The New Bedford Whaling Museum is a museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States that focuses on the history, science, art, and culture of the international whaling industry, and the colonial region of Old Dartmouth (now the city of New Bedford and towns of Acushnet, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, and Westport) in the South Coast of Massachusetts. The museum is governed by the Old Dartmouth Historical Society (ODHS), which was established in 1903 "to create and foster an interest in the history of Old Dartmouth."[2] Since then, the museum has expanded its scope to include programming that addresses global issues "including the consequences of natural resource exhaustion, the diversification of industry, and tolerance in a multicultural society."[3] Its collections include over 750,000 items, including 3,000 pieces of scrimshaw and 2,500 logbooks from whaling ships, both of which are the largest collections in the world, as well as five complete whale skeletons.[4] The museum's complex consists of several contiguous buildings housing 20 exhibit galleries and occupying an entire city block within the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, although operated independently.[5]
The museum also houses a collection of fine art, including works by major American artists who lived or worked in the New Bedford area, such as Albert Bierstadt, William Bradford, and Albert Pinkham Ryder, as well as a collection of locally produced decorative art, glassware, and furniture associated with the rise of New Bedford as a whaling port in the 19th century.
The museum's Bourne Building houses the Lagoda, a half-scale model of a whaling ship that was commissioned in 1916 and is the world's largest model whaling ship.
History
The entrance to the New Bedford Whaling Museum
On January 7, 1903, Ellis L. Howland, a news reporter for the Evening Standard, presented a paper urging the establishment of a historical society and a museum:
I believe that the need of a historical society arose not recently but generations ago when the history of New Bedford and vicinity commenced. Today we are suffering from the omission and if it is in the least deplorable it will be doubly a breach of our duty toward posterity to allow the lack to exist any longer ... True, there are a few old log books stored away in the public library or here and there in the closet of some private collector, but when one contemplates the tons and tons of them that have been ground up into wrapping paper of prosaic fiber wash tubs, the absence of a historical society becomes in our minds almost a crime.[6]
On 22 July 1903, the 100 founding constituents of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society selected William W. Crapo, a local lawyer and congressman, as their president. At first, the museum rented rooms to display and store artifacts in the Masonic Lodge on the corner of Pleasant and Union Streets. By 1904, their membership had grown to almost 700, and collections had been expanded to include some 560 artifacts.
In 1906, Henry Huttleston Rogers donated the Bank of Commerce Building on Water Street to the ODHS for the purpose of establishing a museum. One year later, the New Bedford Whaling Museum was opened.
The New Bedford Whaling Museum grew considerably during the 1910s and 1920s. In 1914, the ODHS appointed Frank Wood as the curator and first full-time staff member. In 1915, Emily Bourne donated the Bourne Building in memory of her father, Jonathan Bourne Jr. She also contributed funds for the construction of a half-sized model of her father's ship Lagoda, which was built inside the Bourne Building in 1916. Nationwide interest in whaling history was raised by the 1922 film Down to the Sea in Ships, which was filmed in New Bedford and featured many New Bedford locals dressed up in their grandparents' clothing as extras.
By the 1930s, the New Bedford Whaling Museum was attracting four to ten thousand visitors a year, most of whom were from out of town. The museum further expanded with the bequest of the Wood Building by Annie Seabury Wood in 1935. In 1936, the museum acquired its first whale skeleton, a three-year-old humpback whale known as Quasimodo.[7] In the words of curator William Tripp, "We are no longer a whaling museum without a whale, as some in the past have chosen to call us."
The anti-whaling movement of the 1970s led Curator of Ethnology John R. Bockstoce to research and compile the most complete data on the bowhead whale to date, reestablishing the importance of the preservation of historical whaling documents.
In 1996, the museum played a large role in establishing a New Bedford Whaling National Historic Park, a national park that includes several New Bedford historical sites, including the Seamen's Bethel, which is located across the street from the Whaling Museum. The museum features a twenty-minute short film titled The City that Lit the World courtesy of the National Park Service. 1996 was also the year of the first annual Moby-Dick Marathon Reading.
In 1998, the New Bedford Whaling Museum collaborated with the Azorean Maritime Heritage Society to build the Azorean Whaleman Gallery, an exhibition devoted to the contributions of Azorean sailors and whaleboat builders to US whaling history. In August 2000, the Jacobs Family Gallery was built thanks to the donation of Irwin and Joan Jacobs. The humpback whale skeleton Quasimodo was moved to the new Jacobs Family Gallery and suspended alongside a new juvenile blue whale skeleton, named KOBO (King of the Blue Ocean).
