La Ciotat in the Age of Steam (1836-1916): The Messageries Maritimes and the Making of an Industrial Maritime Society

by Kalliopi Vasilaki

Overview

La Ciotat, a small port-town in the French Mediterranean, underwent a profound metamorphosis during the nineteenth century. Once a small maritime community, it was transformed into the technical base and shipbuilding centre of the Compagnie des Messageries maritimes, France’s largest steam navigation company. This book charts the journey of a maritime society through its industrial grown and discovers its economic, demographic, labour, and social changes. Drawing on unpublished archival material, it explores how technological changes and the dominance of a single private shipping company reshaped the town’s identity and redefined its relationship with the sea.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789004733923
Publisher:	Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/25/2025
Series:	Brill's Studies in Maritime History , #19
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Kalliopi Vasilaki is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre of Maritime History, Institute for Mediterranean Studies (IMS/FORTH). She received her Ph.D. from the University of Crete in 2022 and holds a Master's degree from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris, 2012). Her research focuses on maritime societies in the Mediterranean during the nineteenth century. She has published several articles in English and French in international journals and edited volumes.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Illustrations
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part 1 Economy

1 The Pre-industrial French Mediterranean: the Case of La Ciotat and Its Maritime Transport System
 1 The Port of Marseille: a Dominant Port in the French Mediterranean  2 The Secondary Ports and Smaller Ports of Provence: Essential Components of the Transport System of the Region
 3 The Maritime Culture of La Ciotat during the Sailing Era: an Overview
 4 The Decline of Provence’s Pre-industrial Economy: the Case of La Ciotat

2 The Advent of Steam in La Ciotat: the First Phase (1836–1851)
 1 Louis Benet and the Introduction of Industrial Shipbuilding Activity in the Port
 2 Factors for the Establishment of the Shipbuilding Industry in La Ciotat
 3 The Process of Adaptation: the Externalities of Industrial Growth
 4 The Maritime Economy of the Port in Transition: Shipbuilding Production
 5 The Novelty of the Business Venture of Louis Benet in the Mediterranean Basin
 6 The Decline of the Activities of Louis Benet

3 La Ciotat’s Transformation into a Maritime Industrial Centre
 1 The Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes in the Port of La Ciotat
 2 The Metamorphosis of the Port: the Formation of an Industrial Shipbuilding Complex in La Ciotat
 3 The Evolution of Shipbuilding Production in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century: Vertical Integration and State Subsidies
 4 The Decline of Production in the Shipyard and Workshops at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: the Final Period of Messageries Maritimes in La Ciotat
 5 Factors of Productivity in the Shipbuilding Centre of La Ciotat
 6 The Port of La Ciotat during the Industrial Era and Its Integration into a New Industrial Maritime District in Provence

Part 2 Labour
 4 The Shipyard and Workshops of the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes and Its Workforce
 1 The Company in Search of Labour: the Implementation of Industrial Paternalism
 2 Employment Strategies to Increase and Retain the Labour Force in La Ciotat: Working Housing and Social Policies
 3 Employment Patterns in the Shipyard

5 From Deck to Engine: Local Seafarers in Transition
 1 The Administrative Division of the Coastline of France: the Inscription Maritime
 2 Studying the Seafarers of La Ciotat: the matricules de gens de mer in the Inscription Maritime
 3 The Inscrits Maritimes in La Ciotat in Transition: the Sailors
 4 The Inscrits Maritimes of La Ciotat: the Captains
 5 The Professional Transformation of La Ciotat’s Seafarers

Part 3 The Society

6 The Town in Transition: the Demographic Restructuring of La Ciotat (1831–1911)
 1 Population Growth and Urban Expansion in La Ciotat
 2 Immigration as a Primary Factor of Demographic Change
 3 The Population Composition: Demographic Dynamics into Transition
 4 The Control of the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes into the Demographic Behaviours in La Ciotat

7 Towards a New Maritime Society: the Main Traits of Occupational Structure in La Ciotat
 1 The Town’s Male Occupational Structure towards Industrialisation: a General Overview
 2 A Society Connected to the Sea: the Evolution of Seafaring Labour and Fishing
 3 Towards a New Working-Class Society
 4 The Changing Characteristics of Female Labour in the Town
 5 The Impact of Changing Occupational Structure on the Society of the Town

8 A New Opening to the World: Facets of a New Everyday Life in La Ciotat
 1 Italian Immigration and Social Integration
 2 The Multifaceted Sociocultural Impact of Seafarers
 3 The Phenomenon of Prostitution in La Ciotat
 4 The Transformative Power of Industrial Growth: La Ciotat’s Rise to Global Prominence

9 The Labour Protests of Twentieth-Century La Ciotat: a Closing Chapter of Transition
 1 The Slow Rise of Syndicalism in the Town
 2 Social Unrest and Strikes at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: the End of a Long Cycle

Conclusion

Appendices

Appendix 1: Ships Constructed in La Ciotat in the Period 1832 to 1850

Appendix 2: Studying the Occupational Structure of La Ciotat: a Methodological Note
Archival Sources
Bibliography
Index