Society and came up with the next best thing: Floating libraries!
Administered by the seaman librarian every Sunday morning, the library (a red wooden crate filled with books) would be opened for the sailors to peruse and borrow. But could books really turn these rascally seamen into upright citizens?
The theory of the Seamen’s Friends Society was that by reading elevating, high-minded literature, the sailors would come to abandon their drinking, rooting and swearing, and choose the godly life.
Whilst at sea, seamen were a captive audience with low standards. They were either doing horrible, brutal, dirty work (ever peeled a whale?), or bored out of their brains with nothing to do. So prior to the floating libraries, seamen entertained themselves by rearranging the contents of a sea chest (Marie Kondo eat your heart out) or reading a year-old newspaper over and over and over again, including every word of every advertisement.
So of course, the books couldn’t be any old books. Obviously, the seamen were completely void of all virtue, knowledge and self-control! They must only be allowed to read books that were carefully curated by the American Seamen’s Friends Society - meaning mostly Bibles, Bible dictionaries, volumes of sermons, books warning against infidelity and universalism, a little science and history, and because the Seamen’s Friends Society genuinely wanted the seamen to be happy, they threw in a few books that should be of interest to them, like almanacs and shipwrecks. Really? Bit of a dick move there.
So did the books help? Well, as we said, the seamen were desperate for entertainment so they lapped them up. But some books were more popular than others and God forbid, anyone receive any product and/or service without being asked to “complete our quick survey”.
The Seamen’s Friends Society collected data on what books the sailors enjoyed. It turns out they were less about God and shipwrecks and more about adventure, automobiles and engines. So long as the book was about things on the land and not on water, they were into it.
And what of the Bibles that would lure these foul seamen into the kingdom of God? All the other books were dog-eared and had evidence of seamen all over them (smirk) but the Bibles? Barely touched.
To the credit of these do-gooder reformers, they came to realise that instead of trying to shove religious texts down the sailor's throats, it was better to simply provide a little joy and recreation into their lonely lives at sea.
Did the floating libraries help the seamen to stop swearing and commit their lives to Christian ways? Probably not. But boy did it give them something nice and wholesome to do.
SOURCES:
The New York Times CIRCULATING LIBRARIES OF THE SEA FOR NEARLY HALF A MILLION SEAMEN; An Elaborate System, in Vogue for More Than Fifty Years, by Which 3,000 Libraries Are Kept Afloat. New York Times.
David M Hovde’s Sea Colportage: The Loan Library System of the American Seamen's Friend Society, 1859-1967, in Libraries and Culture
Previous Episode mentioned:
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Will 00:00
As far as anyone can tell, box number 1954 left New York harbour in October 1866
Rod 00:07
1954. In 1866
Will 00:10
Yeah 1866
Rod 00:11
A lot of numbers very early.
Will 00:13
I don't know what ship it was on but I looked up a bunch of the ships and like there's there's a lot of ships leaving New York harbour coming into New York harbour every month. There's the Napoleon the Marcia Greenleaf, the Ju Jas and the Australian.
Rod 00:25
Huge what? Huge ass.
Will 00:26
The Ju Jas. That was one of the boats. It left New York box 1954 seems to have crossed the Atlantic, gone to England then gone on into the Mediterranean. From there it went back to England. And from there all the way over to India. At that point, I think it was exchanged with another boat and continued on a series of deep water, deep ocean voyages around the world and the records got a bit patchy there. As far as anyone can tell, it probably went around the world maybe dozens of times. It turned up once, nine years later, on the fishing schooner Piscatqua.
Will 00:26
The boat turned up on the fishing schooner?
Will 00:51
the box the box
Rod 00:53
Oh the box
Will 00:54
Box 1954 turned up on a fishing schooner. It left out of Gloucester Massachusetts, but then it kept going. It went on another voyage.
Rod 01:18
This is the luggage from Terry Pratchett series that was it sapient pear wood chest with 1000 Little feet.
Will 01:24
It is a little bit like. it does have a life of its own. Only in December 1908 42 years after it first left New York did box 1954 finally find its way back to its owners where they could open up and see just how used the contents were. And the owners must have been pretty happy because the contents were utterly soiled from fulfilling their wholesome mission for 42 years out there on the ocean waves
Will 02:02
Welcome to the wholesome show,
Rod 02:03
the podcast that opens the whole wholesome box of science. That sounds nice.
