Second Decade

39: The Monster of Gloucester

Informações:

Sinopsis

 In the summer of 1817, residents of the coastal town of Gloucester, Massachusetts suddenly began seeing a mysterious creature swimming around in their harbor. Though reports differed as to exactly what the monster looked like, how long it was and how fast it could move, the similarities between the reports and the trustworthiness of the witnesses seemed too substantial to ignore. A scientific association quickly convened a committee to investigate the creature. But the Gloucester sea monster was much more than just a strange anomaly that wagged tongues and sold newspapers: it was part and parcel of a much larger and more serious debate about the relative merits of the New World versus the Old, a debate in which prominent Americans like Thomas Jefferson had a significant political stake. In this quirky and unusual episode of Second Decade, historian Sean Munger not only presents contemporary accounts of the Gloucester monster—compiled in a nifty pamphlet rushed into print in Boston before the news cycle