In 1845 a reformed convict would have needed to obtain work quickly in order to refrain from committing a crime and being sent back to jail. A Berth on a ship would have been the most reliable method of obtaining a longer term of work. Reformed prisoners would be able to work for weeks or months on these ships preforming general labor for pay. A Berth on a ship would guarantee a person the right to work for the duration of a ships journey. In a time where you would be working day to day after being released from prison, being guaranteed multiple days or weeks of work would have been a very vital piece of reformation for these reformed convicts.  The ability to obtain work on a vessel such as the USS Macedonia as seen in the diary would have been a hard job. From recounts of sailors in 1845 there is evidence that the work would have been hard and the days would have been long.  

In 1845 a transition occurred in the shipping industry. Wooden boats and wooden piers were now being phased out to make way for iron ships and iron piers. This process started with the age of the railroad. The fastest ways of traveling before this innovation would have taken long periods of time. Iron ships were an innovation that would increase shipping for the piers of New York as they needed less repairs than wooden ships. 

An intersting aspect of our class is that the ships giving berths to reformed convicts such as the USS Macedonia would be transformed from a shipping vessel to be outfitted for the civil war.  The USS Macedonia was used as a harbor guarding ship when the war began. It is possible to assume that some of the reformed convicts who worked on the USS Macedonia would have served on this ship during the Civil war. 

Cudahy, Brian J. "Iron Piers and Iron Steamboats (1845–1918)." In How We Got to Coney Island: The Development of Mass Transportation in Brooklyn and Kings County, 49-66. New York: Fordham University, 2002. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13wzxt5.7.