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.

Press Release

Part of Cape Verdean Recognition Week events, Cape Verde 550/35 will feature the Mendes Brothers, an award-winning musical group. Presented in partnership with the New Bedford Historical Society, New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park and the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the evening will highlight music, video, photography, and literature of Cape Verde:

Cape Verde 550/35, A Multimedia Celebration

In conjunction with their release of a new album, the award-winning musical group Mendes Brothers have created a multimedia historical retrospective of Cape Verde. The new album, Porton de Regresso 1 (The Gate of Return 1), in commemoration of the 550th Anniversary of the discovery of the Cape Verde Islands, is part of a two-album series paying tribute to Cape Verde’s founding city, Ribera Grande de Santiago (Cidade Velha), a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Porton de Regresso 1 is being presented to the public in a series of album release events around the world. Following the U.S. releases, the Mendes Brothers will travel to Cape Verde for a commemorative official album launch at Cidade Velha, Santiago.

Written, composed and produced by the brothers, Porton de Regresso 1 is a celebration of Cape Verde’s history and the victorious journey of her people.  The album chronicles the archipelago’s central role as the first permanent European settlement in Africa and the cradle of the New World – the model multicultural and multiracial society that became the Americas and the Caribbean. A tribute to Ribeira Grande de Santiago, Porton de Regresso 1 is dedicated to the people of Cape Verde and to all people of African descent living in the New World in celebration of their mutual triumph over the challenges of the last 550 years.

Panel Discussion

The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion of Cape Verde’s road to independence and how Cape Verdean-Americans contributed to the effort.  Panelists will include PAIGC and community activists Yvonne Smart and Salah Mateus among others.

Book Fair

Presented by the National Library and press of Cape Verde, hard-to-find books about the history and culture of Cape Verde will be available for sale. Works by Cape Verdean authors and others, primarily in Portuguese or Cape Verdean Creole will include a wide range of topics on Cape Verdean poets, writers, maritime history, the arts of Cape Verde, its music, theater and literature, as well as histories of individual islands, cities, villages, families and more.

Presenting Partners

The Cape Verdean Recognition Committee was originally established in 1973 by a volunteer group composed of members of the Cape Verdean-American Veterans’ Association, its Ladies Auxiliary, and interested and dedicated people from the community. The Committee’s goal is to increase awareness of Cape Verdean-American culture and history. Beginning June 27, 2010, the Committee celebrates Cape Verdean Recognition Week, which this year includes a Scholarship Awards Ceremony on July 1st and the annual Cape Verdean Recognition Parade on July 3rd.

MB Global Media: The Mendes Brothers, Ramiro and João Mendes are artists, composers and humanitarians from Cape Verde who have dedicated their entire career to innovating the music of Cape Verde and promoting unity and peace in Africa and the world.  The 1996 winners of the Boston Music Awards for Outstanding World Music Act, the Mendes Brothers are the pioneers of Cape Verde’s Bandera and Talaia Baxu music revolution. With over 150 recorded compositions and 40 plus albums to their production credit, the Mendes Brothers are one of the leading forces behind the modern arrangement and production of Cape Verdean music.

For more information contact:

A  fascinating  discussion about the relationship between emerging technologies, primary source research, and libraries. (Run time, 1:54 minutes, takes a while to get to the meat of the topic). Posted online via MIT World™, a free and open site that provides on demand video of significant public events at MIT.

“Perhaps because he is a historian rather than librarian by training, Robert Darnton regards the vast ocean of digital information that civilization has begun accumulating with relish rather than anxiety. Darnton delves into European archives to find raw material, boxes of cast-off “ephemera,” for his stories of how people lived hundreds of years ago. No wonder he believes “it’s important to preserve as much as you can because you don’t know what will turn out to be significant.”

In conversation with David Thorburn and audience members, Darnton lays out why he finds more promise than peril in rapidly expanding digital collections.”

All Tied Up

In the days of Yankee whaling, staying connected to the whale you harpooned was critical if you were going to turn that animal into the products that made money for the ship owners and crew.  A vital part of the capture operation was the rope that ran from harpoon to whale boat.  That rope linked you to the whale, and ultimately to the success of your hunt.

In recent decades, the opposite is true.  Maximum effort is made to disconnect any lines that are found attached to whales.  Disentanglement teams, sinking ropes, cooperation among a variety of resource users and new legislation comprise the current, ongoing efforts to keep the ropes away from the whales.

