A Whale of a good time....

The New Bedford Whaling Museum

is a world-renowned museum that brings to life the rich history of the whaling industry and New Bedford's role as its premier port.

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Located in the heart of New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, the museum features interactive exhibits, including the world's largest whaling ship model: displays of fine and decorative arts, collections of cultural artifacts, rare antiquities, scrimshaw and logbooks: five whale skeletons including the rare blue and northern right.

Skeletons of the Deep

Ongoing Exhibition
The New Bedford Whaling Museum is host to four large whale skeletons, and one very special small skeleton.

Skeletons are important teaching tools for museums, science centers and aquaria. The sheer size of the skeletons inspires awe and gives a greater appreciation for their mobility. Viewing the skeletal structure allows for lessons in comparative anatomy and can forge a more personal connection with our mammal brethren. The presence of these specimens generates questions for staff and volunteers which then lead to an improved understanding of these animals and their natural history. Researchers, studying the condition of these bones, are able to determine information about the health of the animal just prior to its death.

Scrimshaw: Shipboard Art of the Whalers

This is a sumptuous “permanent” exhibition of the best, most representative, and most compelling curiosities of the museums vast scrimshaw holdings — a generous selection drawn from the world’s largest and greatest collection.

The exhibition presents the scrimshaw itself in all its unique and occupationally rooted glory. Many of the pieces are on exhibit for the first time; many others have not been on public display for decades. The exhibition also shows some of the pictorial sources of the whalers’ work; it traces such topical themes as symbolic patriotic figures, American naval prowess, portraiture, fashion plates, ethnic diversity, the Napoleonic mystique, and the whale hunt itself; it features works by English, Scottish, Azorean, Cape Verdean, African-American, Continental European, Eskimo, Pacific Islander, and Japanese practitioners; and it illustrates some of the tools and mainstream methods of engraving ivory and bone, and constructing scrimshaw at sea.

*                                 In addition to its substantial curiosity value and intrinsic aesthetic appeal, scrimshaw provides a uniquely revealing window on the shipboard diversions, priorities, and concerns of mainstream mariners on Yankee whaleships in the Age of Sail

*** Views to the Harbor ***

The Museum’s

 Davis Observation Deck

provides one of the best views in New Bedford – a view in which the city’s current and historic maritime heritage plays out before you, a living portrait of the city’s economic engine.

What better place, then, to explore historic views of the harbor and its activities?

 

 

The Museum offers reduced rates for groups of ten or more, with guided and self-guided options available

yes
the day ended here !