66-449: Black Ball Line or Blackball Line may refer to: Black Ball Line (trans-Atlantic packet) , a fleet of packet ships running between Liverpool and New York, the first scheduled trans-Atlantic service, founded in 1817 Black Ball Line (Liverpool) , a fleet of packet ships running between Liverpool and Australia owned by James Baines & Co, founded in 1852 Puget Sound Navigation Company ,
132-629: A "maritime work song" in general. From Latin cantare via French chanter , the word shanty emerged in the mid-19th century in reference to an appreciably distinct genre of work song, developed especially on merchant vessels, that had come to prominence in the decades prior to the American Civil War . Shanty songs functioned to synchronize and thereby optimize labor, in what had then become larger vessels having smaller crews and operating on stricter schedules. The practice of singing shanties eventually became ubiquitous internationally and throughout
198-500: A Yankee marine. As time wore on and shanties were established as an indispensable tool aboard the ships of many nations carrying heterogeneous crew, inspiration from several national and cultural traditions fed into the repertoire and their style was subsequently shaped by countless individuals. Whatever their fundamental origins, by the late 19th century shanties constituted the heritage of international seamen, with little or no necessary national associations. Writers have characterized
264-447: A chorus which might have been heard half way to Staten Land. The decks were all life and commotion; the sailors on the forecastle singing, "Ho, cheerly men!" as they catted the anchor; Although "Cheer'ly Man" could be considered more "developed" than the average sing-out, in its form it is yet different from the majority of shanties that are known to us today, suggesting that it belonged to an earlier stage of sailors' songs that preceded
330-526: A few verses to one or more songs is given. While this practice was analogous to the practice of what is later called singing "capstan shanties", the form of these verses is not particularly similar to later shanties. These songs do not appear to correspond to any shanty known from later eras. It is possible that the long, monotonous task of heaving the capstan had long inspired the singing of time-passing songs of various sorts, such as those in The Quid . For example,
396-757: A fleet of ferries on Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia in British Columbia and Washington known as the Black Ball Line, founded in 1898 Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Black Ball Line . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Black_Ball_Line&oldid=958385576 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
462-539: A lead singer as a "chanty man", and he referred to stevedores unloading cargo from the vessels as "chanty men" and a "chanty gang". This reference to singing stevedores as "chanty men" connects the genre to a still earlier reference to chanty-man as the foreman of a work gang and the lead singer of their songs. Around the late 1840s, Charles Nordhoff observed work gangs engaged in a type of labor called "cotton-screwing" in Mobile Bay . Characterized by Nordhoff as one of
528-453: A revival in singing shanties as a land-based leisure activity. Commercial musical recordings, popular literature, and other media, especially since the 1920s, have inspired interest in shanties among landlubbers . Contemporary performances of these songs range from the "traditional" style of maritime music to various modern music genres. The origin of the word "shanty" is unknown, though several inconclusive theories have been put forth. One of
594-513: A staple of popular usage, where it helps to disambiguate the work song genre from other meanings of the word "shanty". For example, the "ice fishing shanty," despite its reference to marine activity, is not related. Singing or chanting has been done to accompany labor on seagoing vessels among various cultural groups at various times and in various places. A reference to what seems to be a sailor's hauling chant in The Complaynt of Scotland (1549)
660-405: A voyage in a clipper ship from Bombay to New York City in the early 1860s, Clark wrote, "The anchor came to the bow with the chanty of 'Oh, Riley, Oh,' and 'Carry me Long,' and the tug walked us toward the wharf at Brooklyn." While telling of another voyage out of Provincetown , Mass. in 1865, he wrote: Every man sprang to duty. The cheerful chanty was roared out, and heard above the howl of
726-710: Is " Grog Time o' Day". This song, the tune of which is now lost, was sung by: Jamaican stevedores at a capstan in 1811; Afro-Caribbeans rowing a boat in Antigua ca.1814; Black stevedores loading a steamboat in New Orleans in 1841; and a European-American crew hauling halyards on a clipper-brig out of New York ca.1840s. Other such multi-job songs were: "Round the Corn(er), Sally", "Fire Down Below", "Johnny Come Down to Hilo", "Hilo, Boys, Hilo", "Tommy's Gone Away", "The Sailor Likes His Bottle-O", "Highland Laddie", "Mudder Dinah", "Bully in
