Captain William Shorey and his daughters (left to right) Zenobia Shorey and Victoria Shorey, and wife, Julia Ann Shelton Shorey, Oakland, circa 1890-1891

Title: Captain William Shorey and his daughters (left to right) Zenobia Shorey and Victoria Shorey, and wife, Julia Ann Shelton Shorey, Oakland, circa 1890-1891
Alternative title: Captain William Shorey, black whaling ship captain on the west coast between 1880-1900
Date Created: [circa 1890]
Date: 1890
Collection: Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection
OpenUCLA Collections

Description: Studio portrait of the William Shorey family, with Julia and Victoria Shorey seated in an elaborately carved wooden chair, with a painted silk curtain backdrop.
William T. Shorey was a late 19th-century American whaling ship captain. He was born in Barbados July 13, 1859 and spent his life at sea. He became the only black captain operating on the west coast of the United States in the late-1880s and 1890s. He obtained his certification in 1885. His whaling voyages were based out of San Francisco. The John and Winthrop was the only whaling ship in the world to be manned entirely by an African-American crew. Shorey retired from whaling in 1908 (Wikipedia). A street in west Oakland, where Shorey lived, is named after him.
Caption: Written on back of photo: Courtesy: African-American Historical and Cultural Society, San Francisco, California. Stamped: Stitt's Studio of Photography, 2015 Fillmore St., S.F. Calif.

Genre: Portrait photographs
Names: Shorey, Julia Ann Shelton, 1865-1944
Shorey, Victoria Grace, 1898-1971
Shorey, William, 1859-1919
Subject Geographic: Oakland (Calif.)
Resource type: still image
Subjects: Whaling masters