Tattoo Designs and Locations in the Old U.S. Navy

Abstract

For the last 250 years, the art of tattooing has been closely associated with men who go to sea, but little is known about the tattoos themselves. This investigation provides at least some information about the designs, locations, and continuity of subject matter for tattoos worn by American sailors from the earliest days of the Republic to the eve of World War I. The study also attempts to explain why some designs were preferred over others and offers speculation on the reasons for the diversity of body locations chosen by men for the placement of their tattoos. Although it is uncertain when large numbers of mariners began wearing tattoos, it is known that many crew members on Captain James Cook's first Pacific expedition (1768-71) were tattooed. Later in the 18th century, as the result of another Pacific voyage, an actual catalog of seafarers tattoos was compiled by William Bligh, captain of the ill-starred Bounty. It was not an interest in indelible skin art that led the captain to compile a roster of his mens' tattoos. His purpose in producing the record, of course, was to enable the authorities to make positive identifications if the notorious mutineers of 1789 were ever apprehended. Despite the close association between tattooing and seafaring over the preceding several centuries, little descriptive material survives about the designs of the tattoos or their placement on the bodies of the men who acquired them. It was not until 1989, when Ira Dye published an extensive account of early American sailors' tattoos, that scholars had any detailed information on the designs worn by mariners in times past. Dye relied on three major sources for his research. The Philadelphia Seamen's Protection Certificate Applications from 1796 to 1818 held by the National Archives in Washington, DC provided the largest portion of his data. The information in the Protection Certificates was supplemented by material from the General Entry Books of American Prisoners of War from 1812-15, located at the Public Record Office in London. He also used information collected by naval surgeon Ammen Farenholt and published in two small articles by the U.S. Naval Medical Bulletin in 1908 and in 1913 (Dye 520-54; Farenholt, Some Statistical 100-01; Farenholt, Tattooing 37-39; Withey, map between pages 90 and 91). There is a gap of approximately a century between Dye's first sets of data and Farenholt's tabulations. During that period, life in the United States Navy underwent dramatic changes. The prodigious expansion and technological developments brought about by the Civil War and the advent of steam-powered warships substantially altered the very patterns of existence for America's sailors and marines. Dye concluded on the basis of comparisons between his earlier materials and the scant information provided by Farenholt that despite the considerable transformation in the Navy over the 10 or 12 decades between the earlier and later data sets, tattoos and most aspects of tattooing were relatively constant from the late-18th to the early-20th centuries. The designs, the frequency with which they were worn, and their placement an seafarers' bodies remained almost unchanged. There were some variations, to be sure. Professional tattoo artists proffering their services in major ports by the latter years of the 19th century rapidly replaced needle-wielding mariners who inked primitive tracings over the skins of their shipmates, but beyond that, there seemed to be little significant change. Dye recognized that there was at least a partial shadow over his conclusions, the result of the large span of time separating the National Archives and the Public Record Office material from the skimpy information on American mariners Farenholt provided. Although nothing can be done about Farenholt's failure to provide more substantial data, Dye's difficulty with the century-long gap between his major sources can be obviated in large measure by another source of information on tattooing in the United States Navy that lies between his earlier materials and the 1908 and 1913 articles in the U. …