Just how big was the American whaling industry in the nineteenth century? And what is an “industry” anyway. On the latter issue of definition, I like to think of industry as a sector. So, the oil industry is more than pumping oil out of the earth; it’s also a whole bunch of other things as well.

                  The same with the nineteenth century whaling industry, which included, to list just a few:

1. Generation of the oil itself.
2. Other products from the whale, such as baleen.
3. Refinement of oil and spermaceti into candles, lubricants, lighting oil, and so on.
4. Construction and maintenance of boats, and casks, weapons, and so on, that went on the ships.
5. warehouses
6. financing

Guns were used in whaling from about the 1730s and improved over the next century and a half. Basically, the flintlock mechanism was adopted to the pursuit and killing of whales. Sometimes these were mounted swivel guns. At other times, the weapons were hand-held. One challenge was that the noise from guns could lead to the whales scattering. Here is a picture of one early model where you can see the flintlock mechanism:

As I describe in The Killing Age, the products generated by hunting whales ended up across the United States, England and the continent, the Caribbean, and parts of South America. (It should be noted that whalers also hunted other mammals, such as seals.) These products were sold at a profit, or at least that was the goal. When ships started returning with unfilled casks, the profitability of whaling began declining.

Looking at just oil, prices per gallon varied depending on quality. Sperm whale oil always fetched the highest price, at times more than $2.00 per gallon in 1850s dollars. A reasonable guess for regular oil would be around 1.25 per gallon. In the 1850s, the industry produced between 5-7 million gallons yearly, or around 6.25 to 8.75 million 1850 dollars, or somewhere around 250-350 million today.

One helpful original source is Speech of Mr. Grinnell….with Statistical Tables of the Whale Fishery (1844), just as whaling out of towns like New Bedford was nearing its peak. (Grinnell was writing with regard to the issue of tariffs.) This source notes the employment of 17,500 seamen on 650 ships, with a “cost at the time of sailing, $20,000,000….the annual consumption by this fleet is $3,845,500.” He estimates the annual “import and oil and whalebone” once manufactured at between 8-9 million. (See tables on pages 8-15.) Grinnell estimated the value of 644 ships in the whale industry in 1844 at nearly 27 million; the cost of construction a single ship Grinnell estimated at $21,224. Here is a screenshot of one part of this document, detailing one part of the industry, in this case oil, whalebone, and candles.

Imports ranged from $5,914,279 to $7,597,612 yearly; exports ranged from $1,034,663 to $2,339,673 yearly between 1838 and 1843. So, around 1843, we are looking at northwards of 33 million dollars, and this number does not nearly reflect the entire industry, such as warehouses, employment on land, and so on..

The manufacturing of cotton cloth was of course much larger, in about 1850 producing about $65 million worth of product. The cotton industry was likely 10 times larger than whaling.

In the coming days I will add to this blog and offer more details on the whaling industry, including its relative importance in the overall US economy.

The question of the relative importance of the whaling industry in the US economy is complicated, in part depending on what one is measuring. Here I made a mistake. When I was making my calculations I was examining the relationship of whaling to other industries, not the entire US economy. That economy was overwhelming rural and based on agriculture.  Manufacturing as a percent of GDP ranges from around 14% to upwards of 30%. So, estimates vary widely; whaling accounting for 11% of manufacturing seems a reasonable guess.

Readers may also be interested in History of the American Whale Fishery (1876), by Alexander Starbuck, who estimated the 1846 value of whale ships at just over $21 million. Finally, readers may find this dataset of help: https://obis.org/dataset/58aa1bf7-2332-41f2-bc74-0c472094af06%

Another great site is: https://whalinghistory.org/