Whale's Jaw PublishingWhale's Jaw Publishing| Books of Gloucester History & Arts | Located in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Whale's Jaw Publishing
produces nonfiction books on subjects inspired by the rich maritime and
artistic heritage of Cape Ann, as well as children's books for ages 5
throught 10. To contact us, send an e-mail to info@whalesjaw.com. |
| Children's Books | |
| About the Authors |
 Readers write: "The rhythm of balancing the two different souls and finding their harmonies is wonderful" "I found the mix of contrasting personalities and history absorbing right from the beginning." ... an elegant, well-written book." "I came for the John Sloan, but stayed for the fishing captain." Early in January 2012, Chester Brigham was interviewed about On Opposite Tacks for an upcoming episode of Smoki Bacon and Dick Concannon's The Literati Scene, broadcast on community TV channels throughout the Greater Boston area | New release! On Opposite Tacks was launched with a slide talk and signing by the author at the Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester on Saturday, December 10, 2011. 300 pages, citations, index. 10 pages of illustrations. Color reproductions of John Sloan Gloucester paintings on inside covers and back cover. On Opposite Tacks may be purchased on Amazon.com or from: The Bookstore 61 Main Street, Gloucester, MA Cape Ann Museum 27 Pleasant Street, Gloucester, MA Dogtown Book Shop 132 Main Street, Gloucester, MA Toad Hall 47 Main Street, Rockport, MA Rockport Art Association 12 Main Street, Rockport, MA Casa de Moda 272 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA Henry's 588 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA The Book Shop of Beverly Farms 40 West Street, Beverly, MA The Book Nook at River's Edge 15 Market Street, Ipswich, MA Jabberwocky Bookshop 50 Water Street, Newburyport, MA Portland Museum of Art 7 Congress Square, Portland, ME Gulf of Maine Books 134 Maine Street, Brunswick, ME |
| Chester Brigham's latest book of Gloucester history and art, On Opposite Tacks, compares and contrasts the careers of two men who epitomized the diametrically opposite populatons that have long defined this crusty, colorful New England seaport: fishermen and artists. John Sloan, major American painter identified with the "Ashcan School," and Capt. Solomon Jacobs, schooner fisherman and ocean adventurer, were both in Gloucester from 1914 to 1918. Sloan, during five consecutive extended summers in Gloucester, was reinventing himself as an artist following the upheaval in the arts occasioned by the 1913 Armory Show in New York. Paintings of Sloan's "Gloucester period" are looser than his earlier works, more spontaneous, with exuberant colors.* Capt. Jacobs was winding down a colorful career of voyaging and enterprise, but was not yet ready to go quietly.Then America entered World War I, and the Gloucester fishing fleet was decimated by U-boat attacks. Capt. Jacobs, aged 70, volunteered and served as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy Volunteer Reserve. John Sloan, a pacifist, opposed the war. On Opposite Tacks explores the contrasts and parallels between the two men that shaped their differing responses to life and war. *The Cape Ann Museum possess important John Sloan paintings from his Gloucester years. For links to Sloan paintings at other museums, see Artcyclopedia. | |
Fellow art staffers from the Socialist magazine The Masses,
Charles and Alice Beach Winter, convinced the Sloans to try Gloucester.
(The Winters had summered on East Gloucester's Rocky Neck the year
before, and Alice had studied under Joseph Decamp and John Twachtman,
both of whom had painted in Gloucester. The Sloans rented a little "red cottage" and the Winters moved in with them. Sloan wrote to lawyer John Quinn that he was looking forward to "a good outing of works and play and good breathing." Following the practice of the French Post-Impressionists, Sloan painted every day - rather than waiting for an inspiration as he had in the past. For the only time in his career, aside from youthful sorties, he painted directly from nature. The Gloucester years proved to be the period of Sloan's most prolific output. Many of these works remained unfinished, but testify to his restless experimentation and creative spontaneity during those summers. In this period Sloan departed from the dark palette of the urban realists and expanded his color spectrum, reflecting the influence of Post-Impressionists like van Gogh. (Even before the Armory Show, Sloan had written to Quinn, "I have not been so dry a reed as to stand unbending against the breeze of brighter color which is sweeping acoss the field of art.") In contrast to his urban works that dealt with human interactions in a man-built world, in the Gloucester years Sloan responded to the natural environment of rugged coastal settings bathed in intense maritime light. He imbued these paintings - of the fishing harbor, wild inland moors, and small town coastal life - with vibrant color and dynamic energy, reflecting an increasing mastery in composition. Art critics did not know what to make of this new Sloan - they had yet to digest his unvarnished renditions of urban tenement life. His Gloucester period would long remain largely ignored. |
"Capt. Solomon
Jacobs is known among the English speaking people of two continents as
the most daring and intrepid master mariner that sails a fishing craft"
... "Of all the 'Captains Courageous' of Gloucester, Capt. Jacobs may
be accounted one of the elect ... of indomitable spirit and pluck" - Boston Globe |
"This
indomitable man ... in Gloucester's long list of fishing skippers, the
most famous ... around whom could be woven sea tales so full of dash
and dare, of luck, pluck and chance, as to almost pass belief." ...
"Wherever he has been he has made history, so that from the coast of
Ireland to the Bering Sea his name has been one with which to conjure."
