Whaling Museum blog » Partnerships

Celebrate Herman Melville’s Birthday

whaleblog — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:15:02 +0000

Calendar of Events:

Friday, July 30, 3:00 pm:
New Bedford Symphony Orchestra Woodwind Quintet: Down to the Sea In Ships

A musical celebration of all things nautical, presented in honor of Herman Melville’s birthday. The program includes Malcolm Arnold’s Three Shanties, George Chadwick’s Three Sea Sketches, hornpipes (sailor’s dances) from Water Music by George Frederic Handel, as well as music of Scott Joplin, a hot tango by Astor Piazzolla, and a medley of George M. Cohan’s greatest hits.

Friday, July 30, 5:00 pm:
Melville Society free public lecture: Discovering Whales, Petroglyphs, and Moby-Dick on the Olympic Peninsula in June 2008, with Robert K. Wallace

This illustrated talk will highlight some of the discoveries Robert Wallace made on the Makah Indian Reservation of the Olympic Peninsula during a two-week trip with landscape painter Kevin Muente. Wallace will emphasize his encounters with gray whales, a humpback whale, and ancient Ozette petroglyphs in a sequence of events that brought Melville’s Moby-Dick to life before his very eyes. Robert K. Wallace is a founder of the Melville Society Cultural Project at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. He is author of Melville and Turner, Frank Stella’s Moby-Dick, and Douglass and Melville. He has taught Literature and the Arts at Northern Kentucky University since 1972

Saturday, July 31, 10am-2pm
HERMAN MELVILLE FAMILY DAY

You’re Invited to a whale of a party celebrating Herman Melville’s birthday! It features free activities for kids 12 years and younger on the plaza and in selected galleries. The day includes music by the Sea Chantey Chorus, art projects, historical characters, story readings, fun learning activities, kids art show, and birthday cake.

Ongoing activities:
Make whale hats, bookmarks & whale magnets
See the new 15-minute film, Around the World!
Take a new iPod tour
Story readings: pop-up kids’ Moby-Dick, and The Whale and the Snail
Kids’ Art Show
Hourly drawings to win family membership

Museum Store – Whale of a Tent Sale

Scheduled activities:
10-12pm – Make, sail & take home a toy model of the Pequod
11am – Kids’ poetry workshop
11:30am – Whaling wives, Ruth and Abby
12pm – Sperm whale activity with museum youth apprentices
1-2pm – Kids paint Moby Dick’s statue

1:30pm – Sea Chantey Chorus performance
2pm - Happy Birthday, with the Sea Chantey Chorus & birthday cake.

Children must be accompanied by an adult.

Herman Melville Family Day is hosted by the Museum’s education department in partnership with the Melville Society Cultural Project, New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Melville Family Day, July 31st, 10-2pm

Arthur Motta — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:43:54 +0000

: A day packed with fun for families & kids, 12yrs. and younger

Herman Melville Family Day will feature many free activities for children 12 years and younger on the plaza and in selected galleries from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. to celebrate Herman Melville’s 191st birthday. The event features music performed by members of the New Bedford Harbor Sea Chantey Chorus, art projects, historical characters, story readings, fun learning activities, kids art show, and a birthday cake, too.

Ongoing activities include making whale hats, whale tail bookmarks and whale magnets. A new 15-minute film, Around the World!, will play throughout the day in the Cook Memorial Theater and the museum’s new iPod tours will also make their public debut. Story reading in the whale galleries will include a pop-up children’s version of Moby-Dick, and The Whale and the Snail. A children’s art show in the Jacobs Family Gallery will include art awards in several categories. Hourly drawings to win a family membership to the Whaling Museum will also be given.

Special activities are scheduled throughout the day. From 10:00 a.m. to noon, kids can make their own floatable toy model of Cap’n Ahab’s ship, the Pequod. Wading pools on the plaza will allow even the youngest shipwrights to test their vessel’s seaworthiness before they take them home. At 11:00 a.m., a kids’ poetry workshop will be offered. At 11:30 a.m. whaling wives, Ruth and Abby from the 1840s, will visit with children. At noon, the museum’s youth apprentices will lead a special sperm whale activity. From 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., kids can paint a large whale statue to look like Moby Dick.

