Whalemen's Shipping List and Merchants' Transcript newspaper from January 25, 1853, Vol. XI, No. 47, eight pages (342-349), 11.75 x 16, published "every Tuesday morning by Henry Lindsey, No. 35, North Water Street, New Bedford, Mass." The newspaper was printed weekly from New Bedford, Massachusetts between 1843 and 1914, and contains "A complete list of all American Whaling Ships, with the latest reports from each." In very good, fragile condition. Accompanied by an original graphite sketch of a whaling vessel out of Honolulu, Hawaii. The Whalemen's Shipping List and Merchants' Transcript was a weekly newspaper first published on March 17, 1843 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, by Henry Lindsey. As the introduction to the first issue states, the newspaper was intended to be ‘a weekly report carefully corrected from the latest advises, of every vessel engaged in the whaling business from ports of the United States together with the prices current of our staple commodities and interesting items of commercial intelligence.’ It served as a vital periodical during the peak of the whaling era, with circulation reaching 2500 copies weekly in part to subscribers located along the length of the United States coastline as well as in many foreign countries. The paper was read not only by whalers, but also by merchants at port and families tracking their loved ones. Additionally, the newspaper traced the rise and fall of the whaling industry: in 1846, there were 680 whaling ships; the year 1878 witnessed the highest amount of whale oil exported; 1888 marked the most whale bone ever exported; and in the final issue of 1914, the number of US whaling vessels made a drastic dip to a scant 32.
