Bygone Worlds: The Fascinating History of How We Used to Live

The US Life Saving Service: 186,000 Lives Saved Before The Coast Guard Was Invented

Bygone Productions Episode 2

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0:00 | 25:47

In 1887, the ocean was America's highway. There were no trucks, no national road network that could move heavy cargo cheaply — shipping a ton of goods thirty miles inland cost as much as shipping it across the Atlantic. So everything moved by water, constantly, in all weather. Lumber. Coal. Cotton. Finished goods. And when those ships went aground — which they did, regularly — someone had to go get the sailors off. That someone was the United States Life-Saving Service: a little-known government agency with hundreds of stations on America's beaches, thousands of men on its payroll, and an estimated 186,000 people pulled from the sea.