Children of the Light: The Rise and Fall of New Bedford Whaling and the Death of the Arctic Fleet

by Everett S. Allen

Everett S. Allen, through diaries, letters, and newspaper accounts of the period, follows the Quakers from Plymouth Colony to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where these "children of the light" lived and founded an enormously lucrative whaling industry and elevated it to an almost holy activity ordained by God for the enrichment of the "chosen." Allen recounts the full story of a famous 1871 Arctic disaster, in which thirty-two vessels in the New Bedford whaling fleet, carrying 1200 officers and crew, found themselves trapped in gale-driven pack ice. The shipwrecked victims were miraculously rescued without a single loss of human life. The damage to the fleet, however, was something from which New Bedford never fully recovered.

Genres: Nonfiction

314 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most definitely not a book I would pick up and read on my own. I listened to this one via WPR's Chapter a Day radio program and I was fascinated by the subject. It was very well written. Detailed with bits from personal interviews, newspaper articles, and other accounts. If I ever have the opportunity to travel East the New Bedford Whaling Museum will likely be on my list of places to visit simply because this book piqued my interest on the subject.

[Clara · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this subject interests you, the book gives a very good sense of what New Bedford might have been like during the final years of the "golden age" of whaling. Lots of specific details and human insights as Everett Allen paints the city and the mind-set of some of its leading characters, especially the Howland brothers who built their great ship "Concordia" just as the good years were ending.

[Annushka]

Read this for a history paper and thought it was fascinating. Not sure if it’s as fascinating if you’re not on the hunt for facts about 19th century commercial whaling?

[Jude · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best histories whaling written. This book, by a New Bedford native with family ties to the whaling business, provides a harrowing account of the loss of the arctic fleet in 1871, and puts in context of the settlement of New Bedford by Quakers, and the birth and growth of the whaling industry.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating account of a doomed arctic whaling expedition in 1871, but more so an interesting history of the area I grew up in (New Bedford, Massachusetts), the whaling industry, the Friends religion, Eskimos, and the whaling industry in general. At times it was almost too much - it seemed more a collection of essays than a real narrative, but the subject matter was compelling.