Weather reports made by mariners more than two hundred years ago may have relevance for research into climate change today. Some local scientists believe the records from whaling ship logs hold data about shifting winds, storms and tides. At the Providence Public Library, maritime historian and UMASS Dartmouth professor Timothy Walker, is taking a deep […]
whaling
Posted inArts And Culture, Local, South Coast Bureau
New Bedford’s Moby Dick reading marathon draws record attendance
Organizers of the annual Moby Dick reading marathon in New Bedford say they set a new attendance record this past weekend. Nearly 2,500 people traveled to the Whaling Museum to participate, arriving from 37 states and countries as far away as Australia, Brazil, and Sweden, according to Amanda McMullen, the museum’s president and CEO. “It’s […]
Posted inArts And Culture, Local, South Coast Bureau
New Bedford reveals design for Herman Melville statue
New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell wants his city to do more to promote its connection to one of the great American novels. Mitchell unveiled the design for an eight-foot bronze statue of Moby Dick author Herman Melville at a press conference on Friday morning. The statue portrays Melville in a heroic pose with his mouth […]
Posted inArts And Culture, Local, South Coast Bureau
Remembering the wreck of New Bedford’s last great whaleship
Contrary to the motto on its municipal seal, New Bedford was no longer the city that lit the world by the 1920s. America’s lamps mostly ran on electricity and kerosene. Whale byproducts still had some commercial uses: the oil served as a base for various face creams and machine lubricants, ambergris was a fixative in […]
Posted inLocal, South Coast Bureau
New Bedford activist Bill do Carmo, dead at 94, knew whalers, Black Panthers and wind developers
When I met Bill do Carmo, I was struck by the paleness of his eyes. He looked like a seer or an oracle — a face out of Shakespeare or Moby Dick. Immediately, he was saying things that connected the fight for rent control to centuries of activism in the same neighborhood. “New Bedford has […]
