Thursday, February 18
10:00 a.m.
Jacobs Family Gallery

Please join Congressman Barney Frank and Mayor Scott W. Lang, along with other legislators, local officials, and the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s Board of Trustees to celebrate the launch of a new Youth Internship and Apprenticeship Program at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. This program of paid apprenticeships will provide a unique opportunity for local youth to learn a variety of museum skills and expand their scholastic horizons throughout the academic year and summer months.

Join us in congratulating the first group of Whaling Museum Apprentices and recognizing the program’s generous funders: The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement/Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations (ECHO), the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, The Howard Bayne Fund, The Women’s Fund of the Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts, and Bank of America.

A light reception will follow the event.

Happy Holidays from your friends at the New Bedford Whaling Museum

]]> http://whalingmuseumblog.org/2010/01/08/happy-holidays/feed/ 0 katemello UN.976.1 http://whalingmuseumblog.org/2009/12/18/strong-the-ties-our-natures-bind/ http://whalingmuseumblog.org/2009/12/18/strong-the-ties-our-natures-bind/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:09:26 +0000 katemello http://whalingmuseumblog.org/?p=1388 ]]> by: Kate Mello, Photo Archivist

A woman in profile, seated and reading, 1898 Artist Unknown Watercolor on Paper Patient waiting was often the lot of women whose men had gone to sea. 00.129.4, NBWM

When I play the scenario of whaling voyages in my head, it often looks something like this: the young bride sitting at home, patiently awaiting the return of her husband, and the whalers at sea thinking tirelessly of the ladies waiting for them at home.  Perhaps that is just the romantic in me, but I decided to find out how much truth there was to this scenario.  I decided a great place to start would be the collection of logbooks, and my discoveries were placed on exhibit in the aptly titled “Discoveries Case” in the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Among the objects presented in this case are some logbooks that served as day-to-day records of events aboard a ship.  In them was listed vital information such as weather conditions, dates of significant incidents, names of ports of call and dates visited. Also recorded were the number of whales caught, and how many barrels of oil each whale yielded. It is not always known who kept each log, but in some cases it becomes irrelevant. The authors come to represent every whaler, distant from home, and the hardships that loved ones had to endure during the voyage.  Many times various items were pressed in between the pages of these important books.  Everything from pressed flowers and feathers to newspaper clippings and photographs has been found within the pages of the ship logs now belonging to the New Bedford Whaling Museum.  These small items would have reminded a person of a specific time or of a loved one back home. These objects were treasured for their memories: the tintype that so literally represented family members, newspaper clippings gathered at various ports of poems whose words of love and longing rang true, the clipping of hair belonging to the young woman waiting at home.

The case features a selection of six logbooks with accompanying objects that once found a home within their pages. Included are four manuscript sheets written by Captain Eber C. Almy while onboard the New Bedford whalers Kathleen (1855 – 1857), and President (1869 – 1872).  Captain Almy repeatedly and obsessively wrote the names of his wife Charlotte A. Almy and his children, Eddie, Helen, and George, accompanied by the date. He obviously thought about them every day and had the documents to prove it.  The case also features a lock of hair found in the whaling journal of Charles H. Perkins of Dublin, New Hampshire kept onboard the ship Francis of New Bedford (1850 – 1852).  The long brown locks give the impression of a female lock of hair.

Arthur Leonard of schooner Beret J., 1924 Photographer Unknown Silver Gelatin Print The stress and toil that this mariner has undergone is evident in this rare photograph. 1995.9.1854

Separation was an everyday occurrence for the men, women and children of maritime communities. Whaling voyages spanned months, often years, and keepsakes became a means of remembrance for whalemen and their families. Voyages could last five years, or even longer, as ships would return only when their holds were filled with barrels of whale oil. Communication was slow, although letters were frequently written and responses painfully awaited. The objects offered in the recently installed Discoveries Case, at the entrance of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, represent the type of keepsake that reminded voyagers of their loved ones. These were found tucked away in between the pages of personal whaling journals, as one might tuck photos or notes into a diary today. They serve as the cherished reminders of people left behind when New Bedford mariners set sail, on their uncertain passages around the world.

