Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Power in Maritime America

The Papers from the Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Power in Maritime America Conference Held at Mystic Seaport, September 2006, are now available. The book contains 12 papers, "all offer a wide range of ways in which gender, race and ethnicity are entwined and redefined in the context of the sea."

I was lucky enough to attend many of the sessions represented in the book. They were good then, but it is excellent now to have such detailed scholarship in print. From Jason Mancini's exploration of the previously hidden nature of Native American involvement in maritime occupations from 1713-1861, to Deanne Nuwer's discussion of the vital role played by women in Biloxi's seafood industry from 1863 to the present, the papers represent the range and depth of the maritime experience and the historical work undertaken to understand it.