New Bedford Whaling Museum - History

History

On 7 January 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.

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 from the Masonic Building on the corner of Pleasant and Union street. However, by 1904 their membership had grown to almost 700 people and collections had been expanded to include some 560 artifacts.

In 1906, Henry H. Huttleson Rogers donated the Bank of Commerce Building on Water Street to the ODHS for the purpose of establishing a museum. Just a year later, the New Bedford Whaling Museum was opened.

The teens and twenties were exciting decades for the New Bedford Whaling Museum. In 1914, the ODHS appointed Frank Wood as the curator and first full-time staff member. A year later Emily Bourne donated the Bourne Building in memory of her father, Jonathan Bourne Jr. The Bourne Building now houses the Lagoda, a half-sized model of Bourne's whaling ship. In 1922, the famous whaling movie Down to the Sea in Ships was filmed in New Bedford with young actress Clara Bow and many New Bedford locals dressed up in their grandparents' clothing to fit the scene.

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 at the bequest of the Wood Building by Annie Seabury Wood in 1935. But, perhaps the most important addition of the decade was the acquisition of a juvenile humpback whale skeleton, suspended in the Lagoda room. 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."

New Bedford experienced a bit of the limelight in 1953 when the whaling-inspired film All the Brothers Were Valiant premiered in the city.

The "save-the-whale" movement of the 1970s led John R. Bockstoce, the Curator of Ethnology, 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 NBWM played a large role in establishing a New Bedford Whaling National Historic Park, a national park which includes several New Bedford historical sites including the Seamen's Bethel, located across the street from the Whaling Museum. The museum features a twenty-minute short film called 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 NBWM collaborated with the Azorean Maritime Heritage Society and built the Azorean Whaleman Gallery, an exhibition devoted to the contributions of Azorean sailors and whaleboat builders to U.S. whaling history. In August 2000, the Jacobs Family Gallery was built thanks to the donation of Irwin and Joan Jacobs. A new blue whale skeleton, named Kobo was suspended from the ceiling.

In 2001, the Kendall Whaling Museum merged with the New Bedford Whaling Museum, an acquisition of some 70,000 artifacts, effectively doubling the size of collections. To accommodate all these artifacts, the NBWM bought the Purchase Street Whaling Research Library.

In 2002, the New Bedford Whaling Museum partnered with the Melville Society, and now houses their extensive Melville collection in the Whaling Research Library.

On 22 September 2008, James P. Russell assumed the position of President of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.