Will 02:09
I'm Will Grant.
Rod 02:10
I'm Rod Lambert's. I nearly forgot. I was stunned by being soiled with fulfilment.
Will 02:17
The podcast that tries to soil you with fulfilment
Rod 02:20
soil it itself with fulfillment, the idea of getting home How was your day? It was so good, I soiled. I chewed so much I'm soiled.
Will 02:32
So a quick note on sources for this one. I'm drawing a lot on two good articles. There's a bunch of other things about this. Well, not a whole lot, actually. But one was a great 1912 article in The New York Times that I literally just stumbled over. I literally
Rod 02:46
You were laying on the floor and you tripped on it. like literally
Will 02:49
not quite. it was the article next to an article I was looking up. An article in libraries and culture by David Hoffman. They're probably always been people who've looked at cities and thought, ooh, gross. Look at all of those scummy scummy people who live there. But in the early years of the Industrial Revolution, they probably had a pretty legitimate case. Yeah, you know, when the industrial revolution is kicking off, and workers leaving villages and the towns en masse and they're coming to cities. It was it was pretty horrible.
Rod 03:26
Human poo, wee wee, corpses. Food scraps, or horse bodies.
Will 03:31
Horse bodies. Yeah.
Rod 03:33
Imagine that you're getting the workers sorry I'm slowly nine dead horses in the road of various ages.
Will 03:39
Oh, wow. Yeah, so there would have been that and and heaps of pollution of all sorts you know, there's shitty fires all over the place and and shitty factories that are pumping all sorts of awful stuff. heaps and heaps of crime all over the place. You know, people getting ripped off. You know, I'm just saying all of the bad things about the early industrial cities, shitty terrible, terrible living conditions, and terrible jobs as well. imagine the tenement people living living 30 people per bedroom.
Rod 04:18
You know what you do? you get someone who's really desperate for cash, you're gonna go and squirt the water. Full Employment on a human today.
Will 04:29
Oh, and the jobs of course would have been super low paid, super hard work, super dangerous. Just shitty. The place that a lot of people in this sort of time in Europe and America looking at these industrial cities looked at as the worst of the worst. The docks. They were like, you know you've got you've got floods of shitty foreign seamen washing in from getting drunk and not caring about landlubber society goes into brothels all the time so they would have been wild wild people
Rod 05:06
reason surely has a reputation.
Will 05:08
Oh my God, my God. One writer described this you know, the shore leave as the release binge of semen
Rod 05:18
there's so many so many perfect sub tags for our show that come up by accident or release binge of semen.
Will 05:27
I'm trying. In fact, people at the time, like the docks you know, full of crime you can smuggling and all that kind of stuff. But the seaman, they looked at them as the worst of the worst. There was this there was this thing I found when I was looking this up that someone said the worst possible and apparently this is sort of a normal opinion. The worst possible use that could be made of a man was to hang him. worse still make a common semen of him.
Will 05:53
someone, some fucking idiot, someone like It's like that you shouldn't hang him but being a seaman is worse.
Rod 05:53
who said that?
Rod 06:00
the worst thing is to murder someone that way. But worse still
Will 06:04
is being a seaman. Yeah, exactly. Like and they also like the word Seaman, or sailor or whatever. It was interchangeable with criminal or convicts. They just thought that these these people, I mean, many of them were kind of press ganged into into selling. So they potentially were many, many. Yeah, when they came into cities, they were just they were just doing crime getting drunk. They were they were indigent and nasty. And everyone was like, Oh, these are these are the worst that the lowest class of society
Rod 06:33
so people forgot to say, wait a minute, it's not that seamen makes them bad. We get bad people to be seamen. so close minded.
Will 06:42
Around this time, there are a bunch of people, reformers they call themselves
Rod 06:48
Ooh that's a good start
Will 06:51
I'll tell you about them. They're interesting people who thought you know, these, these are gross cities and gross docks, maybe we can do something about it.
Rod 07:00
Burn them down.
Will 07:01
Well, so here's one one description. with an increasing sense of alarm, Numerous high minded men and women, these are the Reformers, organise themselves into voluntary benevolent societies to counteract the allusions to evil that surrounded the young men constantly arriving our city.
