Herman Melville struggled to find employment.

The 1837 financial crisis made it difficult for young Melville to secure a long-term career. He made a lot of tries, but none of them were able to provide him with financial security. He made an effort to pursue careers as a field surveyor, a teacher, and a bank clerk.

He arrived in New Bedford in 1841 and, according to an interesting fact about Herman Melville, he enrolled for a whaling trip on the brand-new ship Acushnet. As the whaling industry's hub, New Bedford provided a wealth of chances for anyone looking to launch their careers in the industry.

Before enlisting in 1841 on the whaler Acushnet of New Bedford, Massachusetts, the world's whaling capital at the time, he worked as a bank clerk, teacher, land surveyor, crewman on a packet ship, and more. He worked on several different whalers before becoming the harpooner. His seafaring exploits served as the inspiration for Melville's examination of nature, morality, and man in Moby-Dick. A whale-ship was Melville's Yale College and Harvard, the character Ishmael states in that book.