Beyond its treasure trove of physical objects, paintings, photographs, ship’s logs and sailor’s diaries, the museum is rapidly developing digital resources to help preserve and interpret the region’s rich and colorful past. “We are dedicated to searching for ways to broaden overall access to our collections and to connect to wider audiences.” according to Michael Lapides, who heads the Digital Initiatives Department.

One of these resources involves building a program of oral histories – personal reflections of people who have vivid, colorful memories of social, cultural, and maritime history. New interviews will add to recordings made years and even decades ago.

Through extensive planning and research by library volunteer and archivist Jalien Hollister, over 100 hours of existing oral histories, conducted since the 1960’s were identified and had their catalogued improved to increase accessibility. New processes were defined and implemented so that future oral history recordings will be conducted consistently and help complement existing material.

Joining us on the all-volunteer production and interview teams are Nancy Thornton, Adam Gonsalves, and Sally Brownell. Interviews are conducted as informal conversations, and recorded on professional digital equipment. Plans are to excerpt and cross-reference interview content so information can supplement on-line and physical exhibits, or be used in other programs.

In a recent interview, Roberta Sawyer, a lifetime resident at Round Hill in South Dartmouth, described life at the secluded end of Smith Neck in the 1930’s. Many of her recollections centered on Colonel Green. Roberta talked about how her father landed a small plane on Colonel Green’s farm field at Round Hill, and was asked by Green to establish and run a private airfield on his estate. Besides aviation, Green had sweeping interests in agriculture, science, photography, automobiles, and education. He established a broadcast facility and later built the memorable “martini-glass” satellite dish. He later hosted faculty and students from MIT to conduct research there.

Besides establishing the bark Charles W. Morgan in a special berth at Round Hill, Green built a reproduction of the ship’s tryworks and deck, opening these exhibits to the public. Although his family resided at Round Hill only months of the year, many remember the eccentricities and uniqueness of the Greens, especially their chauffeured limousines.

We welcome suggestions for potential interviewees, and new volunteers to the Oral Histories Project. Please contact Michael Lapides, Photo Curator and Director of Digital Initiatives (mlapides@whalingmuseum.org or 508-997-0046 x131).

For more information on becoming a volunteer call 508 717-6823, or visit our website http://www.whalingmuseum.org/volunteer/index.html

Calliope Pina Parker is a sixth-grader who reads as many as 10 books a week and favors Harry Potter.  She is an avid user of libraries, borrowing from across the region. When budget cuts in Hull not only sheared the local library’s funding and hours, but also cost the town its state certification last month, Calliope took matters into her own hands.

Since January Calliope had been thinking about organizing a reading marathon. That was when her dad, Mark Parker, brought the family to see a friend participate in the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s annual reading of “Moby-Dick’’ – not yet one of Calliope’s favorites. But she appreciated the experience and thought about arranging her own reading marathon, which she did.  A March 6th readathon and bake sale was held, with wizardly cupcakes and “magic wand’’ frosted pretzel rods, raising awareness about the library’s circumstances and collecting money for the nonprofit Friends of the Hull Public Library.

Read the full story as posted by Eric Moskowitz at boston.com

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.

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.

The arts are an essential facet of our daily lives and form a vital component of the local economy.

Recent state and federal grant awards to the whaling museum are a case in point. A recent front-page article in this paper (Oct. 31) announced the Massachusetts delegation’s success in securing $1.5 million in federal funding for the Bourne Building, again engaging local construction services and creating jobs.

The grant was actively supported by Sens. Paul Kirk and John Kerry, Congressman Barney Frank and Mayor Scott Lang. It will be administered through the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park — highlighting the great positive value of having this national park in the downtown.

The museum has directed a state-awarded, $617,000, donor-matched grant to hire a local construction company for a major renovation of the historic Bourne Building. State Sen. Mark Montigny and state Reps. Antonio Cabral, John Quinn, Stephen Canessa and Robert Koczera have actively supported this program through the state Cultural Facilities Fund.

A $147,000 grant from the Federal Institute for Museum and Library Services will allow the museum to hire two additional employees to catalog the recently acquired collection of Merchants Bank records.