Rod 07:17
euphemisms everywhere
Will 07:20
Yeah, they're busy bodies. Their god bothers their do gooders, but I just wanted to flag that they are, they are actually pretty decent, awesome people as well. Like some of them, like one of the guys who starts up thing I'm going to tell you about Joshua Levitt. He was he was in an abolitionist as well trying to help abolish the slave trade. And he worked on the Underground Railroad. So while he wanted to, you know, first fix the lower classes, he was also he was also doing some really good stuff. The question they had is what can be done about all of this criminal seamen, these criminal seamen washing into our cities?
Rod 07:57
How can we help them soil with fulfilment?
Will 08:03
The idea that they had seems to have come when they considered the typical sailors life
Rod 08:08
dancing classes, horn pipes
Will 08:15
The problem, the problem they had is, of course, when, when the seaman came into town, they were hard for the Reformers to access. So you know, they couldn't get them to go to church or anything like that, because all the Seaman wanted to do is
Will 08:28
all the good things, and going to church is probably fifth on your priority after root and drink and fight and steal. But it's hard to get to number five, you've only got four days of shore leave, one day of each, you're used up.
Rod 08:28
root and drink. Fight and steal.
Will 08:32
So the way to get to them is to make them come to you. That always works.
Will 08:48
Or, or you can look at the rest of Seamens life. So when they're back on a boat, mind numbingly boring.
Rod 08:57
Still rooting and drinking.
Will 08:58
Well look, maybe maybe but nothing strange. And I don't know how much drinking there would have been on these boats. It would depend on the captain. But out on the boats when they're sailing deep ocean voyages and some of these like whaling boats, they went out for like a years at a time. Like Like literally years slowly. So some are going faster. But no matter what, there would have been months of you've cleaned your boat. And if the weather is good, you know, you're sitting there just doing nothing.
Rod 09:27
And when you're not doing nothing, you're doing horrible, brutal dirty work.
Will 09:31
Yeah, totally. Totally. So periods of intense work if a storm comes over, or if you've got a you know, something happens
Rod 09:37
Or if you're wailing. It's not pretty work.
Will 09:43
One of my favourite descriptions in Moby Dick is when they peeled the whale
Rod 09:46
you like what kind of what's that a euphemism for? It's not
Will 09:50
literally, it's like, it's like an orange.
Rod 09:51
Like we peel it. You just gotta make create an opportunity. AKA, slash it from right around the circumference then peel it. It's fine.
Will 10:01
So sailors would get really, really bored. Like they're sitting on these boats. And, you know, there's one description that they they got so bored, they would consider rearranging the contents of a sea chest as a form of entertainment. Like they open it up and go steal your socks different, or, or put the rocks in here in a different way.
Rod 10:24
I see practical jokes were rampant,
Will 10:26
probably. I mean, they're carving scrimshaw, and they're tying knots. But a lot of the time, they're sitting around doing literally nothing. But there were some other stories going around. And the Reformers picked up this, they heard stories of reading and rereading old newspapers over and over again, they just they had a newspaper on board. So they'd sit there and read it, and they'd read the advertisements, the everything, they'd read every single word like over and over again, they just like hungry for anything.
Rod 10:56
That's when they weren't using it to clean their bum bum.
Will 10:58
and they don't clean them. They're hanging out the front over the top and let the waves
Rod 11:01
but sometimes there are remnants.
Will 11:04
There's another story of a sailor paying two heads of tobacco. I don't know how much that is but it's some value, to another sailor to have his letter from home.
Rod 11:34
So coveted
Rod 11:36
Sailor one got a letter from home at some point, and sailor two is like, are you finished reading that? Can I have it? And it's like, it's not your family dude. And he's like, Well, alright, give me two heads of tobacco. And so he's got someone else's letter
Rod 11:49
something to read.
Will 11:50
Yeah, it's reading about someone else's Griselda
Rod 11:55
I get it though. I don't know you're waiting in an airport, you're waiting for someone and it's like, more than 15 minutes. I know for you, that's an eternity. And your phone doesn't like there's no internet connection or something. You're like, I gotta read something. What do I read? Signs? Just roll my eyes over something.
Will 12:11
I know, I know, I accept that I get bored quite quickly. The idea of multiple months sitting becalmed or something like that in one of these boats. And it's like, what do you do?
