Once the whale is caught, the work doesn’t stop; the whale must be processed into a sellable form. Before the 20th century, whale oil (obtained from the whale’s blubber) was often used for fueling lamps and lubricating machines. New England’s whaling industry peaked in the mid-1800s, so at the time Crèvecoeur wrote, it was still relatively young, though as its rapid advancement suggests, it was already well on its way to becoming a lucrative, global business.