Salted, Pickled, or Smoked: Preserving and Presenting the Cultural Heritage of New Bedford’s Fishing Community

FAIN: PY-234326-16

New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center, Inc. (New Bedford, MA 02741-2052)
Laura Corinne Orleans (Project Director: June 2015 to April 2017)

A day-long digitization event and subsequent follow-up to preserve cultural heritage materials held by members of the New Bedford area fishing community, and attendant public programming. The applicant would partner with the University of Massachusetts, Boston, which has run the “Mass Memories Road Show.” University staff would provide support during the digitization day and would also train volunteers. Images would be stored in the University’s digital collections, as well as at New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center, the Digital Commonwealth, and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). Items anticipated for scanning include photographs, documents, and artifacts. Public programming would have three themes: sustaining community, life on shore, and life at sea. Programs would include presentations by members of the fishing community before the digitization day event at the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center; a workshop by New Bedford Public Library staff on proper archival storage on the day of the event; and an exhibit of digitized materials after the event.

The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center proposes to digitize the cultural heritage of the local fishing community. Commercial fishing is often a family activity with skills and knowledge passed from one generation to the next. Consequently, much of this history resides in the photo albums, documents, and artifacts of fishing families. This project will digitize these materials through a day-long public event in combination with “house calls” to digitally document materials from individuals who are unable to attend the event. The project will be bookended by a variety of public programs which will serve to inspire community participation, evoke memories, and provide an interpretive framework for materials that are brought forward. Digitizing these materials, making them publicly available, and using them to tell the story of the fishing community will create a lasting legacy for families who have spent generations working the water in what is one of the nation’s oldest occupations.

Associated Products

Digitizing Day Handbook: A Planning Guide for Local Communities (Web Resource)
Title: Digitizing Day Handbook: A Planning Guide for Local Communities
Author: University Archives & Special Collections Department in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston
Abstract: This Digitizing Day Handbook is intended to serve as a guide for community groups to organize such events. The suggested training and planning procedures provided here are based on the Mass. Memories Road Show staff’s nearly 15 years’ experience with managing these types of events. The Mass. Memories Road Show model is outlined in greater detail in another publication, the Mass. Memories Road Show Project Handbook.
Year: 2017
Primary URL: http://fishingheritagecenter.org/programs/community-documentation/
Primary URL Description: Bedford/Fairhaven Fishing Community was a year-long effort to digitize the cultural heritage of New Bedford’s fishing community. The project was a collaboration involving the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center, University Archives and Special Collections at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Clair T. Carney Library at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, MIT Sea Grant, New Bedford Free Public Library, and New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. The project centered around a day-long digitizing event. The event is typically held in a public space, generally a local public library, historical society or community center. This Digitizing Day Handbook is intended to serve as a guide for community groups to organize such events.

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