Rod 12:22
breathe fresh air?
Will 12:23
I mean, we told you just the I mean, just the other day, that boat that was stuck in up near the North Pole for two years caught in the ice. And you imagine how boring and terrifying of course, because you're worried about dying. Oh my god. But how boring that could be.
Rod 12:39
Yeah, So buying and selling each other's letters. Nothing to do with you. So I suppose kind of like an early soap opera.
Will 12:39
Yeah, okay. Yeah, it could be. Yeah. But this was the clue that the high minded reformers, we can try and make sailors better people. The Reformers formed a society called the American Seamens friend society, I'll put their logo somewhere, I don't know we'll use it on the YouTubes. Because it is because it is the best logo for a back tat for a very unique group of people. And it's a picture of a bunch of Seamen sitting around, reading a book together. Like it's the guy overtones with the navel, tattoos sort of thing, and a librarian, and you're like, This is the thing for me, I finally need like sailors sitting around reading a book.
Rod 13:29
That's true, I really want to go to see, I love to read, woop.
Will 13:33
So the goal of the American seaman's friends society, was to turn these rascally seamen into Upright Citizens,
Will 13:39
through reading
Will 13:39
through reading. That was their thing, though, like reading reading will make good citizens.
Rod 13:41
So by extrapolation, then rather than putting people in prison, which lock them in libraries,
Will 13:52
maybe we should
Rod 13:53
fixed the problem.
Will 13:55
So what they did, they set up a system of floating libraries at sea, not floating on boats, and they anointed a crew member on each of these boats as a librarian at sea. The theory was
Rod 14:06
Was that the cool job or the dork job?
Will 14:07
I don't know. Do you know they might have had, they might have had a bit of power?
Rod 14:13
Yeah, if the letters were selling, then imagine the book power.
Will 14:16
Their theory was that reading, elevating high minded literature, yeah, the sailors would come to abandon their drinking and fucking and swearing, and instead choose the godly life.
Rod 14:26
Yeah, that's what's gonna do it. I too, was addicted to heroin and prostitutes. And then I read a graphic novel. And now I am the clean citizen you see before you.
Will 14:38
So what were the libraries? So there were a system of red boxes, you know, sort of the size of the suitcase? Well, there's three still in existence. 1000s and 1000s. Went around the world. Three of them are still not still travelling, but three of them have still I think they're in a museum in New York and 13 inches by by 26 inches so small suitcase that sort of thing.
Rod 15:04
40 square metres give or take
Rod 15:05
Who chooses the books? Does the Seamen's Friends choose the books? I have a feeling there's a story attached to that.
Will 15:05
yes, something like that, each one of them would have about 43 books, that's the number that you could sort of fit into them. I think there are some that had a little bit more some that had a little bit less, but it seemed to average bang on 43 All the time. Yeah, the Seamen's friends would loan the libraries to the ships and off they would go to enlighten the sailors. The first library left on a ship in 1837. by the end of
Will 15:28
I'll come to who chooses the books in a second yeah, by the end of like, the next year, something like 80 ships had these floating libraries. Every Sunday morning on ship the librarian at sea would open the library and the sailors could come and and borrow a book. They marked down who had each book I don't know if they had library cards or anything like that
Rod 16:00
late fees?
Will 16:01
I don't know but I assume that they could have revoked privileges
Rod 16:04
a day late, two heads of tabacco. Keel-Hauling
Will 16:06
something you know, you didn't bring your book back
Rod 16:10
you're going under and up again just once though, you'll be fine.
Will 16:13
Bring your book back. Don't dog ear your pages mate.
Rod 16:17
Keel-Hauling when I first heard about the trial, they're like, Wow, humanity's capacity to imagine terrible things. Yeah.
Will 16:26
Anyway, when they come back to New York, the seamen librarian would take the library in
Rod 16:31
never not going to be funny. just never. Seamen Librarian.
Will 16:34
he could take it into the Seamen's friend society and get a new library or they could swap with another ship if they ran into each other out at sea. so and this is how that box number 1954 could stay out for years. people would just go there's a nice little story in the in the New York Times article that I read of two ships that ran into each other how to chat and and then swap their libraries. This one this one, a stub nosed sailing ship has sailed weather stained and hauled deeper with the weight of marine growth came to anchor in New Zealand. nearby swinging it her chain layer rusty see beaten British tramp steamship cloud of iron raised by the paying out of her anchor had hardly settled on her bow when the skipper of the tramp glad to break the monotony of waiting for orders held the commander of the other one. So the two captains exchanged compliments
Rod 17:29
Gosh, you're attractive. thank you so are you. done
Will 17:32
My that naval gear that you're wearing?