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#1732844979808792-430: Is a genre of traditional folk song that was once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labor aboard large merchant sailing vessels . The term shanty most accurately refers to a specific style of work song belonging to this historical repertoire . However, in recent, popular usage, the scope of its definition is sometimes expanded to admit a wider range of repertoire and characteristics, or to refer to
858-474: Is a popularly cited example. Liberal use of the word "shanty" by folklorists of the 20th century expanded the term's conceptual scope to include "sea-related work songs" in general. However, the shanty genre is distinct among various global work song phenomena. Its formal characteristics, specific manner of use, and repertoire cohere to form a picture of a work song genre that emerged in the Atlantic merchant trade of
924-702: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Black Ball Line (trans-Atlantic packet) The Black Ball Line (originally known as the Wright, Thompson, Marshall, & Thompson Line , then as the Old Line ) was a passenger line founded by a group of New York Quaker merchants headed by Jeremiah Thompson , and included Isaac Wright & Son (William), Francis Thompson and Benjamin Marshall. All were Quakers except Marshall. The line initially consisted of four packet ships ,
990-431: Is that this song was similar to a sailor song, probably the well-known shanty, "Haul Away, Joe" or "Haul Away for Rosie", viz.: "Way, haul away; O, haul away, my Rosey; Way, haul away; O, haul away, Joe ." The writer did not make a further connection to the minstrel song "Jim Along Josey", a relationship to which is obvious, although it is unknown whether this was the inspiration for the shanty or vice versa. In much of
1056-534: The Amity , Courier , Pacific and the James Monroe . All of these were running between Liverpool , England and New York City . This first scheduled trans-Atlantic service was founded in 1817. In operation for some 60 years, it took its name from its flag, a black ball on a red background. The Wright, Thompson, Marshall, & Thompson Line was founded in 1817 and began shipping operations in 1818. At some point in
1122-499: The Kroomen . These and the sailor songs could never have been the songs of civilized men ... Undoubtedly many sailor songs have a negro origin. They are the reminiscences of melodies sung by negroes stowing cotton in the holds of ships in Southern ports. The "shanty-men," those hards of the forecastle, have preserved to some extent the meaningless words of negro choruses, and have modified
1188-455: The Red Star Line , which also adopted fixed dates. The average passage of packets from New York to Liverpool was 23 days eastward and 40 days westward. But this was at a period where usual reported passages were 30 and 45 days respectively, while westward passages of 65 to 90 days excited no attention. The best passage from New York to Liverpool in those days was the 15 days 16 hours achieved at
1254-463: The bosun's pipe , or else by fife and drum or fiddle. A writer from the 1830s made this clear: On board a well-disciplined man-of-war , no person except the officers is allowed to speak during the performance of the various evolutions. When a great many men are employed together, a fifer or a fiddler usually plays some of their favourite tunes; and it is quite delightful to see the glee with which Jack will "stamp and go," keeping exact time to "Jack's
1320-550: The capstan tunes of sailors, but resounding over the still waters of the Bay, they had a fine effect. According to research published in the journal American Speech , Schreffler argues that chanty may have been a back derivation from chanty-man , which, further, initially carried the connotation of a singing stevedore (as in Nordhoff's account, above). The historical record shows shanty (and its variant spellings) gaining currency only in
1386-573: The 19th century when shanties were still in wide use, generally supposed the genre to originate in the United States and recognized parallels to African-American singing—as opposed to earlier English traditions from Britain. An early article to offer an opinion on the origin of shanties (though not calling them by that name), appearing in Oberlin College 's student paper in 1858, drew a comparison between Africans' singing and sailor work songs. Along
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#17328449798081452-527: The African coast you will hear that dirge-like strain in all their songs, as at work or paddling their canoes to and from shore, they keep time to the music. On the southern plantations you will hear it also, and in the negro melodies every where, plaintive and melodious, sad and earnest. It seems like the dirge of national degradation, the wail of a race, stricken and crushed, familiar with tyranny, submission and unrequited labor ... And here I cannot help noticing
