Dedication: To Benjamin Labaree, the Sea’s Renaissance Man

Abstract

This special issue of Coastal Management Journal is dedicated to Professor Benjamin Woods Labaree—one of the Sea’s Renaissance Men. The term “Renaissance” most commonly applies to the 14th century humanistic revival of classical art, architecture, literature, and learning that originated in Italy and over the next several centuries spread throughout Europe.1 When applied to an individual, a Renaissance man or woman, is “a person of broad talents and expertise” (think Michelangelo), in particular, “one straddling both humanist and technological concerns” (think Leonardo da Vinci).2 Such an individual is Professor Labaree. Labaree’s contributions to the maritime field began early, as a graduate student. Someone close to the Professor recounts, he then “debunked a previous theory about how the Greeks rowed their warships to overcome the currents through the Bosporus Straits into the Black Sea to establish trade.” Labaree realized the Greeks would not have used warships for trade and demonstrated using then-contemporary nautical almanac records to establish current speeds that under certain current and wind conditions, the Greeks’ merchant ships could make the passage.3 From 1962, when he published Patriots and Partisans through his and his co-authors’ 1998 treatise America and the sea: a maritime history, Labaree illuminated this country’s interwoven sea connections. In 1974, he became the Frank C. Munson Institute of American Maritime History’s Director where, in 1996, he co-led the National Endowment of the Humanities Summer Institute on America and the Sea. Over these two decades, he received numerous awards, including one from the North American Society for Oceanic History.4 “Renaissance” also connotes “a resurgence of excitement or interest in something.” In the 1970s, the world’s interest and excitement in the ocean and its resources surged. Internationally, nations convened under the United Nations’ auspices to negotiate a law of the sea treaty. At home, the U.S. enacted legislation to manage our fisheries and heavily used coastal zone. Riding this cresting tide, Labaree’s scholarship pivoted to all facets of the nation’s relationship to the sea by founding the Williams College-Mystic Seaport Program in Maritime Studies. At the seaport, he assembled scholars in maritime history, literature, policy, and science. Each semester, lucky students from many undergraduate institutions sat around the table absorbing tales of and lessons from the sea. In 2019, the National Maritime Historical Society awarded Williams-Mystic its Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Maritime Education. In bestowing the award, Burchenal Green—the Society’s President–praised the program “as the only undergraduate studies program examining the history, literature, policy and science of the sea, resulting in several thousand informed alumni prepared for societal leadership with a balanced understanding