Rod 17:34
Show me your tattoo and my may I meet your seamen.
Will 17:37
well, then they invite each other across for a drink. And no doubt they talked about the weather, which would be something that they care about. But pretty quickly, they say Have you got a library you want to exchange? and the other appointee had and he would be glad to exchange it. I assume the Seaman librarian is involved in in this not everyone has finished the books or not. boats all the time would be looking for each other as an added incentive to it. You know, so whaling boats, definitely, they would run into each other deep out in the ocean. And they'd love to exchange information. Yeah. Have you seen Moby Dick? Have you seen whatever. And as well as, as well as having a quick drink and giving information, probably a lot of them are also exchanging libraries. So they'd swap these little boxes over and
Rod 18:21
it really doesn't make sense.
Will 18:23
So you wanted to know, what books do they have? Do you want it don't have a guess?
Rod 18:26
Yep. So 43 Books. 42 Bibles and a catalogue from a company one of the Seamen's society friends people owned.
Will 18:40
Well, not far off, because, okay, so things did change over time. It seems it seems when they started they had a certain image and they might have evolved. Okay,
Rod 18:51
Tropic of Capricorn. My brilliant career.
Will 18:56
Lady Chatterley's Lover. Oh, yeah, definitely. 1984.
Rod 18:59
Yep, the brave new world. Gonna have some sci fi in there
Will 19:06
So this comes from an 1864 document from the American Seamens Friendship Society. There's analysis of a ship's library for a merchant vessel. Anyway, according to the author, two thirds to three quarters of the books ought to be religious.
Rod 19:19
Yep. Not shocked. calling an analysis is really getting big glamorous about counting 43 books
Will 19:25
It's a list. It's a list.
Rod 19:28
I've conducted analysis. You have not
Will 19:30
so each library should have a Bible or Bibles. A Bible Dictionary, two volumes warning against infidelity and universalism
Rod 19:37
two volumes definitely.
Will 19:39
I don't know what the universalism was. Maybe it's like that other people are okay as more than one book of religious instructions for Enquirer's a book of religious instructions for professors, a volume of sermons, other religious books including various religious biography and history, works of fiction with a with a religious character
Rod 19:59
God, The Biography
Will 20:02
Yeah. Was it works of fiction with a religious character. So fiction, I think it's like it's like a fictional novel, but it's about someone being really religious.
Rod 20:13
Okay. Okay.
Will 20:16
Oh, a bunch of books in foreign languages that are religious, of course. So foreign languages
Rod 20:21
And by foreign, they mean French and German.
Will 20:23
Yeah. Well, you know, they'd have international stuff. Yeah, they'll definitely have Dutch, Dutch, German, Portuguese. Okay, so there was some secular literature. They had an Almanack which is like dates and shit like that.
Rod 20:37
So wikipedia but yeah, like, not interesting. Or was the sports Almanack.
Will 20:43
Yeah, maybe. that you can travel in time with
Rod 20:45
The thrupinton beavers beat the pistol ears by seven to nine in a game.
Will 20:51
I think it was just a list of things. Then they have a book on health with recipes for a proper diet.
Rod 20:57
Very handy at sea. you don't have enough fresh produce, why don't you go and get some?
Will 21:01
one or two books of science, natural philosophy and astronomy preferred. A couple of history books, including history of the US some travel literature, with volumes oriented towards popular subjects of interest to Seamen, one or two volumes of biography and lighter reading. They also included in this early period, in that books of interest to seamen, they said things like navigation, also books of shipwrecks.
Rod 21:29
what a great idea.
Will 21:30
Like, what the fuck are you doing? It's like, if you might, uh, you know how in the old days, they edited movies on planes, so that there's no movies about a plane crash
Rod 21:40
Like when I'm in the middle of the movie, and why is everyone cheering so much?
Will 21:43
I'm not scared of flying. I don't want to watch a plane crash while I'm up in air
Rod 21:47
Yeah, not scared of flying. Scared of crashing. that's sensible.
