Troubled Manhood in the Early Republic: The Life and Autobiography of Sailor Horace Lane

This essay examines the life and autobiography of Horace Lane (1789-1866), an alcoholic sailor who became a thief and convict after his seafaring career ended. Study of Lane's life offers a revealing example of failed manhood in the early republic. It also sheds light on how the dominant society defined acceptable codes of masculinity and how it treated men who violated these codes. Lane's 1839 autobiography The Wandering Boy warrants analysis not only as a historical document illuminating his life but also as a personal narrative interpreting that life. This essay situates Lane's text in the context of memoirs by other ex-sailors, convicts, and alcoholics and suggests resonances among these seemingly disparate narratives. Discussion of The Wandering Boy also offers another perspective from which to view antebellum slave narratives and the evangelical reform literature to "uplift" different groups of men, including alcoholic seamen. Another major goal of this essay is to contribute to several areas of scholarship, including the historiographies of antebellum reform and seafaring life, the burgeoning scholarship on nineteenth-century manhood, and both literary and historical analyses of the autobiographies of nonprivileged people in the early republic.