At 1:30 p.m., members of the New Bedford Harbor Sea Chantey Chorus will perform toe-tapping tunes from Melville’s day and other fun favorites. At 2:00 p.m., the Chorus will belt out a timber-shivering rendition of Happy Birthday, with kids of all ages invited to join in the singing, and enjoy a slice of birthday cake. Children must be accompanied by an adult.

The 2010 Herman Melville Birthday Lecture, with Robert K. Wallace

michaellapides — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:27:02 +0000

The 2010 Herman Melville Birthday Lecture:

“Discovering Whales, Petroglyphs, and Moby-Dick on the Olympic Peninsula in June 2008”

New Bedford Whaling Museum Theater, Friday, July 30, 5 – 6 p. m.

Admission Free

By Robert K. Wallace

This illustrated talk will highlight some of the discoveries Robert Wallace made on the Makah Indian Reservation of the Olympic Peninsula during a two-week trip with landscape painter Kevin Muente. Wallace will emphasize his encounters with gray whales, a humpback whale, and ancient Ozette petroglyphs in a sequence of events that brought Melville’s Moby-Dick to life before his very eyes.

Robert K. Wallace is a founder of the Melville Society Cultural Project at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. He is author of Melville and Turner, Frank Stella’s Moby-Dick, and Douglass and Melville. He has taught Literature and the Arts at Northern Kentucky University since 1972 and is a past president of the Melville Society.

Whaling Museum named one of Massachusetts’ Great Places

Arthur Motta — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:56:23 +0000

In March, many members & friends nominated the Whaling Museum for inclusion on the Official List of 1,000 Great Places in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Their advocacy paid off. Today, the Governor’s Commission to Designate 1,000 Great Places of Massachusetts released its list, and the Whaling Museum is included! The Commission received some 12,000 nominations. Great Places will be used to promote tourism and cultural development by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism and other state and locate agencies. Thanks to all who voted!

Press Release

Learning from Whales and Whalers on Top of the World

rochabob — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:27:58 +0000

Much like the buffalo were an integral part of the lives of Plains Indians, bowhead whales are inseparable from the lives of the Inupiat of the North Slope of Alaska. An older resident of Barrow once told me that approximately 75% of their activity over the course of a year is related to whaling. Whether it’s prepping seal skins for umiaks, cooking, cleaning, hunting, readying gear for camping on the ice or feeding family or neighbors, their lives are connected to the bowhead. They believe that these animals offer themselves to the people to ensure their survival.

One of the transplants to Barrow, research biologist Craig George, has spent 30 years learning from the Inupiat and from the bowhead. Craig and his colleague, Leslie Pierce, are contributors the NBWM’s new The Hunt for Knowledge exhibit. More importantly, they’ve helped legitimize the centuries of traditional Inupiat knowledge that was typically ignored or demeaned by academics and agency scientists.

It’s my pleasure to link you to Ned Rozell’s quick-read article about Craig and Leslie, Learning from Whales and Whalers on Top of the World . You’ll be impressed by the amount of research he’s done, and stunned by the bowhead facts listed in the story.

Craig George, left, and Leslie Pierce look for bowhead whales north of Barrow.

How to Tag a Whale

rochabob — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:41:03 +0000

Museum colleague, Rui Prieto, who works in the Departamento de Oceanografia e Pescas (DOP) at the University of the Azores in Horta, Faial, has been tracking big baleen whales. He and others in the DOP do so by attaching satellite tags to the backs of these animals. Here’s a video clip of Rui shooting a tag into a whale.

For more about The Great Whales Satellite Telemetry Program, the whales that are currently tagged or those that had been tagged, visit their site at Great Whales Satellite Telemetry Program.

Whaling Museum to host ECHO Performing Arts Festival

whaleblog — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:23:21 +0000

Multicultural troupe performs on March 11 at 6:30 p.m. in the Museum Theater.

Marking the final leg of a national tour, the ECHO Performing Arts Festival Troupe comes to the New Bedford Whaling Museum on AHA! Night, Thursday, March 11 at 6:30 p.m. with their multicultural performance, Celebrate – Song, Dance & Story! The troupe’s appearance at the Whaling Museum will be the only performance for the general public in the region. They will be performing in five New Bedford schools while in the city.

The 45-minute performance will take the audience on a journey down life’s paths, from childhood to love and marriage and beyond. Through song, dance and stories, life’s challenges and triumphs are viewed through the lens of many cultures to reveal the commonality of the human experience.