Will 21:50
But I like the idea of hey, sailors, got these awesome books of shipwrecks.
Rod 21:54
I suppose. It's like an inoculation. Like, if we if we tell you those stories often enough, you won't give a shit.
Will 22:01
Not it's not, I don't know. The idea was they was this taste elevation theory. The seamen would come?
Rod 22:08
Seriously. Seriously, keep doing it. I'm loving your work
Will 22:13
to the light reading first. And then they gradually elevate towards the highbrow stuff, which I think they meant the Bible. But could have meant the science, I don't know. And just interestingly, at the time, there was there was an interesting strand where librarians of the time hated novels. They were brutally like, they hate they were like, This is trash. I'll just give you a couple of examples. And this, this this informed the thinking of the of the Seamens Friendship Society, some guy named William kite in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania librarian excluded all fiction from his public library because his patrons factory girls were the class most disposed to seek amusement in novels and peculiarly liable to be injured by their false pictures of life.
Rod 22:13
So his patrons were factory girls.
Will 22:16
Yep. And he said, No novels,
Rod 22:24
nothing that makes them happy.
Will 22:27
Yeah, we can't, because no, it gives a false picture of life. Like you need to be sad or something.
Rod 23:07
No novels. Piss off.
Will 23:08
There was another guy San Francisco Public Library in 1885. He stated that his library had no business furnishing licentious, immoral or vulgar books, which he meant novels.
Rod 23:20
Well, if that's your definition,
Will 23:21
there was a woman in 1897, called Helen Haynes who went to a library conference. And she had to apologise that she was a reader of novels and was not a proper person to present the subject of fiction to a gathering of libraries. So if you read novels, then you're a baddie, and you don't get it. So they were they were really stern. But the thing is, they actually had data. Every time they sent out a little one of their little library boxes, they had a questionnaire in it that the Seamen librarian had to fill in. But also, they could talk to the Seamen librarian. And when he came back and say, Oh, what are people reading?
Rod 23:56
that's actually quite enlightened?
Will 23:59
And the third one, yeah, yeah. And this data actually informed their thinking they could see they could see which books had had seamen all over them. I'm sorry, that was fucking terrible. That was bad.
Rod 24:10
I was gonna hold the pause, but you couldn't you couldn't help me.
Will 24:15
That was bad one, I kind of laugh at my own jokes, and it's terrible.
Rod 24:19
It was great.
Will 24:20
But now they could see which ones had been fully soiled
Rod 24:23
by seamen,
Will 24:24
but you can imagine a boat full of people and like, this is the good book,
Rod 24:26
what kind of people?
Will 24:32
but you can imagine you've got this, you know, the all the sailors on the boat, they're like, Okay, which is the good book, and they're like, god dammit, it's not the Bible. It's, it's whatever, you know,
Rod 24:42
it's Almanack. I fucking love a list of dates.
Will 24:45
The 1912 New York Times article, there's a great description of okay, what are the sailors actually read? And so they talk to the Seaman librarian and chief back at the Siemens friends society. The question of what class of books The sailor likes to read is rather difficult one to answer. The Seamans mind is a sort of ragbag in which it is stored the odds and ends that he has collected in many lands and the very books he has read while following the sea.
Rod 25:10
fucking wankers, like these pronouncements are amazing.
Will 25:14
while they're being really quite, they're putting out a service for free, they're trying to do good. They're also so friggin dismissive. they're like, Yeah, they're pretty infantile. They're pretty dumb. Like this one. Take this out on a deep sea voyage, he will read anything that comes into his hands. I knew of one once who got hold of a pamphlet on the tariff, that man just devoured it. He read and reread it until he knew it by heart. He was very interested in the subject, and he held strong opinions on it. However, he could not connect it with anything else in the rest of the world. And it was like,
Rod 25:47
I mean, they already know that people will read and reread anything because it's the only words that makes them what, their mind was a bag of rags?