1518-515: The Alley", "Hogeye Man", "Good Morning, Ladies, All", "Pay Me the Money Down", "Alabama, John Cherokee", "Yankee John, Stormalong", and "Heave Away (My Johnnies)". While the non-sailor occupations noted above were mainly within the purview of Black laborers, the last of them, cotton-screwing, was one in which non-Blacks also began to engage by the 1840s. These workers often came from the ranks of sailors of
1584-682: The Anglophone—the sailors' "Cheer'ly Man" and some capstan songs notwithstanding—was not known for its work songs . By contrast, African workers, both in Africa and in the New World, were widely noted to sing while working. According to Gibb Schreffler, an Associate Professor of Music at Pomona College, European observers found African work-singers remarkable (as Schreffler infers from tone of their descriptions). Schreffler further infers that work songs may have had far less currency among European culture, based on
1650-574: The Black Ball Line" ( Roud 2623), which extols the speed and efficiency of the line and the hardness of its sailors. It is also mentioned in other shanties such as " Blow the Man Down ," "Homeward Bound," "Eliza Lee," and "New York Girls." In 1822, Isaac Webb built the three-masted ship Superior in New York City for Charles Hall of the Black Ball Line. Sea shanties A sea shanty , shanty , chantey , or chanty ( / ˈ ʃ æ n t iː / )
1716-548: The Line passed into the hands of Captain Charles H. Marshall, he gradually added the Columbus , Oxford . Cambridge , New York , England , Yorkshire , Fidelia , Isaac Wright , Isaac Webb , the third Manhattan , Montezuma , Alexander Marshall , Great Western , and Harvest Queen to the fleet. The Black Ball Line is mentioned in several sea shanties , most prominently in "Hurrah for
1782-430: The aid of a set of jack-screws and a ditty, we would stow away huge bales of cotton, singing all the while. The song enlivened the gang and seemed to make the work much easier. Shanty-writer Stan Hugill called Mobile Bay—one of the main cotton outports—a "shanty mart", at which sailors and laborers of different cultural backgrounds traded their songs. Commenters on the ethnic or national origins of shanties, writing in
1848-435: The anchor-hauling mechanical device known as a windlass , noted the use of such a chant. This particular old-fashioned style of windlass was one that required workers to continually remove and re-insert "handspikes" (wooden leverage bars) into the device to turn its gears. It requires, however, some dexterity and address to manage the handspec to the greatest advantage; and to perform this the sailors must all rise at once upon
1914-437: The author, and reprinting some of his material), and she, too, deemed it sensible to adopt the "sh" spelling for her 1924 collection. Terry's works were the source for those among the earliest of commercial recordings (see below) and popular performances of shanties—especially because, unlike many earlier works, they provided scores with piano accompaniment and sufficiently long, performance-ready sets of lyrics. Colcord's work
1980-497: The bowlines, the greatest effort being made at the last word. English sailors, in the same manner, call out on this occasion,—haul-in—haul-two—haul-belay! Such simple or brief chants survived into the 19th century. First-hand observers such as Frederick Pease Harlow, a sailor of the 1870s, attested to their ubiquity, saying that they were brought into use whenever a brief task required one. In historical hindsight these items have come to be generically called "sing-outs"; yet even before
2046-557: The case of relatively "simple" shanties—such as those for hauling sheets and tacks (see below)—there is a grey area. This has led some to believe that the more sophisticated shanties of later years developed from the more primitive chants. A step up in sophistication from the sing-outs was represented by the first widely established sailors' work song of the 19th century, "Cheer'ly Man". Although other work-chants were evidently too variable, non-descript, or incidental to receive titles, "Cheer'ly Man" appears referred to by name several times in
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2112-399: The composition of capstan-style "sailor songs" by Norwegian poet Henrik Wergeland as early as 1838 implies that Scandinavians also used such songs. However, these older songs can be distinguished from the later type of songs that were given the label shanty , suggesting there were other formative influences that gave birth to an appreciably new and distinctly recognized phenomenon. Use of
2178-426: The direct involvement of or through the imitation of African-Americans. The work contexts in which African-Americans sang songs comparable to shanties included: During the first half of the 19th century, some of the songs African-Americans sang also began to appear in use for shipboard tasks, i.e. as shanties. An example of a work song that was shared between several contexts, including, eventually, sailors working,
2244-459: The earliest and most consistently offered derivations is from the French chanter , "to sing." The phenomenon of using songs or chants, in some form, to accompany sea labor preceded the emergence of the term "shanty" in the historical record of the mid-19th century. One of the earliest published uses of this term for such a song came in G. E. Clark's Seven Years of a Sailor's Life , 1867. Narrating
2310-460: The early 19th century. As original work songs, shanties flourished during a period of about fifty years. There is a notable lack of historical references to anything like shanties, as they would come to be known, in the entirety of the 18th century. In the second half of the 18th century, English and French sailors were using simple chants to coordinate a few shipboard tasks that required unanimous effort. A dictionary of maritime terms, in describing
2376-417: The early part of the century, and it lived on alongside later-styled shanties to be remembered even by sailors recorded by James Madison Carpenter in the 1920s. "Cheer'ly Man" makes notable appearances in the work of both Dana (sea experience 1834–36) and Herman Melville (sea experience 1841–42). When we came to mast-head the top-sail yards, with all hands at the halyards, we struck up "Cheerily, men," with
2442-410: The emergence of "modern" shanties. Detailed reference to shipboard practices that correspond to shanty-singing was extremely rare before the 1830s. In the first place, singing while working was generally limited to merchant ships, not war ships. The Royal Navy banned singing during work—it was thought the noise would make it harder for the crew to hear commands—though capstan work was accompanied by
2508-589: The end of 1823 by the ship New York (though often incorrectly reported as Canada ). The westward crossing had a remarkable record of 15 days 23 hours set by the Black Ball's Columbia in 1830, during an unusually prolonged spell of easterly weather which saw several other packet ships making the journey in 16 to 17 days. Captain Joseph Delano was reported to be "up with the Banks of Newfoundland in ten days". In 1836
2574-470: The era of wind-driven packet and clipper ships . Shanties had antecedents in the working chants of British and other national maritime traditions, such as those sung while manually loading vessels with cotton in ports of the southern United States . Shanty repertoire borrowed from the contemporary popular music enjoyed by sailors, including minstrel music , popular marches , and land-based folk songs , which were then adapted to suit musical forms matching
2640-494: The gale. The cable held very hard, and when it surged over, the windlass sent the men flying about the deck, as if a galvanic battery had been applied to their hands. The vessel's head was often buried in the solid seas, and the men, soaked and sweating, yelled out hoarsely, "Paddy on the Railway," and "We're Homeward Bound," while they tugged at the brakes, and wound the long, hard cable in, inch by inch. Additionally, Clark referred to
2706-622: The genre (i.e. those who were not mentioning shanties only in passing) often used the "ch" spelling, regardless of their nationality. Addressing the Royal Musical Association in 1915, English musicologist Richard Runciman Terry put forward his belief that the genre should be spelled with "sh" on the grounds that the spelling should correspond obviously to pronunciation. In his subsequent shanty collections he used this spelling consistently. American shanty-collector Joanna Colcord made great use of Terry's first book (corresponding with
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2772-498: The ground, keep time to the music." So while the depth of the African-American work song traditions is now recognized, in the early 19th century they stood in stark contrast to the paucity of such traditions among European-Americans . Thus while European sailors had learned to put short chants to use for certain kinds of labor, the paradigm of a comprehensive system of developed work songs for most tasks may have been contributed by
2838-489: The heaviest sorts of labor, cotton-screwing involved the use of large jack-screws to compress and force cotton bales into the holds of outbound ships. Work gangs consisted of four men, who timed their exertions in turning the jack-screw to songs called chants . Singing, or chanting as it is called, is an invariable accompaniment to working in cotton, and many of the screw-gangs have an endless collection of songs, rough and uncouth, both in words and melody, but answering well
2904-404: The known advent of the term shanty , Richard Henry Dana referred to "singing out". The wind was whistling through the rigging, loose ropes flying about; loud and, to me, unintelligible orders constantly given and rapidly executed, and the sailors "singing out" at the ropes in their hoarse and peculiar strains. Later writers distinguished such chants and "sing-outs" from shanties proper, but in
2970-466: The lad," or the "College Hornpipe." Fife and fiddle were also used, in earlier times, for work aboard merchant vessels. One of the earliest references to shanty-like songs that has been discovered was made by an anonymous "steerage passenger" in a log of a voyage of an East India Company ship, entitled The Quid (1832). Crew and passengers alike were noted to join in at heaving the capstan around. They were said to sing "old ditties", along with which
3036-503: The late 20th century, the "Sh" spelling had become the more or less standard one in Commonwealth English, whereas "ch" spellings remained in common use mostly in the United States. During the 1920s, the phrase came into regular use by lay commentators, though it was not documented in use by sailors themselves, nor has it been used by knowledgeable authors on the subject such as Stan Hugill. The term "sea shanty/chantey" has become
3102-433: The late nineteenth century; the same repertoire was earlier referred to as "song," "chant," or "chaunt." The spelling of the term appeared quite inconsistently until after the 1920s. While the above noted, American sources used a "ch" spelling, the next published appearances of the term, coming in two very similar articles from British publications from 1868 and 1869, used "shanty". Early writers who gave substantial due to
3168-588: The line's history it became known as the Old Line and eventually became known as the Black Ball Line after the 1840s. The Black Ball Line pioneered regularly scheduled shipping with fixed departure dates, thus contributing to the eventual development of travel by ocean liner . The packet ships were contracted by governments to carry mail and also carried passengers and timely items such as newspapers. Up to this point there were no regular passages advertised by sailing ships. They arrived at port when they could, dependent on
3234-525: The melodies so as to fit them for salt-water purposes. Certain other songs were unmistakably the work of English sailors of an uncertain but very remote period. Alden was not writing as a research historian, but rather as an observer of the then-current shanty-singing. His, then, was an impression of shanties based on their style and manner of performance, and he was writing at a time when shanties had yet to become framed by writers and media as belonging to any canon of national "folk music". An English author of
3300-461: The navy, of course, this sort of song was never permitted. Work proceeded to the strains of a fiddle, to the piping of the boatswain and his mates, or in earlier times yet, to the trumpet. The working song then is peculiar to the Merchant Service, but one may hunt through the old chronicles without encountering a suggestion of its existence prior to American independence and to the establishment of
3366-570: The origin of shanties (or perhaps a revival in shanties, as William Main Doerflinger theorized ) as belonging to an era immediately following the War of 1812 and up to the American Civil War . This was a time when there was relative peace on the seas and shipping was flourishing. Packet ships carried cargo and passengers on fixed schedules across the globe. Packet ships were larger and yet sailed with fewer crew than vessels of earlier eras, in addition to
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#17328449798083432-417: The other hand, the repertoire of the so-called "halyard shanties" coheres into a consistent form. The distinctive "double-pull" format that typifies most of these songs—also at times used, with slight changes, for pumps, windlass, and capstan, too—was a later development that appears to owe much to African-American work songs. In the first few decades of the 19th century, European-American culture, especially
3498-511: The period, William Clark Russell , expressed his belief in several works that shanties were American in origin. I think it may be taken that we owe the sailors' working song as we now possess it to the Americans. How far do these songs date back? I doubt if the most ancient amongst them is much older than the century. It is noteworthy that the old voyagers do not hint at the sailors singing out or encouraging their efforts by choruses when at work. In
3564-419: The purposes of making all pull together, and enlivening the heavy toil. The foreman is the chanty-man , who sings the song, the gang only joining in the chorus, which comes in at the end of every line, and at the end of which again comes the pull at the screw handles ... The chants , as may be supposed, have more of rhyme than reason in them. The tunes are generally plaintive and monotonous, as are most of
3630-434: The quasi-African-American minstrel songs: The old sailor songs had a peculiar individuality. They were barbaric in their wild melody. The only songs that in any way resemble them in character are " Dixie ", and two or three other so-called negro songs by the same writer. This man, known in the minstrel profession as " Old Emmett ", caught the true spirit of the African melodies—the lawless, half-mournful, half-exulting songs of
