Although the whaling industry has been around for thousands of years, whaling became an extremely popular an effective business in America in the 19th century, specifically from 1846-1852. Even though whaling was a dangerous occupation to pursue, economically, it proved America with large amounts of oil and meat from the whales. The oil from the blubber was used for fuel in lamps, for making soap, for candles, and for margarine. When a fleet would journey on a whaling voyage, they would have a large vessel and several smaller boats inside of the large ship. Upon sighting a whale, the crew would load into the small boats and chase the whale, rowing as quickly as they could. Once they got into a close proximity of the whale, a harpoon, with a rope attached to the end of it, was thrown into the whale. The whale would pull the boat along the water, but once the whale bled out enough, it would stop and …show more content…
Because he was not on the ship but heavily describes the events that took place on it, what relationship does Herman Melville have to the Essex? II. Geographically, the whaling hot spots were not right next to American shoreline, so why was America a leading nation in the whaling industry? III. Did whaling play a big part in the American Industrial Revolution at all? Turning Point Whaling was rapidly growing in America but in the 1860s, it started to decline. The whale is the key player in the whaling industry, and if the whale ceases to exist, so does the business. For centuries, whaling has been practiced across the globe, but it came to a point where the ocean started to run out of these sea creatures. Enormous whales were becoming extinct and endangered across the globe, and this put a hampering on growth of the whaling industry. Turning Point