The Biographical Dictionary of Scrimshaw Artists is a great deal more than a mere compendium of nautical biographies.  The product of 35 years of meticulous research and analysis, it is an eminently readable contextual survey and social history of the whaling trade and associated naval events, tracing the lives and careers of literally hundreds of American and foreign scrimshaw-makers of various races and nationalities — including a few women, Baroque sculptors of walrus ivory, and more than 85 Indigenous Alaskan artisans — from their early origins, hometowns, vessels, and voyages, through to their subsequent lives and later careers as merchant seamen, clipper-ship captains, Navy sailors, farmers, fishers, carpenters, shopkeepers, Gold Rush pioneers, artists, business magnates, collectors of artifacts for museums, curio dealers, and publicans, among them two city mayors, two Old West peace officers, a distinguished Egyptologist, a fatal encounter with the Sioux, two ice cream makers, and even an optician.  Thus, it goes beyond any parochial interest in folk art or the scrimshaw genre itself, to address the broader scope of the vernacular life of working people, the imperial expanse of British whaling and naval operations, and the upward mobility implicit in the American, Australian, and immigrant experience.