Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815–1882)
Author of Two Years Before the Mast
About the Author
Disambiguation Notice:
Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815–1882)
American lawyer and author of Two Years Before the Mast, son of Richard Henry Dana, Sr. and father of Richard Henry Dana III.
Richard Henry Dana, Sr. (1787–1879)
American poet and author of The Idle Man, son of Francis Dana and father of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
Works by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
Associated Works
American Literature: The Makers and the Making (In Two Volumes) (1973) — Contributor, some editions — 25 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1815-08-01
- Date of death
- 1882-01-06
- Burial location
- Protestant Cemetery, Rome, Italy
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- Place of death
- Rome, Italy
- Education
- Harvard University (BA|1837)
Harvard Law School (LL.B|1840) - Occupations
- author
lawyer
politician
sailor - Relationships
- Dana, Richard Henry, Sr. (father)
Dana, Richard Henry, III (son)
Melville, Herman (friend)
Longfellow, Edith (daughter-in-law)
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth - Organizations
- Massachusetts State Bar (1840)
- Awards and honors
- Bowdoin Prize (1837)
- Disambiguation notice
- Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815–1882)
American lawyer and author of Two Years Before the Mast, son of Richard Henry Dana, Sr. and father of Richard Henry Dana III.
Richard Henry Dana, Sr. (1787–1879)
American poet and author of The Idle Man, son of Francis Dana and father of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
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Statistics
- Works
- 21
- Also by
- 10
- Members
- 4,712
- Popularity
- #5,347
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 60
- ISBNs
- 195
- Languages
- 7
- Favorited
- 1
Dana was college-educated and kept a detailed diary on which he based this book. He does not shy away from his first days with sea-sickness, to the quarters where he and his shipmates lived and slept on hammocks, to the times of watches and what was expected, to the perils they encountered bringing hides from one port of California to the other where they were stored prior to shipment. His descriptions as well of how a sailing vessel was laid out, the masts, the work of furling and unfurling sails in all kinds of weather (such as rounding Cape Horn in the Antarctic winter), keeping watch, and how sailors ate were exacting and well-written.
He also goes into great detail about how the hides were "droughed" (carried on the head) to the rowboats from the various ports to the ship, transported to port where they were again off-loaded to be stored until a certain tonnage was achieved. The tonnage was determined by the company to whom Dana and the ship were contracted for the duration of the voyage; hence the "Merchant Marines," as they were sailing from the port of Boston to ports in California, in order to provide goods (in this case, hides) for the company that owned the ship and saw to their pay.
And yes, there is a flogging on board the ship, as is an attempt to force Dana into greater time on board his old ship from his new one, leading to a life of sailing instead of a point in time worked as a sailor. The descriptions of California and its coast, when it was still a Mexican territory, are fantastic and make me a bit sad for what we have lost over the centuries with Development and Progress.
The troubling parts of this book, though, are the ethnocentrism. He refers to the inhabitants of the various coastal cities, both Mexican and Native Americans, as lazy, as half-hearted in their work (which, yes, means the same thing), and as something wholly "other" than his Yankee work ethic. He makes a distinction between the Mexicans and the Spanish, giving a bit higher recognition to the Spanish, who had colonized California originally. Strangely, though, he has good rapport with the Sandwich Islanders (modern Hawa'ii) and even helps save one from the disease that they too often caught from interaction with the White voyagers (the disease is not named but was probably not smallpox by the description).
All in all a good book and most deservedly a classic of literature.… (more)