[On July 31, 1876, the U.S. Revenue Cutter School of Instruction—now known as the Coast Guard Academy—was founded. So this week for its 150th anniversary I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of Coast Guard contexts!]
On takeaways from three pre-Coast Guard evolutions of federal fleets.
- The United States Revenue Cutter Service: Whatever we think of Alexander Hamilton (and I don’t think as highly of him as does Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical, but there’s no disputing his influence), he was a prescient thinker when it came to the federal government’s roles and needs. And we can see that clearly with the fleet of ten cutter ships that he convinced Congress to commission in August 1790; they were intended first and foremost to aid the Treasury Department, but in the absence of a standing navy those ships remained for some years the government’s only official fleet. As a result, even when the U.S. Navy was formally created as part of the late 1790s Quasi-War with France, these vessels likewise saw military action, meaning that the ships of this first federal fleet were equal parts merchant and military in their purposes.
- The U.S. Life-Saving Service: Interestingly enough, one role that those early vessels seemingly did not perform was the one that would come to be most consistently associated with the Coast Guard, at least in the New England setting where I’ve encountered it: search and rescue. Prior to the mid-19th century, such maritime assistance was generally provided by charitable organizations, with the Massachusetts Humane Society a prime example. Recognizing the insufficiency of such efforts to protect the ever-increasing number of U.S. ships, in 1848 the federal government began funding coastal stations for that purpose, although their crews were still all-volunteer for many years. The stories of those crews and these first life-saving stations are quite fascinating, as illustrated by Twin Lights on the Jersey Shore. But they needed more support if they were to become a truly federal program.
- The Revenue Marine Division: That full federal support finally arrived in the early 1870s, with the 1871 creation of the Treasury Department’s Revenue Marine Division, and the appointment of lawyer, politician, and bureaucrat Sumner Increase Kimball to the role of superintendent. Kimball would serve in that role for more than 40 years, until the 1915 creation of the modern Coast Guard about which I’ll write later in the week. This department was much more formalized than had been previously the case, with departments dedicated to finances, life-saving, military support, and more, making it the first true predecessor of the Coast Guard as we now know it. But the crucial role that Kimball played across his four decades of leadership reminds us that all such histories depend on individuals, from Alexander Hamilton to Sumner Increase Kimball, as much as they are also always communal efforts.
Next Coast Guard context tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What you do think?
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