Will 25:53
I remember I was on a when I was doing my fieldwork for my PhD and, and this is in, in India, I was travelling around going to a couple of different archives and places like that. And I'd get back to the hotel at the end of the day. And I was like, Alright, that was cool. Because I was occupied. Now at the end of the day, I'm like, I felt Yeah, it was really quite mentally tough. I was like, What am I meant to do? Yeah drinking only solves half of the problem. And it's like, and then I and then I got a book and I was like, Oh, damn, that's what I need. I need something that will that will escape from this world. Yeah, I think it's safe to say the man who follows the sea likes all kinds of books. Seamen as a rule do not like to read the books that have to do with the sea. So there you go. They don't they don't want to read about shipwrecks, except to find them amusing because they can find all the mistakes. For history books are well read as our books which narrate thrilling adventure ashore, you know, the kind of books that are that boys like the boy aviators, the boy automobilist People driving cars, the boys in which the latest inventions are used in working out of plots. There are kind of special interest to the men who go to see aeroplanes, balloons, automobiles, engines and other inventions the day naturally the sailor
Rod 26:58
nothing wet.
Will 27:00
Oh, no, no, I want dry stuff. Land stuff
Rod 27:02
is not on the water. I'm into it. Yeah.
Will 27:05
Love stories don't find much favour, unless it's those books in which the men and women have to go through many hair raising adventures before they're finally happily married. That was a nice story. I like this. And I think they missed the point of this story. So this came up in the 1912, New York Times. And it's a cool story. So there was one of these libraries on a boat called the American boat called the George W trip, it sank somewhere. And anyway, and it had 58,000 bags of cement in the boat. And they said it was a task to raise the vessel. Why did you bother? Why?
Rod 27:44
Because one of them might have been intact. You gotta figure there's no more perfect way to make sure his ship stays sunk than to fill it with bags of cement. That's wild
Will 27:54
why are we bothering lifting that boat? But anyway, they were very proud that when they lifted the boat out, they also found an American seaman's friend library box, the library had spent the greater part of the year at the bottom of the bay. So so it was right down there. But it's it's locked. I mean, it's closed. I don't know how sealed it is. So the librarian commented on the fact that the Bible was the best preserved of the books, and it alone was in a condition to resume its travels. Okay, you can read that and say, you know, God is looking after the Bible. Or you could say, maybe the sailors never touched it. Maybe all of the other books are the ones that they thumbed in thumbed and thumbs,
Rod 28:30
you could also perhaps suggest that Bibles were better made,
Will 28:35
maybe maybe you could have been Yeah,
Rod 28:37
I mean, they didn't mention was wrapped in an oil, skin cloth and then covered in plastic before was invented. And it was it was God. But it was God
Will 28:46
But they clearly changed over time. Like they evolved from being a totally religious service to something that they're like, oh, no, let's just let it be useful to these seamen, let's give them something that's nice to read. And so that their goals changed. So there's a later list from the friends of seamen said the goals of the libraries were number one, recreation number two humanization number three, culture and storing of the mind. And number four is religious instruction. So they moved. And they said, you know, let's just make friends with the semen. And we can have a nice
Rod 29:19
to be fair, if I was at sea for even weeks, period, months or years, I tried to read the Bible. I didn't go well, because it's not an interesting read. it's not well structured.
Will 29:30
No, it's not
Rod 29:30
The narrative isn't good. It's just chunks of densely written ick.
Will 29:36
But I think it's meant to feel like that. Yeah, these two secular people talking about the Bible, like they know anything.
Rod 29:41
We know anything. We don't know everything, but we know anything.
Will 29:44
The New York Times article in 1912, they reported 26,000 Libraries had gone out to sea. Yeah, in the end, they kept going until 1967.
Rod 29:54
No way.
Will 29:54
So all up, 130 years between for First and first and last 30,000 library boxes went out to sea and you know, it's mind blowing three unknown to be intact. I'm like that I mean, maybe there are more out there in this sort of
Rod 30:09
There must because this is turning 67 I'm living proof it wasn't quite the dark ages because I exist.
Will 30:17
So the question was, did they do any good? Did they turn seamen into these fine upstanding citizens? Yes. Well, they had those surveys. And on the survey,
Rod 30:29
are you a fine, upstanding citizen? Yes
Will 30:31
Well, they did. They asked if they asked the seamen librarians if the libraries had done any good, they included statistics on how many signed the shipmate temperance pledge, how many knocked off swearing, and how many was seemingly improved. they asked for how many religious services were held on on the ships, how many hopeful conversions, awakenings, professions of Christians.
