In Mariners and Markets, Charles Kindleberger asks if labour markets for mariners in the age of sail were efficient. He defined efficiency by borrowing three neo-classical concepts. First, a market is efficient if it allows free access for both employers and labour. Second, it is efficient if it clears - that is, if demand for labour induces a corresponding supply (from outside the area, if necessary) or leads to an increase in wages. Third, it is efficient if labour commands the same price throughout the market. Kindleberger was unclear whether any one or all of these criteria were required for a market to be efficient. But he argues that to test for efficiency certain key topics must be examined: recruitment and pay; the treatment of seamen at sea and on shore; and the level of government intervention into markets.

This essay focuses on recruitment and asks if labour and management had free access to each other. Using the maritime labour market in Salem, Massachusetts from 1670 to the eve of the American Revolution, I intend to show that from the turn of the century to 1775 the majority of mariners who sailed in Salem-owned vessels were recruited from within the town; few came from the countryside and even fewer from outside the colony. Such a market existed because of several positive attractions offered by a career at sea. First, any recruit had a good chance of promotion to master or mate. Second, little economic or social distance existed between the master and the recruit. A Salem mariner often came from a similar social and economic background, frequently grew up and lived in the same neighbourhood, and usually knew a master and his reputation before ever sailing under him. Third, early in the eighteenth century a tradition of seafaring developed in many Salem families, with a son following in the footsteps of his father or uncle. Although not all mariners were recruited from such families, a significant number were. Finally, an important social division helped define the Salem market. Because of paternal and fraternal links between master and crew, social divisions cut vertically along community lines, centring on whether a mariner was a resident or a stranger.