New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Massachusetts

Established in 1907 and operated by the Old Dartmouth Historical Society, the museum occupies an entire city block in New Bedford and recounts the history of the whaling industry and the 'Old Dartmouth' area, comprising the towns and cities along the southern coast of Massachusetts.  The museum's inventory spans seven continents and seven centuries and commemorates the skill, industry, craftsmanship, and artistry inspired by whaling.  It contains over 750,000 items in 20 galleries, including the world's largest collection of scrimshaw (whale ivory carvings) and whaling ship logbooks, as well as whaling tools, works of fine and decorative art, glassware, and furniture acquired by New Bedford's wealthy whaling merchants.  Five complete whale skeletons are displayed inside the museum, and the Cook Memorial Theatre plays films on whaling, fishing, and local history.  A research library caters to scholars of the whaling industry and, in 2002, the museum partnered with the Melville Society to house the latter's extensive collection related to Moby Dick author Herman Melville.

Photos taken 23 August 2014

The main entrance to the New Bedford Whaling Museum.  The Museum is housed in the former Bank of Commerce Building on Water Street, which was donated to the Old Dartmouth Historical Society by industrialist and financier Henry Huttleston Rogers in 1906 for the purpose of housing the museum's collection.

The distinctive whale weathervane atop the cupola on the roof of the Jonathan Bourne Building, one of the galleries of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.  The construction of the building (completed in 1915) was financed by his daughter, Emily Howland Bourne, to honour her father and preserve New Bedford's whaling legacy.    

A skeleton of a 37-foot long male humpback whale in the museum's main entrance hall.  This whale was found washed up dead on an island off the southern coast of Martha's Vineyard in 1932, and has been hanging in the museum since 1936, and here in the main entrance hall (the Jacobs Family Gallery) since 2000.  The carcass was stripped of its flesh and buried in the sand to further clean the bones, followed by placement on the museum's roof to dry and bleach under the sun for three years.  Slow-swimming humpback whales follow a regular migration route, spending summers feeding in polar waters and wintering in tropical waters, where they mate and give birth; female humpbacks produce one calf every 2-3 years.  Humpback populations have slowly recovered following the ban on commercial whaling enacted in 1966 and further strengthened in 1985, with about 30,000 now alive.  Humpback whales can grow up to 50 feet (15.2 metres) and weigh up to 50,000 pounds (36,287 kilograms).  They use their baleen to strain up 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms) of krill and small fish each day, using gulping, lunging, or 'bubble netting' tactics.  Male humpback whales sing long, complex songs lasting between 20 and 40 minutes, which may change each season.   

The Jacobs Family Gallery, in which are displayed the skeletons of a blue whale, a humpback whale, and a right whale with her unborn calf.  The right whale on display was a 49 foot (14.9 metre) long, 15-year old female whose left fluke was cut off by a ship's propeller in November 2004, killing both the whale and her ten-month old unborn fetus.  The Jacobs Family Gallery gallery also contains various ship models, nautical artefacts, and large wall maps and imagery.

A scale model of the Charles W. Morgan, a whaling ship built in New Bedford in 1841.  The Morgan made 37 voyages during 80 years of service, harvesting 54,483 barrels of spermaceti and whale oil and 152,934 pounds of whalebone from catches in the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic.  Over 1,000 whalemen served aboard the Morgan during her lifetime (approximately 33 men per voyage), including many sailors from Cape Verde, New Zealand, the Seychelles, Guadeloupe, and Norfolk Island.  The Morgan is the only surviving American whaling ship and is now homeported at the Mystic Seaport museum in Mystic, Connecticut.

In the foreground, a 66-foot juvenile blue whale skeleton named KOBO (King of the Blue Ocean) hangs from the ceiling of the New Bedford Whaling Museum's Jacobs Family Gallery.  Although this whale died after colliding with a ship in March 1998 and has been hanging in the gallery since 2000, oil continues to drip out of its skull to this day.  Scientists estimate the seepage could continue until 2060 or later.  The core of whale bones are soft, spongy, and very oily.  The surface of the bone is porous, which allows the oil to move in and out of the bone while the whale is alive.  Whales use this stored oil as food during the times of the year when they do not eat, and thus up to 1/3 of the oil harvested from a dead whale comes from its bones.   Blue whales grow to a length of 80-100 feet (24.4-30.5 metres) and weigh 200,000 pounds (90,718 kilograms) or more.  A blue whale calf drinks approximately 100 gallons (440.5 litres) of its mother's milk and gains 200 pounds (90.7 kilograms) each day.  A single adult blue whale can consume up to 8,000 pounds (3,629 kilograms) of krill each day.  Currently, about 1,500 blue whales remain in the Northern Hemisphere, with 6,000-12,000 in the Southern Hemisphere.

