This study advances understanding of British and American maritime culture by exploring memorialization practices. Interpretations are based on analysis of more than 2,000 maritime memorials from Great Britain and the United States. Research reveals three major themes in Anglo-American maritime memorialization. First, memorials show a striking concern for the dangers of life at sea. Numerous memorials describe the perils of the natural world and the group values that mariners developed to cope with the possibility of sudden death. Second, maritime communities faced the problem of commemorating ... More

This study advances understanding of British and American maritime culture by exploring memorialization practices. Interpretations are based on analysis of more than 2,000 maritime memorials from Great Britain and the United States. Research reveals three major themes in Anglo-American maritime memorialization. First, memorials show a striking concern for the dangers of life at sea. Numerous memorials describe the perils of the natural world and the group values that mariners developed to cope with the possibility of sudden death. Second, maritime communities faced the problem of commemorating those who never returned from the sea. Many sailors were lost at sea or died aboard. In the vast majority of such cases, the body was never returned home, and many did not receive a proper burial. As a result, family members and fellow sailors created memorials to honor the lost and to symbolically lay the deceased to rest. Evidence indicates, however, that such attempts were not entirely satisfactory. Many epitaphs lament the fact that empty graves cannot provide an adequate substitute for missing bodies. Finally, investigation reveals a significant increase in maritime religious sentiment beginning in the late eighteenth century, linked to religious reform movements. The prevalence of religious imagery and inscriptions on maritime memorials during this time, however, probably does not indicate that most sailors became religious. Rather, most religious maritime memorials were erected by sailors' families, who turned to religion as a source of comfort when faced with the deaths of loved ones at sea.