CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT: The Rise and Fall of New Bedford Whaling and the Death of the Arctic Fleet

by Everett S. Allen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 25, 1973

An unusual, melancholy and oddly poetic book on the last days of the New Bedford whaling industry and the proud, provincial Quaker society whose ""theological destinies"" and secular fortunes were so intimately bound up with the brutal beauty of hunting the whale. Allen has a rare gift for making vivid the rigging and outfitting of the big ships, the artisan skills of the carpenters, the immense fortitude and nautical expertise of the masters and mates. Yet the book sometimes reads like an allegory on the inconstancy of Fate and Fortune, the vulnerability and powerlessness of men. George and Matthew Howland, who in 1867 launched the Concordia, are the chief protagonists -- archetypes of the stalwart, industrious, austere, pious men whose labors made New Bedford America's most prosperous 19th-century community, until the advent of petroleum technology and cotton mills, outsiders and immigrants, eroded both the economic and moral underpinnings of their world. Allen follows the ships out to the Arctic where the whalers intruded on and ravaged the simple subsistence economy of the Eskimos, killing off their food supplies, bringing hunger and destitution. You will not forget that the industry which once brought stability and wealth to the Children of the Light impoverished and destroyed others. Though the Howlands persevered, Allen ends his story with the calamitous destruction of a vast Arctic fleet in 1871 when 1,200 sailors fled the ships and the oncoming crushing ice. It's a symbolic finale; the end of New Bedford's grandeur and moral certainty. A compelling, moving book, one which uniquely captures the lives of a special segment of New England society.

Pub Date: Oct. 25, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION