A DYING INDUSTRY 317 



an industry that was once the pride and the mainstay of entire 

 communities? The answer is quite too easy. But Yankee 

 fashion, since it was so largely a Yankee industry, let me counter 

 with another question : Why does your wife no longer spin and 

 weave, make ''tallow dips" and soft soaps? It is hardly a par- 

 allel, I grant you, but where shall we find a real parallel to this 

 gradual failure of an entire industry that has claimed men's lives 

 for centuries — all by reason of changing economic conditions? 



In the march of what we hope is progress, petroleum, gas, and, 

 later, electricity supplanted whale oil as an illuminant, and its 

 other uses were not enough to keep up any large demand. 

 From $2.75 a gallon for sperm and $1.25 for whale oil, in 1866, 

 the prices fell in 1872 to $1.56 and 70 cents respectively; then to 

 $1.10 and 50 cents respectively, in 1882. In 1890 sperm oil 

 brought only 66 cents and whale oil 42^ cents. By this time the 

 New Bedford Shipping List and Merchant's Transcript had 

 shrunk to less than half its former size and in its oil market 

 reports the phrase ''continues very dull" began to be conspicu- 

 ously frequent. Five years later, with sperm oil selling at 50 

 cents, the whale-oil market "is entirely neglected and we have 

 no sales to report." In 1900 the only quotation for oil of either 

 sort, that I could find, was 45 cents for sperm oil. The price 

 went up a bit in the next five years and was quoted as 65 cents 

 for sperm oil in 1910, probably because of the scarcity, but in 

 1914 the little newspaper, long since a single sheet and only half 

 as large as any of its four original sheets, stopped altogether. 

 There was no longer any shipping, no longer any oil- and bone- 

 market report; the last issue, on December 29th, quoted 48 

 cents for sperm oil and "no imports" of whale oil. Last year 

 (1923) the Wanderer sold her oil at 40 cents. What use to go 

 whaling now? 



The market in bone told another story. As the price of oil 

 went down, the price of bone — with fluctuations, of course — 

 went up. When hoop-skirts went out of fashion, bustles came 

 in, and after bustles, "stays." In 1860 bone brought 60 cents 

 a pound; in 1863 it had jumped to $1.50. Here and hereabouts 

 it continued for several years, till the whaling fleet had begun to 