Rod 30:52
Look, maybe I'm reading too much into this. But it seems to me the criteria for improved human are specific.
Will 31:03
Look, look, this is the thing about these people that set up. I think they were very God bothery. But they also probably had some more humanist versions of the good life. They were like, maybe they could have a better life because they were so marginalised from society like these, these sailors were, you know, they'd come to land and they're either getting locked up, or they're just causing trouble. And then they're forced back out to sea for the shitty life again, and I think the reformers were like, maybe they can have a better life. And
Rod 31:33
I can argue with that, like, I'm not as much as I'm sceptical about religions. I don't mean to suggest that because you're religious, you can't do good things. And these people obviously we're doing more than just saying, God rocks you should rock with him. It's still calm down. How do you know if they're good? God, don't swear, don't drink.
Will 31:50
Don't swear. God doesn't like swearing in heaven.
Rod 31:52
Although back then the swearing was probably more God related as well.
Will 31:55
Probably, God doesn't like that. And fair enough. I get if you're God, you've got one rule, don't be mean to me.
Rod 32:03
What a little dick. If that's your rule, I'm omniscient and omnipotent. But don't be mean to me. I'll punish you
Rod 32:12
What a little dick.
Rod 32:13
That's a little dick kind of approach to the world. The best quote I heard, I can't remember where it was a some random dude shouting out on the street corner on a television show. But he said, The worst crime you can commit is calling someone out for blasphemy because that suggests or implies you know, the mind of God. And that is horrendous
Will 32:31
Oh doubling down. Yeah, so this is going blasphemy isn't bad, it's accusing blasphemy
Rod 32:35
you say someone's blasphemous. That means you're saying, you know best or know the mind of God
Will 32:39
does that, say all religious texts, anything other than direct translation of God into your brain are redundant? Because that's saying the Bible is knowing the mind
Rod 32:48
I didn't talk to that person who was on the television. And they're very hard to communicate with. But when he said, The worst thing is, you know, blasphemy is the worst thing because that means you you're claiming such things. And I thought, good call, man. I might have been a teenager, and I might have been indulging at the time, but it made me go whoa, whoa.
Will 33:06
So what do you reckon? Did they do any good?
Rod 33:08
I reckon they did. Look, at the very least they made people go, I'm not shit bored. And I'm not going to eat my cabin, mate.
Will 33:15
I think they did. I think they did, though, definitely some people that came back and said, nup, didn't help at all. But the seamen librarians came back and they came back over and over again. So there's a nice thing. I don't know if they if they became more Christian, or if they knocked off swearing, or if they, I don't think they did any of that. I think the sailors just probably found a nicer way to spend their time out there.
Rod 33:38
Than hust staring at the sea screen.
Will 33:39
Oh my God. And so he was he was a letter written by one of the seamen librarians. The books of this library have been read with much interest by both officers and crew. And I hope that lasting impressions have been upon many minds settled, I've taken good care of the books. And it gives me great pleasure to circulate them containing as they do such precious truths and good instructions, which seemed to me must be productive of greater good. So the sailors themselves thought, Damn, this is nice. You have given us something that is just nice and wholesome. And you know what it is? It is just reading. I just I came across the story. And I thought, You know what, deep down, this is just a story that reading novels, literature, whatever it is, and, and trying to understand the greater world out there that is just wholesome in and of itself. And I think, sure they were trying to turn people into something a little bit different in something a little bit narrower. But I thought this is a nice intervention in the world. This is someone going out there and saying, Hey, let's put something that is something about the higher life something about, you know, something wholesome, out into the world,
Rod 34:42
just like us really. It's like we are the inheritors of the American seamen lovers society. Because we're wholesome and so were they.
Will 34:54
I think I think there is something nice to be said about getting better information more information and helping people in that
Rod 35:03
and it doesn't matter if their intention was really just I mean again yes I'm scathing about religion because it's got its things but this is not they're not bad people because they're religious and doing something that we're doing something good. how could it be bad? what was the bad in that?
Will 35:14
there's no bad. there is no bad.
Rod 35:17
I don't want to read that book. okay don't.
Will 35:18
their choices may have been a little bit a lot more religious than I would choose and they drifted off that they went okay let's let's give people what they want. And I feel like that's just a nice thing in the world. Do something nice everybody. Be like the Seaman lovers society
Rod 35:34
because we are
