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While chaplains are required in the military, federal prisons, and the Veteran's Administration, they are also present in a range of other settings across the United States. In ports, religiously motivated individuals and institutions have long histories of evangelizing and providing social services. We focus on chaplains in 15 of the largest American ports today to ask how they negotiate access to seafarers and how they work with them daily. Chaplains negotiate security protocols, the hierarchy of ships, and their own self-presentations to get on board vessels. In their daily work, they shift among economic, moral, religious, and advocacy roles. Chaplains access seafarers by providing economic support and then use that access to develop the relationships they see as central to their work. By being present in these relationships, connecting seafarers to broader communities, and serving as an invisible global safety net, port chaplains see themselves acting as humanizing agents of modern capitalism. The case of port chaplaincy suggests additional strategies chaplains use to gain access not yet present in the sociological literature, further illustrates how the work of chaplains is shaped by the institutions within which it takes place, and expands sociological approaches to religion "on the edge" by showing multiple ways religion appears at the water's edge not yet theorized in that literature.

Religious people and organizations have provided services to seafarers in the port of Boston for nearly 200 years. While Boston’s history and present circumstances are specific, the port’s services to seafarers are broadly representative of the history of such provision in ports across the United States. We show how local and global economic changes shaped who worked in the port of Boston. Protestant individuals and organizations provided services to these workers, although the motivation behind the services and their content changed. The overt evangelism of the first generations diminished as mission societies transitioned into religiously-motivated social service organizations. Comprehensive social services and lodging were replaced by services provided on board vessels during increasingly quick turnarounds. While today’s port chaplains describe their work in much different terms than those of generations past, they continue a tradition of Protestant-supported care that has been evident in the port for the past two centuries.

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