For several years, the U.S. Department of Education has provided significant funding through Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations (ECHO), ensuring high-impact educational programming for thousands of local schoolchildren at the whaling museum and New Bedford Oceanarium. And across Bristol County, $347,000 in Massachusetts Cultural Council grants will support 57 schools and cultural organizations, including the whaling museum.

Projects in the cultural sector might not be as visible as highway construction, but each investment by the state or federal government helps build the creative economy and creates jobs here in our community.

None of these investments would have happened without the support of our elected officials.

Government initiatives like these illustrate just how important arts organizations are to the local economy. Investment in the arts and cultural sector pays enormous dividends: It attracts visitors to our community, strengthens our local economy, and enhances the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of local residents.

Residents and businesses in our community value the arts enough to invest countless volunteer hours and millions of dollars in personal donations or sponsorships. In the last 15 years, annual contributions to arts organizations in Bristol County have increased from $4.5 million to an astonishing $19 million. As a consequence, the number of arts organizations in the county has grown by nearly 50 percent.

These nonprofits run on volunteerism, further leveraging their financial investment. For example, volunteer efforts at the whaling museum translate to $336,000 in savings annually.

This, combined with federal, state and local government funding, is where the economic impact starts to be significant. The message we send to our elected officials is that by combining smart government investment with individual philanthropy, we accelerate new economic activity.

And New Bedford has a strategic advantage: Our cultural organizations work collaboratively — with each other, and with local government — finding common ground to mutually support diverse programs and activities for the community.

Government investment in the arts is smart, it is efficient, it creates jobs, and it keeps the fabric of our communities bound together during the worst recession since 1929.

(submitted to www.southcoasttoday.com)

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

In cooperation with the New Bedford Free Public Library and the New Bedford Port Society, the Museum will complete the project begun several years ago by the New Bedford Free Public Library to make crew list information available.  When completed, this will provide a fully searchable database of names of whalemen who left the port of New Bedford, men who hailed from all the corners of the world.   This resource will be useful to persons seeking family history, to museum staff for exhibit purposes, and to scholars interested in understanding the diversity of the participants in the whaling industry.  The list created will be housed on the Museum’s website, and could, in the future, be linked to biographical information, immigration records, and other information about crew members generated by our ECHO partner organizations.

Participants in this project need to have a computer and be familiar with an excel database.  The work can be done at home.  Copies of crew list information printed from microfilms of the Port Society Seamen’s Registers can be mailed to you, and completed databases can be sent back electronically.  If you are able to assist with this project email Crewlist Project for more information.  We need a few good volunteers!

The picture below shows a box of tools that belonged to an un-named ship caulker who doubtlessly worked in a crew of ship caulkers on the New Bedford waterfront, sometime in the late 19^th or early 20^th century.  As with most tool boxes, we can tell something of the man who owned this set of tools, and what he did for a living.

In the days of sail and Yankee whaling, ship caulkers were important shipyard workers, finishing the process of making new hulls and decks tight and leak-free; and restoring older hulls to the same the same degree of fitness prior to every extended whaling voyage.  Their job was one that required skill, but a fairly simple arsenal of tools.  These included two or three types of caulking mallets, a group of caulking “chisels” or “irons” that were really tampers, and a small array of hooks or narrow scrapers to clean the seams between the hull or deck planks prior to caulking.  The actual caulking material could be comprised of cotton yarn or string, and most importantly, oakum, which was usually the yarn from which manila or hemp cordage was made and tarred with pitch.

2001.100.3143: Leather seat with wood sides and bottom. Contains one caulking mallet, five caulking irons, one seam raker made from a race knife, one instrument (seam raker), and one spare mallet handle.

This next photograph shows men at work caulking and rigging the Bark Alice Knowles, getting her ready for an extended whaling voyage.

Caulkers at side of Bark Alice Knowles

The first five men from the left of the picture are caulkers working on planks above the waterline on the bark.  The two men to the right appear to be riggers who are working at anchoring what are known as “chain plates”.  Chain plates are iron rods doubled back on each other that are fastened to multiple port and starboard stays that support the various masts on the vessel.  These riggers are working on the chain plates that will anchor the port stays supporting the main mast.  There is a lot going on in this picture, but first, let’s go back to that caulker’s tool box.