By Anne Wallace Allen, Associated Press   Originally published on 11/15/2009 at Projo.com

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Walk this city’s cobblestone streets and imagine the days when the whale-oil industry supported banks, mansions and small businesses. For 35 years, between 1825 and 1860, New Bedford, a city of around 100,000 on the Atlantic coast’s Buzzards Bay, was the busiest whaling port in the world.

Photo by Bob Thayer, The Providence Journal

And when the whaling industry declined, towns like New Bedford didn’t go away. They adapted to other uses of the sea. New Bedford became one of the busiest shipping ports in the country.

Now, with its blocks and blocks of original 19th-century buildings still intact, it’s a good place to visit with your family, a window into a vanished world only 35 miles from Providence. Start with the New Bedford Whaling Museum, where the specialized tools used to kill the whales at sea are presented in absorbing displays. The museum — the world’s largest, according to whaling scholars — also pays tribute to the huge creatures with three whale skeletons and a model of a North Atlantic right whale.

Whaling was dangerous, it was extraordinary, and it was cruel — to the whales, and to the seamen who shipped out to parts unknown, sometimes for years at a time. The museum doesn’t hide from that. One exhibit tells visitors that 37,000 whales were killed in 1934 alone.

“If you were a whaleman, that’s how you earned your living,” said Michael Dyer, the museum’s maritime historian.

Dyer noted that most maritime cultures have hunted whales. Museum exhibits document whaling 1,000 years ago by Vikings, Eskimos, and others. “It’s not unique to the American experience by any stretch of the imagination,” said Dyer.

The museum, on Johnny Cake Hill, lies inside the 13-block New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, which offers free tours in the summer months of the many historic attractions nearby.

One popular stop: the Seamen’s Bethel, http://portsociety.org/2009/

seamens-bethel, a place of worship that has been open to mariners since 1832. Nearby is the nation’s oldest continuously operating custom house, an 1836 Greek Revival structure where seafarers and captains do the paperwork of their trade: http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/

travel/maritime/usc.htm.

Suitable for young kids is the brand-new Ocean Explorium, a modestly proportioned aquarium, museum and science center that opened in a former bank building in July. The Explorium, http://www.ocean

explorium.org, has six aquatic exhibits, including coral, scallops, sea horses, and a hypnotic jellyfish tank with a strangely soothing effect on footsore adults.

A few blocks down the brick sidewalks take you to New Bedford’s waterfront, where the 1894 schooner Ernestina is often in port and hundreds of fishing boats come and go each year.

New Bedford’s centuries-old banks and mansions tell the story of a town that made its living from the sea. During the whaling years, thousands of ships sailed out to oceans around the world, returning with valuable oil for use in candles, soap and lighthouse lanterns.

The city also produced and attracted nationally known artists such as Herman Melville, author of “Moby-Dick,” and supported sea-related businesses such as chandleries, sailmakers and coopers.

Another famous 19th-century resident was Frederick Douglass, an orator and abolitionist who traveled to New Bedford through the Underground Railroad and stayed there between 1838 and 1841, working as a caulker on the whaling ships. He preached at Zion Methodist Church.

At New Bedford’s peak in 1857, 105 ships returned more than a million pounds of whalebone and 200,000 barrels of sperm and whale oil. The next busiest port was New London, Conn., where 24 vessels returned that year, said Dyer.

The whaling boom started to decline with the rise of the petroleum industry, and by the 1850s, the investors started diversifying into other industries, such as textiles. Whaling all but disappeared from Massachusetts by 1915.

But with its deep water, New Bedford still claims to be the busiest fishing port in the United States, in terms of its catch value, according to Jessica Fernandes, the deputy director of the New Bedford Harbor Development Commission. About 500 commercial fishing vessels are in port at New Bedford at any given time, she said.

All that traffic gives the city a strong international flavor. New Bedford is home to a large population of Portuguese-speaking Cape Verdeans whose influence is seen in local specialties like coffee milk, linguica sausage, and the annual midsummer Feast of the Blessed Sacrament. Billed as the largest Portuguese celebration in the world, the multi-day event, http://www.portuguese

feast.com, features a parade, live bands, and an array of food and Madeira wine.

Away from the sea is the shady Buttonwood Park Zoo, http://bpzoo.org/, which has a mini-train to ride and a host of animal exhibits, from a pair of Asian elephants to some heirloom goats. Zookeepers are commonly on hand to talk about the animals and what they like to eat.If you go . . .

