Upon prying open one of the barrels of oil brought back from the Valor’s last voyage, an oil gauger skims his finger across the light-colored surface, and touches it to the tip of his tongue. “Sweet as anything,” he remarks, with satisfaction. The markers of a high quality sperm oil was a pleasant odor and a sweetness when tasted. Inferior barrels that had been contaminated with blood, meat, or other such impurities tended to have a rancid smell and a foul taste, harming their price upon the market. But why was whale oil so prized in this time period that a massive and dangerous industry sprung up around it?
George S. Homer (1838-1912) Rare Large Bottle of Sperm, Whale and Blackfish Oils, New Bedford, circa 1850-1860
Throughout time, lanterns used a lot of different kind of oils, ranging from plant–based ones to oil from other animals, including fish, seals, and pigs. Whale oil however was a better illuminant than candles/oils rendered from other animal fat in that it didn’t smoke or smell as badly (though it still didn’t smell great and still smoked a bit). Whale oil also didn’t freeze at subzero temperatures, which is important to note. Houses in say, 19th century New England, were much colder than they are now, generally speaking. Having a fuel source that wasn’t going to solidify in winter was convenient. Which was not the case with lard oil for instance—on May 2nd 1843 the New Bedford newspaper The Whaleman’s Shipping List reprinted a very snarky article from the Nantucket Inquirer gloating about the superiority of whale oil compared to other ‘luminous humbugs’:
OIL— Great noise is made by many of the newspapers and thousands of the traders in the country about Lard Oil, Chemical Oil, Camphene Oil, and half a dozen other luminous humbugs; and it has been confidently predicted by more than one astute prophet that the Sperm Oil trade would soon come to an end, and the whales be left in undisturbed possession of their abode, living ‘under their own brine and sea-weed’ ‘with no one to molest them or make them afraid!’ Nay it has even been said, horribile dictu, that Nantucket must be soon reduced from its present elevated position among the isles of the sea and the habitations of the earth, to a poor, miserable spot capable only of nourishing sand-flies and horse-shoes, and compelled to live on its accumulated stock of Sperm oil and candles! But let not our envious, and—in view of the Lard oil mania—we had well nigh said, hog-ish opponents, indulge themselves in such dreams.
Last winter has chilled not only the hopes of all the Lard-oil dealers, but their very oil itself, so that now the whole trade is wrapped in the chills of death. Lard oil, as a substitute for Sperm, is, as Mr. Webster said of the U.S. Bank, ‘an obsolete idea’. As for the chemical oils—under whatever name—the Insurance companies have taken them in hand, and by refusing to take risques on any building in which the dangerous stuff is used, have well nigh put an end to its sale. So that after all, the people must go back to first principles and take to Sperm Oil—indeed, as for that, Whale Oil, unbleached and unrefined is better than any of the new inventions which this scheming generation have sought out.
We do not like to exult over this state of things; we would not thoughtlessly add to the pangs of those unfortunate beings who have imagined that every hog in their pen was the representative of a barrel of marketable oil; for we hold it to be “unbecoming in a moral and religious people to rejoice over the down-fall of their enemies.” But we cannot help expressing our joy at this state of things, in behalf, we will not say of suffering manhood, but of afflicted swinehood, that so many of its porcine tribes are to be saved from a sudden, and (to them) inscrutable death. If it is replied that the getting of sperm oil is also attended by the cruelty and the taking of innocent life, we shall immediately annihilate the objector by showing that where the hardy whaleman takes one life the hog-butcher takes a hundred; for one decent sized whale will afford more oil than a whole drove of swine. So it will be seen that in advocating the slaughter of whales in preference to the slaughter of swine, we go for the greatest good of the greatest number—a principle at once highly humane and “splendidly democratic”
Whale oil’s ability to to withstand cold temperatures was doubly important as things started to become more industrialized and it became more and more valuable as a lubricant for machinery for that same purpose. It was more expensive, so economics would also tie into what lighting options people would have available to them. Not everyone had the means to use whale oil, and that’s doubly true for sperm oil. There is a distinction of whale oil vs. sperm oil. Whale oil came from the blubber of any whale, whereas sperm oil comes from the body oil and strained head-matter of the sperm whale. Sperm oil was the most prized and also the most expensive. In addition to its bright and—in contrast to other whale oil—odorless light, it could not only withstand very cold temperatures but very hot temperatures as well. As such, it continued to be used into WW1 as a lubricant for battleship engines for this purpose.
And sperm whales didn’t just have oil. Spermaceti is the name for the viscous substance found in the head of sperm whales. Named because it looks like semen. That’s what people initially thought it was. It was the most expensive whale ‘product’ (second only to ambergris, perhaps).
Unlike the blubber which would be processed on the ship, the spermaceti was handled ashore. It was heated up first to remove impurities, stored in casks, and then left there to harden in the winter. Then that winter, on a warmer day, the congealed substance would be put into bags and run through a press, and the oil strained off would be collected. Winter-strained oil was the most prized because it was the purest and didn’t freeze in the winter months. The solid bits that were left were stored again for a few more months, and then pressed in the spring to get the last of the oil out. Spring-strained oil was less valued and brown in color, but still expensive. The stuff that was left after THAT would also be heated, bleached, and then made into candles in the late spring or summer. It was quite a process.
Spermaceti candles were odorless, long lasting, burned cleaner than tallow (which most people were using), brighter than beeswax (which the wealthy and like, the church were using), and was harder than both of them so it wouldn’t get soft in the summer like the other candles. These candles were in high demand because of their qualities, but would exclusively have been available only to the rich because of the rarity of the substance itself (compared to general whale oil/other lighting materials) and the labor intensive, very specific process to refine it
Whales also had other byproducts 19th century folk were interested in beyond oil. Whalebone (i.e. baleen) was used for things like corsets, hoops for skirts, hat brims, riding crops, umbrellas, storage boxes, etc. because of its durable flexibility. It was the plastic of its time. Sperm whales also had the chance of having ambergris too which is still highly prized as a perfume fixative. And thus came an industry that was the 5th largest economic sector in the United States for half a century, before plummeting into nothing.
I think a lot about the rapid and intense rise and fall of this industry in a mere 50 years. In a century it was, pardon the phrase, dead in the water. I think about the cautionary voices in the time period who spoke about how finite it was, and on the other side, the majority for whom whale oil and bone was everything. Many people believed that the industry was unshakeable and would continue to be Everything. I think about how quick people today are to (rightly) point out the destruction of the American whale fishery…but some criticize it as if we’ve learned better, when our fossil fuels and microplastics and fracking have had a tremendous human and animal and environmental cost. I think of how ingrained our current energy systems are, and the resistance that comes from entities (corporations, politicians, etc. who hold so much more power than one person’s individual choices) acting like there is no way we could possibly pivot to something different now. Acting like the energy systems that are our lives now could never be rendered completely obsolete in the pursuit of something new and better. Our technology has gone through incredible upheaval before, and I think it can do it again.