9 - Maritime activity, communications, and the fur trade

Summary

This chapter is divided into two main sections. Source material for the study of rail, road, and internal waterway communications is treated in the second section, which also covers postal services. The initial section – on maritime activities – is chiefly devoted to sources of information on the coastal and foreign trade of the seaboard and Great Lakes ports, their shipping (including shipbuilding), and their fishing industries. These are activities which often had significance for the history both of the ports concerned and of the cities and regions served by them. There is necessarily some overlap between the two sections, especially regarding the underlying topic of trade. A brief note on the fur trade is appended.

TRADE, SHIPPING, AND FISHERIES

An enormous amount of secondary literature exists for the study of the maritime activities of port towns and their hinterlands. For original evidence, federal records, published and unpublished, are a prime source. The records of debates in Congress contain data on trade, and in particular the federal censuses contain much evidence on local shipping and shipbuilding, and some on commerce. The published census of manufactures of 1810 includes by counties the tonnage of shipping constructed and its value. The volumes of the 1860 and 1870 censuses provide more detailed county data on numbers of shipbuilding establishments, and statistics of employees in that trade and their wages as well as details on raw materials and value of the ships produced.