FROM PROVIDENCE, it’s about a 40-minute drive on I-195 East.

NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK VISITOR CENTER: 33 William St., nps.gov/nebe.

WHALING MUSEUM: 18 Johnny Cake Hill, whalingmuseum.org. Open daily 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Adults, $10; children 6-14, $6.

SCHOONER ERNESTINA: New Bedford State Pier, ernestina.org/news/.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS MEMORIAL: New Bedford City Hall, 133 William St., rixsan.com/nbvisit/attract/freddoug.htm.

Read the article in its original context here.

By Charis Anderson   Originally published on 11/12/2009 at SouthCoastToday.com

NEW BEDFORD — The New Bedford Whaling Museum has been awarded a federal grant to catalog and preserve more than 1,800 books and ledgers spanning a century of financial activity at the Merchants Bank.

The $147,500 grant was announced Wednesday at a new conference held at the whaling museum’s research library on Purchase Street and attended by Rep. Barney Frank and other elected officials.

Read the rest of the article at SouthCoastToday.com.

7:30 P.M. Museum Theater

“Hot Rocks, Black Smokers and Life without Light: Exploring the Deep Ocean with Submersibles and Robots” with Susan Humphris,

Acting Vice President of Marine Facilities/OPS, Directorate, Senior Scientist and Acting Vice President for Marine Facilities and Operations.
Humphris received her B.A./Hons., from the University of Lancaster, U.K., in 1972, in Environmental Sciences and her Ph.D. MIT/WHOI Joint Program, in 1977, in Chemical Oceanography. Her research interests are volcanic and tectonic controls on the distribution and characteristics of hydrothermal activity at mid-ocean ridges; geochemistry of rock-water interactions and the rate of the associated hydrothermal fluxes in global geochemical mass balances. Presented by the Sippican Philosophical Society and the NBWM, FREE

GUEST VIEW: Paul Cuffe: Not just old history

By David C. Cole  October 03, 2009 at SouthCoastToday.com

A symposium celebrating the life of Paul Cuffe is to be held at the New Bedford Whaling Museum today, Oct. 3. This symposium is, on one level, a commemoration of a very remarkable local citizen who achieved great success and recognition despite the fact that he had no formal education, was of mixed African and Native American heritage, and lived a life rooted in a coastal country village.

But on another level, his experiences two centuries ago shed light on the enormity of those combined tragedies — slavery, colonialism, suppression of Native Americans and pervasive racial discrimination — that plagued our civilization for most of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Silhouette of Captain Paul Cuffe, by Thomas Pole circa 1820 (1904.43)

Paul Cuffe strove for equal rights — to vote, to trade, to be educated, to own property, to occupy an open seat in a stage coach, to appeal to the president of the United States for redress of grievances, to appeal to British officials for release of an impressed crew member, and finally for his friends in Sierra Leone, who had escaped from slavery in America and discrimination in Nova Scotia, to have an equal voice in their own polity in Freetown.

His causes, reflecting those “self-evident” rights promised in the American Revolution, were to seek those same rights for all people, not just for the white, Anglo-European dominant class. In his time, Paul Cuffe was exceptional, but not unique. There were other free blacks in northern cities, such as James Forten and Richard Allen, as well as in Europe, who were respected leaders in the community.

But the continuing struggles in America over slavery and reconstruction, and the spread of European colonialism across Africa, halted the potential emergence of those black leaders and perpetuated their repression. It was only in the second half of the 20th century that African countries were able to throw off the colonial yoke, and blacks in America were able to vote freely and gain access to better education.

If Paul Cuffe had had his way, if he had succeeded in leading blacks in Africa, and in America, to, as he said, “rise to be a people” with equal rights and opportunities, what a difference it would have made in the world’s history.

How many Barack and Michele Obamas, Nelson Mandelas and others might have risen up during that long bleak period to advance the well-being of mankind?

There is a direct link between the causes pursued by Paul Cuffe and their ultimate realization in the election of Barack Obama. By gaining a better understanding of our Paul Cuffe, we can not only appreciate what an outstanding man he was in his time, but also be challenged to think how different our history might have been if his visions had prevailed from his time forward.

To read the article in its original context, visit SouthCoastToday.com.