An obvious feature of this tool box is that it is fashioned as a seat, having a contoured leather top, with an opening that allows the tools to be accessed or stored as they are needed.  The opening also serves as a handle, so the caulker could easily carry the box from location to location on the job.  Ostensibly, the caulker could use his tool box as a seat while eating his lunch—but more importantly, he would use it when working on the bottom of a hull that had been hauled out of water, and was too close to the ground to allow him to stand comfortably (sometimes caulkers fixed “rocker bottoms” to their seat boxes, allowing them to rock backward when working overhead).  This feature suggests that the owner of this box likely worked on smaller vessels than the large whalers.  The larger vessels were generally careened or “hove down” while afloat at the wharves so that their bottoms could be exposed for maintenance work.  The caulkers then worked from rafts alongside the vessels, and did not need to work from under the bottom.

A second feature of this box is that the tools arrayed in front of it, are in nice condition.  The owner took good care of them.  Many caulking tools, exposed as they are to salt water and the elements while working outside, are often rusted, pitted, with the ends of the irons peened from hard use.  These are not in that condition, because their owner cleaned and oiled them regularly.  The tools include five “caulking irons” of only two types.  Four of these (the pointed ones) are known as “clearing” or “reefing” irons, though there is little uniformity in the names of caulking irons, as regional and local names can dominate.  For instance, these reefing irons are also known as “jerry” or “cape” irons.  Whatever they may be called, they are seldom used as tampers to pound oakum into a seam, but rather are pounded with a mallet along the seam; with the point end forward, in order to clear the old caulking out of a seam before recaulking it.  The fifth caulking iron is known as a “double crease straight iron.”  It is the iron with the broad symmetrical foot.  This is a principal caulking iron—one that is used a lot.  “Double crease” means that the blunt edge of the iron is double the thickness of a “single crease” iron, and it usually is cupped in cross section.  This iron would be used on wider seams, or at the wide top of the seam at the surface.

Another tool in this group, called a reefing hook or raker, also is used to clean out a seam, removing the loosened old caulking, freed up by the reefing iron.  This particular raker is really a different tool, called a “race” knife.  A race knife is a special knife that cuts a groove or “race” in a plank—either to delineate the waterline on a hull, or more usually to cut identifying marks in planks or barrel staves, so their relationship to their neighbors can be told when the hull or a barrel is assembled..  At any rate, a race knife makes a nice raker for a caulker.  Its presence here tells us that the owner of this kit of tools was not only fastidious about their condition, but he was also frugal, using a tool cast off from a former purpose, and converting it to his particular use.

The final tool of interest in this kit is a standard caulking mallet (and a spare handle for that mallet).  Caulking mallets are quite specialized hammers.  The head is made of wood, and usually is from 10 to 16 inches long, strengthened by iron bands that gird the head on either side of the eye for the handle, and again, near the ends or “faces” of the head.  The wood used for caulking mallets has to be extremely hard and durable.  The fanciest ones may be made of rosewood or ebony, but the usual working caulking mallets use live oak, or especially, mesquite, as the wood of choice.  A particular feature, especially of many American caulking mallets, is a slot with blind ends, cut vertically through the head, between the iron bands on each side of the handle.  These slots, usually about 1/8 inch wide, can be 3 or 4 inches long, and sometimes are “stopped” at each end, with slightly larger holes bored by a drill or brace.  All of these features can be seen in the mallet belonging to the caulking kit.

The array of caulking irons in this kit, with the majority being jerry irons, suggests that this caulker probably worked in a team of from 5 to 30 men, and his particular specialty was clearing the old caulking from a seam, and cleaning it out (with the seam rakers), so that the caulkers working behind him could concentrate on pounding new oakum into the cleaned seams.  Those workers would have used a greater variety of caulking irons, including single and double crease straight irons, “bent” irons for working on seams at some reach away, narrow “spike” and “trunnel” irons for caulking around the spike and trunnels that fastened the planks to the ship’s frame.  Also, instead of using a cast-off race knife to serve as a seam raker, specialized irons called “reefing hooks” were used for this purpose.

Pictures of tool boxes and the workers that use them do have stories to tell!