In the Heart of the Sea - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

In the Heart of the Sea

The true story of

Moby DickSlide2

Source material

This film is based on the true story of the whaling ship

Essex

that sailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts from 1799-1820.The story of the Essex inspired the famous book Moby Dick. Slide3

Whaling in America

Originally, whaling in America was done by Native Americans from Alaska and the Northwest Coast for food.

Whale meat is very fatty and has a lot of calories. In the extreme cold, people need extra calories and fat for their metabolism.

Hat worn by Nootka whalers from the NW coast.Slide4

Nootka First PeoplesSlide5

Yankee whaling

Eventually, people realized that whaling was also beneficial for getting massive quantities of oil for lamps.

This was before the discovery of kerosene oil for lamps in the 1800s. Slide6

WHY????

Whales also provided

lamp oil (from sperm oil)

margarine and cooking oil (from whale oil)candles, soaps, cosmetics and perfumes (from sperm oil)corsets and umbrellas (from whalebone)whale-meat for human consumption.animal feed (from meat meal)

fertilizer (from bone meal)

http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthewater/exhibition/3_7.htmlSlide7

Ambergris comes out of the whale intestines and is used for perfume manufacturing. It is in their intestines, and they eject it and it hardens in the ocean. Whalers have to get it out of the intestines themselves.Slide8
Slide9

Nantucket, Massachusetts

Nantucket became the center of the whaling industry in America.

The industry was dominated by a few “first families”.

Coffin, Swain, Barnard, Gardner, Starbuck, and Pike families were the elite of the whaling industry.Slide10

Whaling

Whaling was a very dangerous occupation.

Firstly, they had to go further and further as the Atlantic whale population declined.

Sea voyages were dangerous because of storms, malnutrition, illness, fighting and accidental drowning.Slide11

Whaling

So, they sail in a large vessel, and when they see a whale, they get crews into smaller boats, which row out and try to hit a male whale with a harpoon .

The whale dragged the boat until it got tired and then they finished it off with lances.

Then they tied it up and started work.Slide12

Processing the whale. Yuck.

Once they caught a whale they had to get the carcass next to the ship and start stripping the body.

The crew then cut off the head because it had the most valuable products- spermaceti is the most valuable oil.

The “junk oil” is the next most valuable and then the teeth and jaw bone.Slide13

More parts

“Stripped

off the blubber, a thick layer of fat, with cutting spades set in 15-foot long poles. The process was very much like peeling skin from an orange. * Cut the long strips into "blanket pieces," weighing about a ton each. * After hauling the blanket pieces up on deck, divided them into smaller "horse pieces" and "Bible leaves," so-called because they resembled books

.”

https://www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/research-topics/overview-of-north-american-whaling/whales-hunting#Processed

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eu9hjGR88ok/Uf3ucABIiEI/AAAAAAAAAwE/4BIle1yY0Ns/s1600/Herman'sWhale_43+copy.jpgSlide14

More processing…

The blubber was then cooked in giant pots and melted down and cooled and put in barrels.

The work was dangerous. The deck would get so slick with blood and fat that men would slip and hurt themselves or go overboard.

Men would get burnt if a wave tipped one of the pots of cooking blubber.

Whaler’s cutting spade

Head spade

Mincing knife

This is a “monkey belt” that men used to hang off the edge of the boat and strip blubber. If they slipped and fell in the water, sharks were waiting.

All images from the Smithsonian’s On the Water exhibition-

http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthewater/exhibition/3_7.htmlSlide15

Mocha Dick

A giant 70

ft

long albino sperm whale who was sighted off of “Mocha Island” off the coast of Chile. He was attacked by at least 100 ships and destroyed 20. Slide16

Moby Dick

The book, Moby Dick is based on the experiences that The Essex had with

Mocha Dick

2,000 miles west of South America in the middle of the South Pacific. The author, Herman Melville, had been a whaler and had written a few novels about his experiences in the South Pacific.He worked with the son of one of the crew and his story inspired the book.Slide17

The Essex

After a terrible experience at sea, out of a crew of 20 men, only five returned to Nantucket.

Apparently, Herman Melville had not heard the entire story, and after he wrote the book found out the true story.

The film tells the whole story.