University Press Copublishing Division / Susquehanna University Press
Pages: 204
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978-1-57591-053-6 • Hardback • December 2001 • $100.00 • (£77.00)
Michael Wayne Santos is professor of history at the University of Lynchburg.
Michael Wayne Santos masterfully weaves the tale of the newly arrived Irishmen who contributed to the growth of maritime industries and who invigorated New England seaport life through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Men like my great-great grandfather John H. McManus and his sons, ‘America’s Cup’ sail-maker Charlie and the renowned knockabout schooner designer Thomas, worked alongside Boston Brahmins as well as other new immigrant groups to shape New England’s rich maritime history. Eventually, as this book documents, they would compete with their Canadian counterparts in swashbuckling schooner races that captivated both nations. In so doing, these groups of old and new Americans helped to forge some of the best maritime traditions of our country, which we all still share.
— Matthew Thomas McManus
The Schooner Adventure was built in 1926. Designed by Thomas McManus as a ‘knockabout’—having no bowsprit, which was known as a ‘widow maker’ due to the danger of working on the jib—she spent twenty-seven years fishing cod, haddock, and halibut off Georges Bank. Since her return to Gloucester in 1988, she has become a National Historical Landmark and serves to preserve and celebrate the traditions of America’s oldest port through education, interpretation, and community events. As her skipper, I appreciate what she stands for, which is why I find Santos’s book, Clouds of White Sail, so compelling. He has captured the story of the fishermen and the ships they sailed in a readable narrative that helps us to understand their experiences and their contributions to American maritime history.
— Capt. Captain Stefan Edick, Schooner Adventure, Gloucester, Massachusetts