Scurrying seafarers: shipboard rats, plague, and the land/sea border

Abstract

This paper provides a broad overview of spatial, architectural, and sensory relationships between rats and humans on British and American vessels from approximately the 1850s-1950s. Taking rats as my primary historical actors, I show how humans attempted to prevent the movement of these animals between ports across three periods. Firstly, the mid- to- late-nineteenth century, where few attempts were made to prevent rats from boarding ships, and where a multiplicity of human/rat relationships can be located. Secondly, the 1890s-1920s, in which port authorities erected anti-rat borders to lock these animals on land or at sea. Finally, the 1920s-50s, where ships were reconstructed to eliminate all possibilities of rodent inhabitation and to interrupt their transit between ports. Ship rats, I argue, not only demonstrate the fragility of historical rodent-control efforts, but also encourage oceanic historians to consider how animals have negotiated and shaped boundaries between spheres of land and sea.