A wall map plots out the location of each whale killed in the world's oceans over the course of the commercial whaling industry.  The plots are known from the vessels' logbooks.

The full skeleton of a 48-foot juvenile sperm whale is the centerpiece in the museum's principal gallery, From Pursuit to Preservation: the Global Story of Whales & Whaling.  The gallery focuses on the environmental, economic, and social impacts of whaling on the world.  This whale died after beaching on Nantucket Island in June 2002, with installation in this gallery complete by March 2005.  As the signage in the gallery notes, whales have represented different things to different people over time: the power of nature, the mystery of the unknown, a monstrous foe, a spiritual guardian, or a source of wealth.  Today, whales are as likely to be seen as a symbol of mankind's place in a fragile natural world deeply impacted by our actions.

A whaling boat of the type carried aboard whale ships and used to chase down whales spotted by the ship's lookouts.  The faster, more manoeuverable boats used sails and/or oars to come alongside a whale and harpoon it, after which the whale would be towed back to the ship to be cut apart and rendered down for its oil.  Whales have been hunted since ancient times for their meat, oil, bone, and baleen; however, it was the 19th century's industrial scale whaling that generated huge profits but also brought the global whale populations to the brink of extinction by the mid-20th century.   

A displays of harpoons, knives, and other butchering implements used in whaling over the years.  These commercial whaling tools were made from iron and steel and designed for heavy-duty, repetitive use.  Inventors of whaling tools offered regular modifications and adapted new technologies, such as firearms, to improve the lethality of these items.

A whale ship's wheel on display.

The world's largest model ship, the whaling ship Lagoda, resides here in the museum's Jonathan Bourne Building, built in 1915 specifically to house the model.  The building was the gift of Emily Bourne, daughter of whaling merchant Jonathan Bourne Jr., and the Lagoda was constructed inside.

The half-scale Lagoda is a fully-rigged whale ship measuring 59 feet (18 metres) long and 50 feet (15.2 metres) high at the mainmast, and is depicted in readiness for an extended whaling voyage.  Visitors may climb aboard and explore the ship.  The real Lagoda was built in Scituate, Massachusetts in 1826 and carried cow hides from California to Boston.  Bought by Jonathan Bourne Jr in 1841 and refitted as a whale ship, the Lagoda made 16 whaling voyages all around the world between 1841 and 1890, working out of both New Bedford and San Francisco.  For her first eight voyages, between 1841 and 1860, Lagoda was rigged as a ship, after which she was re-rigged as a bark and remained so until the end of her life.  The ship was condemned in Yokohama, Japan as unfit for further service in 1890.

The half-scale replica try-works aboard the model of Lagoda.  The try-works consisted of a brick furnace into which were set large iron pots.  The pots ranged from 140 to 220 gallons (530 to 833 litres).  A fire was lit in the furnace and large chunks of cut-up blubber from a whale carcass would be placed inside each pot using a long-handled fork.  In a process called 'trying-out', the heat from the furnace caused the oil to be cooked out of the blubber.  The remaining scraps of skin would be removed from the pot using a large strainer and thrown into the furnace to keep the fire burning while the pots were refilled with more fresh blubber.  The whale oil would be ladled out of the try-works' iron pots and poured into a cooling tank, later to be transferred to wooden casks that would be unloaded once the ship returned to port.  The introduction of try-works aboard American whale ships around 1750 allowed whales to be hunted in the open ocean and their blubber to be immediately rendered into oil without the need to return to port for this processing.  The try-works were especially useful when hunting sperm whales, which were only found in the deep ocean, far from land.  

The Harpoons and Whalecraft exhibit in Bourne Hall traces the development of the weapons used to hunt whales.  The high-risk business of whaling drove innovations in design, creating a wide range of harpoons, lances, bow-chaser cannons, shoulder guns, and explosive devices.  Each implement had its specific purpose, from harpoons to snare the whale, to knives used to slit a hole in the dead whale to receive the blubber hook, to long spades to slice strips of blubber from the carcass, and other cutting tools to cut those strips into manageable pieces for rendering down.     

Various implements of the whaling industry.  These pots were used in the try-works aboard a whale ship to boil down whale blubber for oil.  With coastal whale migration routes passing along the eastern seaboard of North America, many New England port towns were involved in the whaling industry, which provided oil for lamp light and industrial uses. But it was the success of New Bedford-based whaling vessels by the early 19th century that earned the town its reputation as 'the City that Lit the World' and the 'Whaling Capital of the World'.  Indeed, New Bedford's whaling fleet grew from 10 vessels in 1813 to over 80 by 1828, making the town the dominant whaling port in the region.  The whaling industry beget whale oil refineries, candleworks, metal works, barrel-making factories, shipbuilding, and banks and insurance companies.