- Gloucester Daily Times |
"A
pioneer in the fisheries ... one of the greatest mariners ever to take
the wheel of a Gloucester fisherman." - Gordon Thomas, historian of the
Gloucester fishing fleet under sail |
Credited with the ability
to "think like a mackerel," Capt. Sol repeatedly logged fast trips with
record catches, became known as "king of the mackerel killers." |
As technology evolved, he led in the introduction of larger seine boats, lighter nets, gasoline motors to purse seines. |
He
remained an independent captain/owner, contrary to the trend toward
consolidation of vessels into fleets owned by fish packers. |
he
sent two schooners around Cape Horn, and joined them in the
Pacific Northwest to found the West Coast halibut fishery. |
He Indirectly founded Irish export mackerel fishery. |
He wasFirst in Gloucester fleet to install wireless telegraphy equipment in a schooner. |
First to introduce auxiliary power into Gloucester schooners. |
First to introduce a seining steamer into the Gloucester fleet. |
Took aboard a seaman gone astray from another vessel and
nursed him to health on a trip back to Gloucester. |
Rescued stranded passengers from a disabled ferry and delivered them to their destination. |
Remained
behind to fight a fire after ordering most of his crew off the boat. |
In
the so-called "Fortune Bay Riot," he brandished a revolver to defend his
seine, and his treaty rights. He emerged as a hero in this, the first of
many international skirmishes. |
He had frequent
run-ins with Royal customs officers, British and American patrol
vessels, Irish and Canadian courts, trnanscontinental railroads,
Russian and Aleut Indian interests, and the powerful Alaska Commercial
Company. |
Ashore he was devoted
to family, church and community. Elected a director of the Gloucester
National Bank, and as an alternate delegate to a presidential
nominating convention. |
Open-handed
in contributions to Gloucester charitable institutions, churches and
needy individuals, he was described by fellow captains as a "faithful, kind,
generous-hearted friend." |
As a Bicentennial event in 1975,"Solomon Jacobs Park" was dedicated on Gloucester inner harbor to honor Capt. Sol. |
 | 275 pages. Bibliography, index. 60 illustrations. Published in 2007. For sale by booksellers in the Cape Ann area and on the web. |
| In Gloucester's Bargain With the Sea,
Chester Brigham explores the mix of fishing heritage, striking natural
beauties, and independent spirit of the Cape Ann communities - Gloucester, Essex, Rockport and Manchester - and the wealth of artworks and literature spawned by these potent influences. Gail McCarthy, book reviewer for the Gloucester Daily Times, wrote that "the book offers revealing journals of Gloucester deep-sea skippers, explorers,
and the efforts of Rudyard Kipling, T.S. Eliot and Charles Olson to
come to terms with maritime Gloucester in fiction and poetry,and
looks at the artistic epiphanies experienced by Fitz Henry Lane,
Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, John Sloan and Edward Hopper when
painting Gloucester. Gloucester's Bargain With the Sea describes with affection the diverse groups that have contributed to Cape Ann's unique character: fishermen, artists,
shipyard artisans, stoneworkers in the granite quarries, and the
vacationers who filled the sprawling summer hotels in the 19th century." | |
 | 100 pages. Bibliography. 18 illustrations. Published in 2003. For sale by booksellers in the Cape Ann area, and on the web. |
| In his first book of Gloucester history, The Stream I Go A-Fishing In, Chester Brigham told the story of a 19th century fisherman who entertained his fellow schooner crewmen as a shipboard foddler. After surviving a shipwreck in a fierce gale, John Jay Watson moved to New York, where he taught music, performed as a violin virtuoso, became an impresario who staged musical programas at Cooper Union, and composed popular parlor music melodies. Late in life he found his way back to Gloucester - a little-remembered but remarkable figure from the Gloucester waterfront whose fiddle had transported him from schooner decks to New York concert halls. The late Gloucester historian Joseph E. Garland described the book as "superbly written." | |
 | Ages 3 to 10. 25 pages. 24 illustrations by the author Published in 2008. For sale by booksellers in the Cape Ann area. |
| In Henrietta, World War II Hen, Anthea Brigham tells, and illustrates, the true story of a hen in England who was so frightened by bombs dropped by Luftwaffe aircraft that she ceased laying eggs. She was almost killed by her owner to provide much needed food - until a kind woman stepped in and shipped her to a farm from from the bombing raids. In the reassuring company of other farm animals, Henrietta began to lay eggs again - and do her part for the war effort! | |
 | Ages 4 to 8. 24 pages. 30 illustrations by the author. Published in 2009 For sale by booksellers in the Cape Ann area. |
| In Roger the Rooster Leaps to the Rescue, Anthea Brigham tells the story of a rooster separated from his hens when he is sent to a petting zoo. After a fox kills one of the hens, Roger is recalled to protect his hens. He responds heroically, making clever use of skills he perfected in the petting zoo. The fox retreats in defeat ... and Roger is the toast of the hencoop! | |
 | For Chester Brigham,
Goose Cove in Gloucester has always been home port, even when he was
off in college, n the service, or earning a living as a freelance
business writer. Since returning to the cove full-time, he has focused
on writing about the many dimensions of Gloucester and Cape Ann
fisheries history and the arts. He first wrote about the interplay of these elements of the local culture in The Stream I Go A-Fishing In, about a musical fisherman. Then came Gloucester's Bargain With the Sea in which he explored aspects of Cape Ann that have inspired painters and authors. Now, with On Opposite Tacks, he compares, side by side, the career of an eminent American artist with that of a legendary fishing captain - and finds surprising parallels amid the profound contrasts. |
| Anthea Brigham
was a young girl during the Battle of Britain in World War ii when
German aircraft were dropping their bombs on the southeast cities of
England. She and her sister were later evacuated to safety in the north
of England, but she took with her the memory of a hen so frightened by
the bombs she stopped laying eggs. Now Anthea has written, and
illustrated, the story as Henrietta, World War II Hen. Her second children's book, Roger the Rooster Leaps to the Rescue, followed soon after. Anthea Brigham reading from her books to schoolchildren. Photo in Gloucester Daily Times. |  |