The ECHO Performing Arts Festival Troupe (left to right): Curtis "Buck" Willis - Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, Ani Lokomaika'i Lipscomb (Hawaiian) - Bishop Museum, Annawon Weeden (Wampanoag) - Peabody Essex Museum, Allison Warden (Iñupiaq Eskimo) - Iñupiat Heritage Center, Stephen Blanchett (Yu'pik) - Alaska Native Heritage Center, José Manuel Vinagre, New Bedford ECHO Project.

The troupe will be available after the performance to talk with the audience.

“Photographs of Houses and Public Buildings…” by Palmer and Worth

michaellapides — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:27:26 +0000

The New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library, located on 791 Purchase Street, contains a beautiful leather-bound volume titled “Photographs of Houses and Public Buildings in New Bedford, Fairhaven, Acushnet, Dartmouth and Westport.” This unpublished volume, donated to the Society in 1907 by Herbert and Anna Cushman, contains photographs by Fred W. Palmer and text by local historian Henry B. Worth, who collaborated to document the oldest buildings still standing in the original township of Old Dartmouth.

The idea to recreate this book online, in order to bring it to a wider audience, came to us from local historian Bob Maker, who recently completed transcribing the entire text. Working with him to prepare images, and to improve the museum’s cataloging of the photographs, is NBWM volunteer Penny Cole.

West end of the old Ricketson house

This project runs through the NBWM’s Departments of Digital Initiatives, Photography, and the Research Library and is supported in part by grants from the Dartmouth and Fairhaven Cultural Councils, local agencies which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

Beginning in 1904, Fred Palmer began taking photographs of over two hundred buildings in Old Dartmouth with construction dates ranging from the late 1600s to the 1840s. The photographs are predominantly exterior shots of individual residential buildings. They are currently held in their original form as nitrate and glass negatives in the Adaline H. Perkins Rand Photo & Digital Archive, located in the New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library. There are a few residential interiors, a scattering of shots of public buildings, and a few streetscapes in New Bedford. In many cases, Palmer’s photographs are the only known images, especially for buildings outside downtown New Bedford.

Henry Worth visited and meticulously researched each of the buildings in the collection. He traced property deeds back to the very earliest records. He consulted town meeting records, maps and other documentary sources. He also interviewed property owners and descendants of builders and earlier owners. Worth’s text combines information from all these sources with his own extensive knowledge of architectural styles and construction techniques. He was a significant figure in the earliest history of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society, the governing body of The New Bedford Whaling Museum. He wrote the annual “Report of the Historical Research Section” from 1904 to 1911, and authored a number of the early Old Dartmouth Historical Sketches.

We are in the process of building a set of images on flickr that represents these historic photographs.

Crewlist Project Update

whaleblog — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:25:39 +0000

In this post we share an update by Crewlist Project Director, and New Bedford Whaling Museum Advisory Curator Judith Lund. It speaks to our current team of 17 volunteers, but also to potential volunteers. To find out more about the project visit our initial post from November 6th. To ask questions or sign-up use crewlistproject@whalingmuseum.org.

I am pleased to report that we are making good progress on this project. So far I have the results of three completed years and parts of another that have been coming to me as they are completed. That total of entries is 369. It may seem small yet, but I know that many of you are waiting to complete the year assigned to you before sending it to me. That’s fine, too. The important thing is that so many have volunteered and are going full steam, or full sail, ahead.

Captain Antone T. Edwards and some of his crew aboard the Wanderer

In March the history majors taking Maritime History at UMass Dartmouth will join in, thanks to Len Travers, who teaches the course and read the blog about the project. It will be a chance for his students to get their hands on some real history, and in doing so, complete a project that will be of lasting value. I have tentatively assigned three years to them.

Our youngest participant is Tevin Honohan, a student at New Bedford High School, who plugs away at the information during his community service period in his schedule.

The Whaling Museum and I thank you for all you are doing.

New Bedford Cable Access in Partnership with the New Bedford Whaling Museum

whaleblog — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:45:03 +0000

Thanks to our friends at New Bedford Cable Access for producing this short public service announcement about the Moby-Dick Marathon.

Channel 17 is the NBCA Educational Channel, and will from time to time be filming NBWM lectures and educational programs for broadcast. We will share segments on the blog as they become available to us. Subscribe to the blog from the column on the right and keep up with educational programing at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.