Edwin Lang and the Boston Marine Guide: Reversal of Fortune

Around 1915, native Californian Edwin “Ed” J. Lang left the Pacific Coast and headed east to Boston seeking his fortune. A restless Lang “took to the sea at an early age” joining American Hawaiian Steamship Company in 1904, which at the time operated nine ships largely hauling sugar outbound from Hawaii and manufactured goods on the inbound leg from the mainland.

Lang’s passage East was a reversal of the half century trend of New Englanders heading West seeking their fame and fortune in the gold fields of California. The Boston to which Ed Lang journeyed in the mid-1900s was still thought of as the “Hub” – a moniker Oliver Wendell Holmes anointed Boston in 1858 celebrating the intellectual and commercial prowess of the city. But in truth, metropolitan New York City had already stolen the march over Boston and especially in shipping.

Lang’s interest in shipping led to him founding Marine Guide Publishing in 1918 – a year that marked the end of World War I – and opening for business at 66 Batterymarch St. in the middle of Boston’s shipping district. During this period, most major ports had their own shipping publication and although Boston had a number of periodicals covering the City’s business activities, like the Commercial Bulletin founded in 1858 by Curtis Guild, a former Massachusetts Governor (ironically both trade papers would be published by the same group after Lang’s death), there was no local publication dedicated to covering the Port’s activities.

In 1919, the Boston Marine Guide formally began weekly publishing as a large oversized broad sheet with an annual subscription cost of $5.00 per year. One of the unique and ingenious attributes of the newly minted port paper was its presentation – the initial subscription included a split wooden hanger similar in design to those used to hang dress pants. The hanger allowed the reader to see all vessel arrival and departure schedules for the Port of Boston – and of course all the supporting surrounding advertisements – and with a simple flip of the hanger, the reader could peruse the editorial content and of course see more ads.

The shipping schedules were the centerpiece of the entire endeavor. Virtually the entire shipping community needed to know when ships were arriving and departing and there was no central public clearing house for this information.

The Port of Boston’s port commission annually appropriated money to publish the schedules in the Boston Marine Guide, stating the publication was “The Port of Boston’s shipping paper, a directory and guide to the sailing to and from Boston.”