SEAPORT Book Series

    You will have noticed in MM posts that are about "Book Series" and here is another one. Those of you who like to read books about certain subjects, or collect all of the titles as an investment, should look at the "Seaport Series." The twelve volumes were published by Doubleday, Doran during the 1940s. 
   As well, you may simply find a book which provides a diversion during our divisive times and those interested in Canada will see three titles which relate to this country. That two of them apply to ports that are not really on the sea does not bother me.
   None of these books are yet in the public domain, with the exception of Leacock's Montreal which is available digitally from several providers and can be read from wherever you are. The others can be acquired via AbeBooks or a local bookseller.
   Along with some of the titles you will find brief notes to assist you with your decision making. Also provided are some of the university libraries in Ontario which have the books. (If you have access to the Western Libraries you will know that a search yields results from other participating libraries, from which the book may be borrowed.) Nine of the books are available and Western has seven of the titles. The ones about Gloucester, San Francisco and Honolulu don't seem to be in any of the libraries searched, but you should check with a Western Librarian. 

                                            The Seaport Series

1. Baltimore on the Chesapeake, Hamilton Owens.
(Guelph, Laurentian)

2. Boston: Cradle of Liberty, John Jennings.
(Western, Laurentian)

3. Harbor of the Sun: The Story of the Port of San Diego, Max Miller. 
Review by: Franklin Walker, Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Sep., 1941), p. 383

4. Montreal: Seaport and City, Stephen Leacock.

(Western, King’s, other libraries, Digital versions on Canadiana, Project Gutenberg and Faded Page.)

5. Northwest Gateway: The Story of the Port of Seattle, Archie Binns.

(Western, Queen’s,York) See the review by Louis Gaffney in America, Vol.65, 1941.

"FOR one with a love of the cutting salt spray, the romance of the sea, the dash and color of the rugged west, Indian wars and the rush for gold—for such a

one Northwest Gateway will afford keen delight. This is the third book of the Seaport Series, preceded by Max Miller's story of San Diego, Harbor of the Sun.

It is not fiction, but history, and into the narrative is breathed a lightness and warmth of style that vivifies the cold historical facts."

6. Philadelphia: Holy Experiment, Burt Struthers.
(Western(2), Brock, Guelph, York)

7. The Port of Gloucester, James B. Connolly.  For a review see: America, Oct. 19, 1940. W.J. McGarry notes, "The Port of Gloucester is a book not to miss."   8. The Port of New Orleans, Harold Sinclair (Western) See: "Romantic Town Flayed," by John J. O'Connor, in America, Vol.67, No.18, 1940. "THIS latest addition to the Seaport Series is a hyper-critical chronicle of one of America's most romantic and exotic cities. In an introductory chapter, Mr. Sinclair describes New Orleans as "a Marseilles or a Shanghai, American style, shot through with overtones of Christy Minstrels, the code duello, white steamboats on a chocolate-colored river, coffee and cotton, wine in cobwebbed bottles, vine-festooned patios, and Basin Street jazz." But when Mr. Sinclair really warms to his work, the moonlight and clarinets vanish and we are introduced to a city which permitted its garbage to pile up in the streets and allowed its harbor to go to the dogs."

9. The Ports of British Columbia, Agnes Rothery. (Western, Algoma, Carleton, Brock) For a review see: The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Oct., 1943), pp. 403-404, by W. Kaye Lamb.  "It is essentially a character study of the cities of Vancouver and Victoria. Anyone who has ever visited them will remember that the contrasts between the two are many and varied....All this and much else Agnes Rothery has observed shrewdly, with humor, and with considerable penetration. Of the two studies, that of Victoria is the more successful, for the obvious reason that Victoria is in many respects more individual than its sister city on the mainland. But Vancouver is developing a personality of its own, and the British, American, and Canadian At the same time it is apparent that something of that character escaped her. Notably, she failed to sense the indelible impression left upon Vancouver, physically and spiritually, both by the hectic boom that preceded the first World War, and the depression of the nineteen thirties."10. Quebec: Historic Seaport, Mazo De la Roche

(Western Archives, Huron, other libraries)

11. San Francisco: Port of Gold, William Martin Camp.
(York)

12. Tropic Landfall: The Port of Honolulu, Clifford Gessler. Source:  For more about this series and others see: Series Americana: Post Depression-Era Regional Literature, 1938-1980: A Descriptive Bibliography: Including Biographies of the Authors, Illustrators, and Editors, by Carol Fitzgerald.

   For another "Book Series" post in MM see, for example: "American Customs."