The Traditional Whaling Trades, 1604-1914

This section of the journal provides a detailed history of the traditional whaling industry. Over the course of three centuries the techniques and technologies associated with whaling changed very little, the only variety came from the levels of intensity of whaling. The primary purpose of whaling was to obtain whale oil and whale bone, for domestic purposes. This section is further subdivided into the northern and southern whale fisheries, which operated in different oceans, with different whales, and under different organisational systems. The topics covered in this section include: the Spitsbergen trade; the ramifications of failure; the rise of the Greenland trade; the boom in the northern fishery; the expansion south of the Arctic Sea; the decline of the north in the early nineteenth-century; the expansion and failure of the southern fishery; and the end of the northern fishery in the late nineteenth century.