The different grades of whale oil.  In the left beaker, oil from the blubber of sperm whales brought good profits.  The middle beaker contains the low value 'brown and stinking' oil harvested from a pilot whale.  The beaker on the right contains pure spermaceti oil taken from the head of the sperm whale; this was the most highly-prized oil and was used in candle manufacturing due to its clean-burning nature.

A scale model of the whale ship Alice Mandell, constructed at Rochester, Massachusetts in 1851.  Unlike whalers converted from merchant vessels, ships like the Alice Mandell were purpose-built as whalers.  In addition to the try-works installed aboard, they were characterised by a cutting stage used to cut up whales hauled alongside the ship; cutting tackles used to haul the blubber; specialised six-man whaleboats used as hunting boats; a windlass for heavy lifting; a large and spacious hull to hold large numbers of whale oil-filled casks; a grinding wheel used to keep tools sharp; and a sturdy build to withstand extreme sea conditions.  The Alice Mandell was primarily designed to hunt Northwest Pacific right whales and made two voyages to the North Pacific between 1851 and 1857. It was on the second voyage that she was wrecked at Pratas Shoals in the China Sea, with four of her crew being killed.  

Looking down at the half-scale model of the whale ship Lagoda from the second floor gallery of the Bourne Building.  The real Lagoda was a typical merchant vessel of the 1820s, measuring 107 feet (36.2 metres) long, with a deck 26.5 feet (8 metres) wide, and a depth of hold of 13 feet (4 metres).  Weighing 340 tons, Jonathan Bourne Jr thought her ideal for whaling, given that many whale ships of that time were converted merchant vessels.  Interestingly, the Lagoda had false gunports painted on her sides to appear as if she were armed with cannons; this was to discourage pirates or other unfriendly vessels that might be encountered on a long whaling voyage.   

A view of New Bedford's harbour from the observation deck of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

The Art of the Ship Model gallery displays models from the collection of the New Bedford Whaling Museum and others on loan.  The gallery encourages visitors to recognise ship modelling as a legitimate form of decorative art and contains examples of yachts, American whaleboats, half-hull models, Arctic small craft, and whaling vessels from the age of sail to today.

A glass case contains several models of the American whale ship Charles W. Morgan, constructed by different individuals of varying skill level.

A display of American whaleboats from the age of sail.

A scale model of the hermaphrodite brig Kate Cory, by professional marine model builder Erik A.R. Ronnberg Jr.  The model is notable for its mosaic-like copper sheathing plates on the hull, detailed stitching on the cloth sails, and intricate splices in the rigging.  The real Kate Cory was 75.5 feet (23 metres) long and built in 1856 at Westport, Massachusetts.  She was captured and burned by the Confederate raider CSS Alabama in April 1863 during her fifth whaling voyage from Westport.

A scale model of the bark California, built by professional marine model builder Roger Hambidge and commissioned by artist William Gilkerson for his illustration in American Whalers in the Western Arctic.  A sister ship of the whale ship Charles W. Morgan, California was also built in New Bedford in 1842 and measured 115 feet (35 metres) in length.  Re-rigged as a bark in 1892 for Arctic whaling, California made 13 voyages from New Bedford between 1842 and 1892 before moving to San Francisco for another 14 whaling voyages.    

A scale model of the steel, propeller-driven whaler Scapa, built by Smith's Dock Company Ltd in South Bank, UK in 1924.  Scapa was one of three sister ships, the others being Silva and Sonja.  The concept of steam-powered catcher boats was developed by Norwegian Sven Foyn, who in 1870 perfected the combination of a powered vessel and a bow-mounted harpoon cannon, in the process revolutionising the whaling industry.  These small catcher boats were able to kill even the fastest whales efficiently and deliver them to a factory mother ship for processing.  Many countries, including the United States, adopted the factory ship/catcher boats combination for their own whaling operations; however, the Norwegians dominated the whaling industry in the 20th century.   