In October 2001, negotiations began to merge the Kendall Whaling Museum, which was founded in 1955 by Henry P. Kendall and opened in 1956, with the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The merger was finalized in October 2001, and the Kendall Whaling Museum's artifacts were moved to the New Bedford Whaling Museum by November 2002. As a result, the museum added some 70,000 artifacts to its collections, effectively doubling its size. To accommodate all these artifacts, the museum acquired a former bank building on Purchase Street three blocks west of the museum campus on Johnny Cake Hill. The Purchase Street Building housed the museum's Research Library for several years; in 2017 it moved to a new building on the main museum campus.[8][9][10]
In 2002, the New Bedford Whaling Museum partnered with the Melville Society, and it now houses their extensive Melville collection in the Research Library.
In 2002, the museum acquired the skeleton of a sperm whale, and in 2008, it acquired the skeleton of a North Atlantic right whale which was pregnant at the time of its death.[11][12]
In 2012, the Whaling Museum was featured in an episode of Four Weddings on TLC as one of the brides had her wedding reception at the museum.[13][14]
The Lagoda in the Bourne Building of the New Bedford Whaling Museum
The museum's Jonathan Bourne Building houses the Lagoda, a half-scale model built in 1916 of the ship Lagoda owned by Jonathan Bourne Jr. The Lagoda is 89 feet (27m) in length and has a mainmast 50 feet (15m) in height, making it the world's largest model whaling ship. It is fully rigged and showcases some of the supplies needed for an extended whaling voyage.
Azorean Whaleman Gallery
The Bourne Building also houses a permanent installation that explores the Azorean impact on the growth and development of Southern New England and of New Bedford in particular, which is home to a vibrant Azorean community. The exhibit contains many artifacts related to whaling in the Azores and the islanders' journey to a new life in the US via a "bridge of whale ships." The exhibit features a half-scale model of an Azorean whaleboat and a vigia, an Azorean whaling lookout.
Skeletons of the Deep
The blue whale skeleton known as KOBO (King of the Blue Ocean) at the New Bedford Whaling Museum
The museum is home to five fully articulated whale skeletons: a blue whale, a humpback whale, a sperm whale, and a pregnant mother and fetus North Atlantic right whale. All of the specimens came from animals that either died accidentally or by undetermined circumstances, and were not killed as a result of whaling. The first skeleton to be acquired was a 37-foot (11m) three-year-old male humpback whale named Quasimodo, which died in 1932. The blue whale is a 66-foot (20m) juvenile male named KOBO. The sperm whale is a 48-foot (15m) 30-year-old male. The right whales include a 49-foot (15m) 15-year-old female named Reyna that was ten months pregnant and her fetus.[15]
Harbor Hope in Old Dartmouth, 1602–1827
This exhibit explores the region of Old Dartmouth from the 1602 landing of English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold to the dominance of New Bedford in the whaling industry. It explores themes related to religion, geography, and maritime commerce, which combined to influence the colonial growth of southeastern Massachusetts and the ultimate success of the port of New Bedford, which surpassed Nantucket as the US's largest whaling center around 1827.
Publications
Bulletin from Johnny Cake Hill. A magazine published triannually by the New Bedford Whaling Museum and distributed to members. The magazine's topics include whaling history, local history, marine and landscape painting, decorative arts, exhibitions, and lectures.
Blanchette, David. (2013). Xico: A Boy, A Rat, and a Whaleship. New Bedford, Massachusetts: Old Dartmouth Historical Society–New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Blasdale, Mary Jean. (2012). American Landscape and Seascape Paintings. New Bedford, Massachusetts: Old Dartmouth Historical Society–New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Frank, Stuart M. (2012). Ingenious Contrivances, Curiously Carved: Scrimshaw in the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Boston, Massachusetts: David R. Godine in association with the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Kauppila, Keith (2014). Benjamin Russell: Whaleman-Artist, Entrepreneur. New Bedford, Massachusetts: Old Dartmouth Historical Society–New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Kugler Richard C. (1975). New Bedford and Old Dartmouth: A Portrait of the Region's Past. New Bedford, Massachusetts: Old Dartmouth Historical Society–New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Kugler, Richard. C. (1978). William Allen Wall: An Artist of New Bedford. New Bedford, Massachusetts: Old Dartmouth Historical Society–New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Lapides, Michael. (2013). The Arctic Regions: Illustrated with Photographs Taken on an Art Expedition to Greenland by William Bradford. Boston, Massachusetts: David R. Godine in association with the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Lund, Judith N., et al. (2010). American Offshore Whaling Voyages, 1667–1927, Vol. I and II. New Bedford, Massachusetts: Old Dartmouth Historical Society–New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Lund, Judith N.; Wall, R. Michael. (2013). Ship Models: Art and Artifacts from the New Bedford Whaling Museum. New Bedford, Massachusetts: Old Dartmouth Historical Society–New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Monica, Maria F. (2013). The Dabneys: A Bostonian Family in the Azores, 1806–1871. New Bedford, Massachusetts: Luso-American Development Foundation in cooperation with the Old Dartmouth Historical Society–New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Old Dartmouth Historical Society Sketches. (1903–1994). Topics related to the history of Southeastern Massachusetts by various authors. New Bedford, Massachusetts: Old Dartmouth Historical Society–New Bedford Whaling Museum.