Michael Dyer, Maritime Curator, New Bedford Whaling Museum has devoted a great deal of his research efforts to thoroughly understanding the process of the boat-based whale hunt.  Mike’s presentation will guide you through the process of getting fast to, staying with, and bringing to ship’s starboard staging, the whales targeted by our ships.

Charles ‘Stormy’ Mayo, Senior Scientist, Director of the Right Whale Habitat Studies program at Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies has over two decades of experience in the risky but often rewarding field of whale disentanglement.  He will share several experiences of the vital work that he and the staff at PCCS, in conjunction with a variety of federal and state agencies and university programs, lead along the East Coast to free whales from the lines that restrict movement and endanger survival.

Man and Whales will continue on March 31, April 14 and May 19, each night at 7:30 pm in the New Bedford Whaling Museum theater.  Admission is free for all presentations.  Man and Whales: Changing Views Through Time is sponsored through ECHO (Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations) a program administered by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement.

New Year’s resolutions are a perennial topic this time of year. For most of us, following through on them is a perennial challenge. So it was for New Bedford’s first historian, Daniel Ricketson (1813-1898). A man of letters, Ricketson, hosted some of the great literary minds of the 19th century at his country estate, Brooklawn. These friends included Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and A. Bronson Alcott.

Last year marked the 150^th anniversary of the publication of Ricketson’s History of New Bedford. But of all his writings, the work he kept close at hand was a little booklet he apparently never published. Its 16 pages of well-worn blue paper were handwritten, which he bound with needle and thread. Ricketson titled it “Rules of Conduct, Hints,” Written in 1863, it is preserved among the 100,000 manuscripts at the Whaling Museum’s Research Library.

On the cover Ricketson also printed, “In hoc signo vinces I.H.S.”, the motto on the imperial standard of the Emperor Constantine, meaning “In this sign you will conquer,” and one of the earliest monograms of Christianity, I.H.S. In the pages that followed, Ricketson set down his “Rules: Imprimus” for personal goodness in 16 resolutions:

1. To invoke on rising, The Spirit of Truth as my guide, and support through the day.

2. To take whatever is set before me at table with thankfulness.

3. To guard my lips from all harshness, and to speak in a low, and gentle tone of voice, however earnest I may be.

4. To cultivate patience towards all and to remember in my efforts to reform, that the welfare of the evildoer is to be considered, as well as that of the sufferer, if possible.

5. In my religious communications, to keep close to the Spirit of Truth, and avoid extravagant expressions.

6. I fear that I am a poor listener, and I would thrive henceforth to be less eager to communicate knowledge then to receive.

7. In my ordinary intercourse with mankind, I must strive to be more silent, and reserve my communication for public occasions when I can address a larger number and spare myself and others the fatigue of a too excited conversation.

8. To endeavour more and more to live in the Spirit of Purity and Love and to keep my mind in as close a communication with our Heavenly Father as possible.

9. To govern my thoughts as well as my words and deeds.

10. To beware of over estimation of myself, and remember as a caution, that from self-examination for more than ten years past, I have been convinced that my sphere in life is a small one – that neither nature nor education has fitted me to occupy any very high position, nor does my calmer and better judgment lead me to choose other than a humbler walk in life.

11. Above all else, I desire to be a good man, for which end I must still strive, though now so far from the great description of success herein.

12. To forbear judgment upon the words and works of others until I have well established grounds for decision.

13. To cultivate a mild and genial demeanor towards all and to learn to listen more patiently.

14. To avoid all heated arguments, and particularly too earnest talks in the evening, which I always find productive of unpleasant excitement to my brain and consequent poor sleep and lassitude the next day.

15. To endeavour also, when I have honestly, though perhaps too fiercely spoken my convictions, to leave it in the hands of the Lord, and give myself no further concerns herein.

16. To avoid criticisms on others as much as possible, and to endeavour to make every possible allowance for the infirmities of human nature.

Over the years, Ricketson reviewed these resolutions and noted on the final page his desire to have done better to follow them:

Alas, how little have I improved these good intentions. Aug. 27^th 1869. D. R.

- Even to the present time. May 25^th 1871

- And until now. Dec. 9^th 1883

Ricketson’s famous friend, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”