The whaleboat Açores, built in New Bedford by João Tavares, a master boat builder from Santa Cruz das Ribeiras, Pico in the Azores, and a team of international volunteers.  Although traditional Azorean whaleboats are constructed from native Azorean timber and timber imported from Finland and Argentina, Açores is built principally from western red cedar and Douglas fir, along with some yellow pine and white oak, and fastened by over one thousand copper rivets and roves.  Azorean whaleboats were adapted from the familiar American design to be longer and more sleek, with room for a seventh crewman.  With much experience working aboard American whale ships, by the 1890s Azorean islanders had begun their own shore-based whaling operations focused on sperm whales.  From dawn to dusk, lookouts on the hills overlooking the ocean would watch for whale spouts and, once spotted, would communicate the sightings to the baleeiros (whalers) waiting with their whaleboats already prepared.  The baleeiros would row out to the location of the whales to commence the hunt.  By the 1930s, the whaleboats were towed to the vicinity of the whales by motorboats called lanchas, with the hunt commencing using the traditional handheld lances and harpoons.  The lanchas would tow any dead whales back to the shore to be cut up at specially-prepared work stations, where the blubber, meat, and bone was processed into fertiliser, livestock feed, and oil.  The Azorean whaling industry lasted until the 1980s.    

A scale model of the F/V Concordia, a modern fishing vessel built at the Fairhaven Shipyard in Fairhaven, Massachusetts and launched in December 2011. 

A gallery devoted to the history of Old Dartmouth, the southern coastal region of Massachusetts, comprising the towns of New Bedford, Fairhaven, Dartmouth, Westport, and Achushnet, settled largely by Quakers and Baptists.  The figurehead depicts Bartholomew Gosnold, the English lawyer, explorer, and privateer who was instrumental in the founding of the Virginia Company in London and the Jamestown colony in Virginia, and is also credited with making the first landing on Cape Cod (at Provincetown) on 15 May 1602.

A gallery dedicated to the glassware manufactured by local companies, including Pairpoint and Mt. Washington Glass.  The city's first glassworks, the New Bedford Glass Company, was built in 1866 and taken over by Mt. Washington Glass in 1869, which itself was bought by the Pairpoint Manufacturing Company in 1894.  The high-quality cut glass, chandeliers, and everyday glassware produced in New Bedford competed with the better-known Steuben company in Corning, New York.

A display of elegant, decorative lamps manufactured by the Pairpoint glass company of New Bedford.  The Pairpoint reverse-painted and 'puffy' table lamps were world-renowned.  Pairpoint went out of business in 1957, undercut by cheap imported glassware from postwar Europe.

Several examples of scrimshaw, hand-engraved folk art made by sailors using the bones, baleen, and teeth of whales and walruses.  During periods of inactivity at sea, many sailors would carve scrimshaw to pass the time.  Although traditional scrimshaw was purely decorative, some sailors made practical items such as hand tools, kitchen implements, canes, workboxes, sewing accessories, chests of drawers, toys, and even inlaid furniture, often as souvenirs or gifts for loved ones back home.  The sailors used a knife or a sailmaker's needle to carve the scenes into the bone, rubbing in black ink, tar, soot, or tobacco juice to highlight the designs.  Scrimshaw was sometimes traded among whalers, but seldom if ever sold.  The New Bedford Whaling Museum holds the world's largest collection of scrimshaw, much of which depicts nautical scenes, as would be expected by the sailor-artists.

Examples of intricately-carved scrimshaw Japanese whale ivory figures.  The exhibit features scrimshaw by English, Scottish, Azorean, Cape Verdean, African-American, Continental European, Inuit, Pacific Island, and Japanese craftsmen.  Many of the items from the museum's extensive collection are on display for the first time ever.

A watch stand fashioned out of wood and whale ivory.  The scrimshaw exhibit features a variety of art and functional objects from around the world, including pictorial sperm whale teeth, walrus tusks, canes, corset busks, watch hutches, birdcages, and tools and other implements for the kitchen and home.

Fairhaven artist William Bradford's painting of ships in the Arctic, part of an exhibit dedicated to Bradford's 1869 Arctic voyage, entitled Arctic Visions: Away then Floats the Ice-Island at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.  Bradford's three month sea voyage from St. John's, Newfoundland up the western coast of Greenland aboard the sealing ship Panther was carried out specifically for the purpose of art.  During the voyage, Bradford produced dozens of sketches, drawings, paintings and photographs. 

A collection of photographs from Bradford's expedition was published in a 20" x 25" folio in 1873, principally sponsored by Queen Victoria.  Only 300 copies of Bradford's folio, The Arctic Regions: Illustrated with Photographs Taken on an Art Expedition, were printed, making them much sough-after collectors items by libraries, museums, and private collectors.  Three copies of the folio currently reside in the local area: one here at the museum, another at the New Bedford Free Public Library, and a third at the Millicent Library in nearby Fairhaven, Massachusetts.  In later life, Bradford became a lecturer on the Arctic.  He died in 1892.

A look inside Arctic Visions: Away then Floats the Ice-Island.  The gallery seeks to explore 'the intersections between art, exploration, and human impact on and understanding of the environment'.