Shanghaiing Shanghaiing refers to the practice of kidnapping men to serve as sailor s by coercive techniques such as trickery , intimidation , or violence . Those engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as crimps . Until 1915 , unfree labor was widely used aboard American merchant ships . The related term " press gang " refers specifically to impressment practices in Great Britain ' s Royal Navy . Background . Crimps flourished in port cities like San Francisco in California , Portland and Astoria in Oregon , and Seattle and Port Townsend in Washington . On the West Coast , Portland eventually surpassed San Francisco for shanghaiing . On the East Coast , New York easily led the way , followed by Boston , Philadelphia , and Baltimore . The role of crimps and the spread of the practice of shanghaiing resulted from a combination of laws , economic conditions , and the shortage of experienced sailors on the American West Coast in the mid - 19th century . First , once a sailor signed on board a vessel for a voyage , it was illegal for him to leave the ship before the voyage ' s end . The penalty was imprisonment , the result of federal legislation enacted in 1790 . This factor was weakened by the Maguire Act of 1895 and the White Act of 1898 , before finally being eradicated by the Seamen ' s Act of 1915 . Second , the practice was driven by a shortage of labor , particularly of skilled labor on ships on the West Coast . With crews abandoning ships en masse because of the California Gold Rush , a healthy body on board the ship was a boon . Finally , shanghaiing was made possible by the existence of boarding masters , whose job it was to find crews for ships . Boarding masters were paid " by the body , " and thus had a strong incentive to place as many seamen on ships as possible . This pay was called " blood money , " and was just one of the revenue streams available . These factors set the stage for the crimp : a boarding master who uses trickery , intimidation , or violence to put a sailor on a ship . The most straightforward method for a crimp to shanghai a sailor was to render him unconscious , forge his signature on the ship ' s articles , and pick up his " blood money . " This approach was widely used , but there were more profitable methods . In some situations , the boarding master could receive the first two , three , or four months of wages of a man he shipped out . Sailors were able to get an advance against their pay for an upcoming voyage to allow them to purchase clothes and equipment , but the advance wasn ' t paid directly to the sailor because he could simply abscond with the money . Instead , those to whom money was owed could claim it directly from the ship ' s captain . An enterprising crimp , already dealing with a seaman , could supplement his income by supplying goods and services to the seaman at an inflated price , and collecting the debt from the sailor ' s captain . Some crimps made as much as $ 9 , 500 per year in 1890s dollars , equivalent to about $ 260 , 000 in 2012 dollars . The crimps were well positioned politically to protect their lucrative trade . The keepers of boardinghouses for sailors supplied men on election day to go from one polling place to another , " voting early and often " for the candidate who would vote in their interest . In San Francisco , men such as Joseph " Frenchy " Franklin and George Lewis , long - time crimps , were elected to the California state legislature , an ideal spot to assure that no legislation was passed that would have a negative impact on their business . The most infamous examples included Jim " Shanghai " Kelly and Johnny " Shanghai Chicken " Devine of San Francisco , and Joseph " Bunco " Kelly of Portland . Stories of their ruthlessness are innumerable , and some have survived into print . Another example of romanticized stories involves the " birthday party " Shanghai Kelly threw for himself , in order to attract enough victims to man a notorious sailing ship named the " Reefer " and two other ships . Ending the practice . Demand for manpower to keep ships sailing to Alaska and the Klondike kept crimping a real danger into the early 20th century , but the practice was finally ended by a series of legislative reforms that spanned almost 50 years . Before 1865 , maritime labor laws primarily enforced stricter discipline onboard ships . However , after 1865 , this began to change . In 1868 , New York State started cracking down on sailors ' boardinghouses . They declined in number from 169 in 1863 to 90 in 1872 . Then in 1871 , Congress passed legislation to revoke license of officers guilty of mistreating seamen . In 1872 , Congress passed the " Shipping Commissioners Act of 1872 " to combat crimps . Under this act , a sailor had to sign on to a ship in the presence of a federal shipping commissioner . The presence of a shipping commissioner was intended to ensure the sailor wasn ' t " forcibly or unknowingly signed on by a crimp . " In 1884 , the " Dingley Act " came into effect . This law prohibited the practice of seamen taking advances on wages . It also limited the making of seamen ' s allotments to only close relatives . However , the crimps fought back . In 1886 , a loophole to the " Dingley Act " was created , allowing boardinghouse keepers to receive seamen ' s allotments . In 1915 , Andrew Furuseth and Senator Robert LaFollette pushed through The Seamen ' s Act of 1915 that made crimping a federal crime , and finally put an end to it . This legislation was successful primarily because of the widespread use of steampowered vessels in the world ' s merchant marine services . Without acres of canvas to be furled and unfurled , the demand for unskilled labor greatly diminished . The verb " to shanghai " . The verb " to shanghai " joined the lexicon with " crimping " and " sailor thieves " in the 1850s . The most widely accepted theory of the word ' s origin is that it comes from the Chinese city of Shanghai , a common destination of the ships with abducted crews . The term has since expanded to mean " kidnapped " or " induced to do something by means of fraud . "