3696-470: The scant evidence of work-singing aboard European ships in the century prior. Such references begin to appear in the late 18th century, whence one can see the cliché develop that Black Africans "could not" work without singing. For example, an observer in Martinique in 1806 wrote, "The negroes have a different air and words for every kind of labour; sometimes they sing, and their motions, even while cultivating
3762-463: The shanty repertoire known today one finds parallels to the minstrel songs that came to popularity from the 1840s. The poetic meter of the couplets of many minstrel songs is identical to those in shanties, and the non sequitur -type "floating verses" of those songs were heavily borrowed. In an influential early article about shanties, New York journalist William L. Alden drew a comparison between shanties and both authentic African-American songs and
3828-474: The similarity existing between the working chorus of the sailors and the dirge-like negro melody, to which my attention was specially directed by an incident I witnessed or rather heard. The author went on to relate an incident in which he once heard "a well known strain of music", finding to his surprise that it was being sung by Black men rowing canoes. He claimed they were singing, "Heigh Jim along, Jim along Josey, Heigh Jim along, Jim along Jo!" The implication
3894-451: The term "shanty", once this paradigm for singing had become a comprehensive practice for most tasks, incorporated all manner of shipboard work songs under its definition, regardless of style and origin. Yet, shanties were of several types, and not all had necessarily developed at the same time. " Capstan shanties ", some of which may have developed out of the earlier capstan songs discussed above, are quite variable in their form and origins. On
3960-464: The trans-Atlantic cotton trade, including sailors from Britain and Ireland who, wanting to avoid the cold winter seasons on the Atlantic, went ashore to engage in the well-paid labor of cotton-screwing. A European-American who did just that in 1845 in New Orleans wrote, The day after our arrival the crew formed themselves into two gangs and obtained employment at screwing cotton by the day ... With
4026-403: The use of machines for shipboard tasks by the end of the 19th century meant that shanties gradually ceased to serve a practical function. Their use as work songs became negligible in the first half of the 20th century. Information about shanties was preserved by veteran sailors and folklorist song-collectors, and their written and audio-recorded work provided resources that would later support
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#17328449798084092-405: The various labor tasks required to operate a sailing ship. Such tasks, which usually required a coordinated group effort in either a pulling or pushing action, included weighing anchor and setting sail . The shanty genre was typified by flexible lyrical forms, which in practice provided for much improvisation and the ability to lengthen or shorten a song to match the circumstances. Its hallmark
4158-452: The wind, and left when they were loaded, frequently visiting other ports to complete their cargo. The Black Ball Line undertook to leave New York on a fixed day of the month irrespective of cargo or passengers. The service took several years to establish itself and it was not until 1822 that the line increased sailings to two per month; it also reduced the cost of passage to 35 guineas . The sensation this created brought in competitors such as
4224-557: The windlass, and, fixing their bars therein, give a sudden jerk at the same instant, in which movement they are regulated by a sort of song or howl pronounced by one of their number. Rather than the well-developed songs that characterize shanties, this "howl" and others were evidently structured as simple chants in the manner of "1, 2, 3 !" The same dictionary noted that French sailors said just that, and gave some indication what an English windlass chant may have been like: UN, deux, troi , an exclamation, or song, used by seamen when hauling
4290-568: Was call and response , performed between a soloist and the rest of the workers in chorus. The leader, called the shantyman , was appreciated for his piquant language, lyrical wit, and strong voice. Shanties were sung without instrumental accompaniment and, historically speaking, they were only sung in work-based rather than entertainment-oriented contexts. Although most prominent in English, shanties have been created in or translated into other European languages. The switch to steam-powered ships and
4356-405: Was also very handy in this regard and was used as a source by prominent British folk revival performers like A. L. Lloyd and Ewan MacColl . Terry and Colcord's works were followed by numerous shanty collections and scores that also chose to use the "Sh" spelling, whereas others remained insistent that "ch" be retained to preserve what they believed to be the etymological origins of the term. By
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