| BR-50019-06 | Public Programs: Historic Places: Implementation | New Bedford Whaling Museum | From Pursuit to Preservation: The Global Story of Whales and Whaling | 10/1/2006 - 9/30/2009 | $300,000.00 | Madelyn | | Shaw | | | | New Bedford Whaling Museum | New Bedford | MA | 02740-6398 | USA | 2006 | History, General | Historic Places: Implementation | Public Programs | 250000 | 50000 | 250000 | 50000 | Implementation of a permanent core exhibition with an audio tour about the human fascination with whales and the history of whaling in New Bedford, Massachusetts, within a global context.
During much of the nineteenth century, whaling was one of America's major industries, reaching to the farthest corners of of the globe; and New Bedford, Mass. was its epicenter. The New Bedford Whaling Museum plans to interpret this compelling story in a long-term core exhibition, "From Pursuit to Preservation: the Global Story of Whales and Whaling." The exhibition will take full advantage of the ever-present human fascination with whales to explore a series of humanities themes relating to both American and world history. The exhibition is designed to incorporate a variety of presentation techniques and media to attract and engage a wide range of audiences. Scheduled to open in 2009, it will include more than 700 objects drawn from the Museum's rich and extensive collections that will be installed in a series of linked galleries totaling 20,000 square feet. The Museum is requesting an implementation grant of $350,000; the core exhibition's total cost is estimated at $3.5 million. |
| CH-50875-11 | Challenge Programs: Challenge Grants | New Bedford Whaling Museum | New Bedford Whaling Museum Humanities Endowment Challenge | 12/1/2009 - 7/31/2015 | $500,000.00 | Alison | Meyer | Smart | | | | New Bedford Whaling Museum | New Bedford | MA | 02740-6398 | USA | 2010 | Interdisciplinary Studies, General | Challenge Grants | Challenge Programs | 0 | 500000 | 0 | 500000 | Endowment for humanities staff salaries, interpretive exhibitions, and humanities programs, as well as fundraising costs.
The New Bedford Whaling Museum seeks a $500,000 NEH Challenge Grant, to be matched by $1.5 million in new matching funding. The $2 million will provide $40,000 ($10,000 per year for four years) in direct expenditures for fundraising staff during the capital campaign. The remaining $1,960,00 million will be allocated to create a new restricted humanities endowment, with annual disbursements funding humanities staff salaries, interpretation and exhibitions, and humanities programming. The new humanities endowment will build the New Bedford Whaling Museum's capacity for long-term support while providing predictable, sustainable funding for Strategic Plan priorities for long-term growth -- with particular emphasis on growth and enhancement in humanities exhibitions, interpretation, and high-quality programming for diverse public audiences. |
| GE-50587-12 | Public Programs: America's Historical and Cultural Organizations: Planning Grants | New Bedford Whaling Museum | New Bedford: The Commercial and Industrial Evolution of an American Port City | 2/1/2013 - 8/31/2014 | $40,000.00 | Alison | Meyer | Smart | | | | New Bedford Whaling Museum | New Bedford | MA | 02740-6398 | USA | 2012 | Interdisciplinary Studies, General | America's Historical and Cultural Organizations: Planning Grants | Public Programs | 40000 | 0 | 40000 | 0 | Planning for a long-term exhibition, public programs, and educational materials on the history of commerce and industry in New Bedford, Massachusetts, following the decline of whaling, the city's founding industry.
The Old Dartmouth Historical Society/New Bedford Whaling Museum seeks funding to plan a multidisciplinary exhibition telling a series of interconnected stories of how individual risk takers and their families built an efficient, self-reinforcing business network in New Bedford, New England and throughout the world using profits earned through whaling. As whaling entered its decline, these family networks used their successful investment and management systems to strategically diversify, building on their strengths in banking, finance and insurance, into pioneering start-ups in railroads, textiles, manufacturing and trade and commercial fishing. The project will also demonstrate why, after several periods of prosperity, many of these industries, so innovative at their inception, declined--a rise and fall that created the urban, social environment of today. |
| GM-50024-03 | Public Programs: Humanities Projects in Museums and Historical Organizations | New Bedford Whaling Museum | Whaling History Core Exhibition Planning | 5/1/2003 - 5/31/2004 | $40,000.00 | Michael | A. | Jehle | | | | New Bedford Whaling Museum | New Bedford | MA | 02740-6398 | USA | 2003 | History, General | Humanities Projects in Museums and Historical Organizations | Public Programs | 40000 | 0 | 40000 | 0 | Planning of a permanent exhibition with related public and educational programs about the impact of whaling on United States social and economic history, technology, literature, and art. |
| PA-50516-04 | Preservation and Access: Preservation/Access Projects | New Bedford Whaling Museum | General Preservation Assessment to Preserve Ethnography Collection | 1/1/2004 - 6/30/2005 | $5,000.00 | Michael | A. | Jehle | | | | New Bedford Whaling Museum | New Bedford | MA | 02740-6398 | USA | 2003 | Archival Management and Conservation | Preservation/Access Projects | Preservation and Access | 5000 | 0 | 5000 | 0 | A general preservation assessment of the museum's ethnographic collection of 925 artifacts related to the Oceanic and Northern Pacific expeditions by nineteenth-century Yankee whalers, and a more detailed conservation assessment of 120 objects that will be installed in the museum's core exhibit in 2005. |
| PG-51724-12 | Preservation and Access: Preservation Assistance Grants | New Bedford Whaling Museum | Conservation Assessment of a 19th-Century Whaling Panorama | 1/1/2012 - 6/30/2013 | $5,000.00 | Alison | Meyer | Smart | | | | New Bedford Whaling Museum | New Bedford | MA | 02740-6398 | USA | 2011 | Museum Studies or Historical Preservation | Preservation Assistance Grants | Preservation and Access | 5000 | 0 | 5000 | 0 | Hiring a team of consultants to assess the condition and conservation needs of a whaling panorama dating to 1848, painted on 52-inch-wide lengths of cotton fabric and measuring 1,275 feet in length and 8.5 feet in height. Two conservators would travel to the Saco Art Museum in Maine with two of the museum's staff to examine a similar panorama, which has recently undergone conservation, and consult with its conservation team, in order to develop a treatment protocol for the New Bedford painting.
The 1848 "A Whaling Voyage 'Round the World" panorama is a rare survivor of a unique style of large-scale landscape and narrative painting. It survives today, in poor condition, but with a proper treatment plan, it can be stabilized and restored. Artists Benjamin Russell and Caleb Purrington created the 1,275-foot-long panorama of a whaling voyage from New Bedford to the Azores, Cape Verde and Cape Horn, painted on 52-inch-wide lengths of cotton fabric and executed in a water-based distemper paint that has suffered wrinkling, flaking and powdering. NEH funding will allow the Museum to convene a team of experts to expand the in-house assessment and identify best practice in treatment for a unique artifact, and allow them to travel to necessary sites to gather the relevant information. The project will result in a formal conservation protocol, as well as a plan to safely handle, exhibit, and store the artifact for the long term. |