In its announcement, AAM stated that reaccreditation is awarded only after a comprehensive yearlong examination and peer review of all aspects of the Whaling Museum’s mission, operations and programming. “Accreditation is emblematic of many things, the highest standards in museum operations, outstanding public programs, and long-term sustainability among them,” said Ford W. Bell, AAM president. “Accreditation is clearly a significant achievement. But put simply, it means the citizens of the communities served by these museums have in their midst one of America’s finest museums.”

In her letter to museum president, James Russell, Dr. Bonnie W. Styles, Chair of the AAM Accreditation Commission, wrote “We found the museum to be a highly performing organization that has a solid strategic plan, excellent community engagement and is dealing strategically and realistically with budget hardships. We particularly liked the three-tier intern apprenticeship program. The museum is also a good example of merging history and science together in exhibits and programming.”

Mr. Russell noted the importance of reaccreditation. “We are extremely proud of this achievement. It validates years of hard work on the part of our dedicated trustees, volunteers and staff – evaluated against the strictest professional and national standards. This honor elevates all of New Bedford and the South Coast region, and it reenergizes us in the continued building of a greater, stronger Whaling Museum,” he said.

AAM Accreditation recognizes the highest standards in individual museums and ensures that museums continue to uphold their public trust. Developed and sustained by museum professionals for 40 years, the AAM museum accreditation program is the field’s primary vehicle for quality assurance, self-regulation and public accountability.

Jim Lopes

James Lopes has been named Vice President, Education and Programming of the New Bedford Whaling Museum. In making the announcement today, James Russell, museum president said, “the trustees and staff are extremely excited that Jim will come on board. Jim has a deep passion for local history and culture that promises to bring the Museum more closely in touch with the diverse communities in the city. Moreover, his legal background as an entertainment lawyer is perfectly suited to leading a capable education team and volunteer corps. Jim will lead the institution to the next level with engaging and meaningful programs.”

Jim Lopes, a fourth generation New Bedford native, graduated with honors from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He is a practicing attorney and specializes in entertainment law, and has held executive positions at MCA-Universal Pictures, CBS-FOX Video, and Reader’s Digest. He was in private practice in New York City, where he was also a professor at the Audrey Cohen School for Human Services and Education, Metropolitan College of New York (MCNY). Currently, he is also an adjunct professor in Entertainment Law at UMass School of Law at Dartmouth, a trustee of Mass Humanities and a member of the Advisory Council of Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School.

Mr. Lopes has compiled an extensive genealogical database linking over 28,000 family members on six continents and numerous others who worked in the whaling, textiles and cranberry industries.

“I am looking forward to this challenging position. It is a first-rate opportunity to enrich and extend the Whaling Museum’s offerings to its growing constituency. I think one of the primary missions of the Museum should be to connect the story of whaling to the people. There is no better way to tell local history, international whaling history or the story of Old Dartmouth, than to tell the stories of the families who were involved. Those families come from everywhere and have moved on to everywhere,” Mr. Lopes said.

Mr. Lopes is an award-winning film producer of the documentary Race to Execution which focused on the issues of race and the death penalty and was broadcast nationally on PBS. Early in his career Mr. Lopes authored The Black Heritage Trail, the guide to Boston’s historic African-American community. He also contributed to the Official Boston Bicentennial Guidebook published in 1976.

Part of the senior management team, Lopes will head the education department with an annual budget of $1 million, which oversees several key activities of the museum, including public programming, apprenticeship and internship training, and the volunteer and docent corps.

Thanks to about 37 volunteers ranging in age from Museum interns and the students in the Maritime History Class at UMass Dartmouth to retired folks, the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s Crew List project is nearly complete.  So far, the names of crewmembers for almost 2200 voyages from 1855 to the end of American Whaling in 1927 have been entered into the database.  If you estimate 25 crew members at least for each voyage, that’s about 55,000 little lines in excel .  THANK YOU EVERYONE.

This is the sort of project the museum couldn’t have done without volunteer help.  Our information will be combined with the early years input by New Bedford Free Public Library some years ago, to provide the names of men who left New Bedford on Whaleships sailing form this port

The Museum is about to redesign its website.  This information, will be included in that design, available via the internet to whaling historians and to people trying to understand their own family history.   We will have this database up and running by Fall of.

Selected volunteers are invited to participate in a 10 week training course at the Museum, held Wednesday mornings throughout the fall beginning in early September. Prospective volunteers are asked to fill out an application available at http://www.whalingmuseum.org/volunteer/index.html (dates of course to be determined). Volunteers are not required to have previous knowledge about whales, the whaling industry or the history of New Bedford. During the course they will receive material covering all pertinent information.

Address all questions and comments to:

Brian Witkowski
Education Programs Assistant
18 Johnny Cake Hill
New Bedford, MA 02740
Tel (508) 997-0046 ext 185
Fax (508) 717-6883
bwitkowski@whalingmuseum.org

Louisa M. of Rochester, docent for 2 years: “One of the most rewarding experiences I have had since retiring from teaching has been volunteering for the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Being new to the area, this opportunity has given me a wonderful perspective on the South Coast and the rich history of this part of the state. The volunteer work is not just rewarding but is also a learning experience. Each time I am in, I learn something new or interesting from the other docents/volunteers, staff, and the wonderful visitors to our museum. I have also made some great new friends. I would highly recommend volunteering for the museum.”

Come visit the Whaling Museum for the last All Hands On program of the summer! Docents will be available to answer questions, read stories (upon request) and encourage children to touch, smell, and see the various objects related to whales and whaling that our sea chests hold!

Regular admission required

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)