Dr. John O Jensen

Miss Lydia Dale died in a shipwreck on Lake Huron while employed to cook on the cargo schooner J.H. Hartzell in 1880. The fragments of Dale’s life and those 400 other women identified in this study reveal a dynamic interplay of economic, technological, and cultural forces associated with the inclusion and exclusion of women from shipboard employment and reveal overlooked intersections between urban and maritime labour systems in the Great Lakes region. Reconstructing and contextualizing Dale’s story sheds light on the experiences and historical significance of thousands of now-forgotten women employed on Great Lakes cargo vessels between 1850 and 1930.