New Bedford Whaling Museum
Overview
The largest museum in America devoted to the history of whaling, it houses an extensive collection of art and artifacts relating to this industry during the age of sail.Contact Information
18 Johnny Cake HillNew Bedford, Massachusetts 02740-6398
United States
Description
The Museum's 107-year history reveals an intimate relationship with the communities it serves. Motivated by civic pride and a desire to preserve the artifacts and narratives of the region, the museum was founded by the children of the progenitors of the American whaling industry. The Old Dartmouth Historical Society was established "to create and foster an interest in the history of Old Dartmouth (now the City of New Bedford, Acushnet, Dartmouth, Fairhaven and Westport, MA). This area incorporates more than 185 square miles with a population exceeding 180,000. Today, members hail from many more communities. The steady growth of its collection, programming, membership and physical plant illustrate the museum's relevancy to these communities. A touchstone to the region's past, the museum has evolved as a crossroads through which diverse communities intersect, conveying their rich cultures. The Museum can claim many superlatives amongst its holdings including the world's largest: library of whaling logbooks, prints, journals; collection of scrimshaw; Japanese whaling art and literature outside of Japan; Dutch Old Master marine paintings in the New World. The Museum's complete coverage of 19th and 20th century whaling technology makes it a global center for scholarly research. The Museum is home to the world's largest ship model, Lagoda, a half-scale whale ship built in 1916 by the aging shipwrights of New Bedford's famed fleet. The Museum displays four species of complete whale skeletons, including a Blue whale, the world's largest mammal plus a mother and fetus of the highly endangered Northern Atlantic Right whale. The magnitude of the collection was a critical factor in the establishment in 1996 of New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, in which the Museum played a primary role. The Museum also takes great pride in its docents and volunteers who, like the founders, are united in their civic pride, sense of place and esprit de corps. The Museum's longevity has burnished its mission as a historical and cultural treasury. A keeper of the region's collective memory, the Museum preserves communal engrams, memory traces of the many communities that settled in this port. The Museum teaches lessons relevant to the pressing global issues of today, including the consequences of natural resource exhaustion, the diversification of industry, and tolerance in a multicultural society.