1000 Museums

The New Bedford Whaling Museum is located in New Bedford, Massachusetts, USA. The museum, through its collections and exhibitions, tells the story of the international whaling industry and the history more generally of the “Old Dartmouth” area, the Southcoast of Massachusetts. Its collection contains over 200,000 artifacts, including 3,000 pieces of scrimshaw and 2,500 logbooks (handwritten accounts of whaling voyages), both of which are the largest collections in the world.

The Museum also houses an extensive 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 significant collections of locally produced art, glass, furniture, and other decorative arts that flourished as a result of the wealth that whaling brought to New Bedford in the 19th century.

The Lagoda, the world’s largest whale ship model, is housed in the museum, along with four complete whale skeletons.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism https://flic.kr/p/dzXvrH CC BY-ND 2.0