La Pérouse Strait, or Sōya Strait, is a strait dividing the southern part of the Russian island of Sakhalin from the northern part of the Japanese island of Hokkaidō, and connecting the Sea of Japan on the west with the Sea of Okhotsk on the east.
Scrimshaw is scrollwork, engravings, and carvings done in bone or ivory. Typically it refers to the artwork created by whalers, engraved on the byproducts of whales, such as bones or cartilage. It is most commonly made out of the bones and teeth of sperm whales, the baleen of other whales, and the tusks of walruses.
Shelikhov Gulf is a large gulf off the northwestern coast of Kamchatka, Russia. The gulf is named after Russian explorer Grigory Shelikhov.
Penzhina Bay is a long and narrow bay off the northwestern coast of Kamchatka, Russia.
Zavyalov Island, formerly Ola Island, is a relatively large island in the Sea of Okhotsk, northwestern Pacific. It is located on the eastern side of Taui Bay, 20 km (12 mi) west of Cape Taran, Koni Peninsula, about 50 km (31 mi) south of the city of Magadan.
The Spafaryev Islands, or Spafaryev Island, a relatively large double island, are located in the Sea of Okhotsk. It was formerly known as Korovi Island. It lies 7 km east of the Antamlan Peninsula, the southernmost peninsula enclosing the Taui Bay from its western side.
Nedorazumeniya Island is an island on the north coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. It lies on the north side of Taui Bay, between Amakhton Bay to the west and Nagaev Bay to the east. It is about 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of the city of Magadan.
Taui Bay is a body of water in the Sea of Okhotsk off the coast of the Magadan Oblast in Russia. The bay opens to the south.
The Yam Islands, Yamsky Islands or Yamskiye Islands, is a small island group located close to the coast in the northern Sea of Okhotsk. Administratively the Yam Islands belong to the Magadan Oblast of the Russian Federation.
The Lagoda is a half-scale model of the whaling ship Lagoda, located at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The original ship was built in 1826, converted to a whaling ship in 1841, and broken up in 1899. The model was commissioned in 1916 and is the world's largest whaling ship model.
KOBO is the skeleton of a 66-foot-long (20 m) juvenile blue whale on display at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The whale was accidentally struck and killed by a tanker and brought ashore in Rhode Island in March 1998. It was named by New Bedford sixth-grade student Katie Hallett and put on display in 2000. It shares the gallery with three other whale skeletons: a 37-foot (11 m) male humpback, a 49-foot (15 m) female North Atlantic right whale who was pregnant at the time of her death, and the right whale's fetus.
The Nantucket Whaling Museum is a museum located in Nantucket, Massachusetts. It is run by the Nantucket Historical Association. The Whaling Museum is the flagship site of the Nantucket Historical Association’s fleet of properties.
Ulban Bay is a bay in the northwestern Sea of Okhotsk, just south of the Shantar Islands. It is a southern branch of Academy Bay to the north. The Syran and Ulban rivers flow into its head.
Maly Shantar Island is a small, narrow island in the northwestern Sea of Okhotsk, one of the Shantar Islands.
Sakharnaya Golova is a small island in the northwestern Sea of Okhotsk. It is part of the Shantar Islands National Park.
Academy Bay is a large bay in the Tuguro-Chumikansky District of Khabarovsk Krai, Russian Federation.
Cape Bol'shoy Dugandzha is a headland in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia.
Glinyanyy Island is a small island on the east side of Gizhigin Bay, in the northeastern Sea of Okhotsk. It is cone shaped.
Jonathan Bourne Jr. (1811—1889) was a whaling agent and merchant who lived and worked in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
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