Last week I visited the New Bedford Whaling Museum for the first time, as a chaperone on a school field trip. Really interesting, and the exhibits were very well done. They had a right whale skeleton on display-- typical for a natural history type of museum, right? But they also had photos and text explaining that the whale, a pregnant female, had collided with a ship, and the ship propeller had cut off one of her tail flukes, causing her to bleed to death in a short period of time. The skeleton of the 10-month-old fetus was also on display, suspended under the mother's skeleton. I was so impressed by how seriously and maturely our group of 2nd graders responded to this sad story!
Anyway, the whaling industry of the 19th and early 20th centuries was fascinating; now that we have electricity, and fossil fuels, and plastics, it's difficult to really grasp just how important whale products were in those years. Pictured are several swifts make with whalebone and whale ivory-- usually crafted by whalers as gifts for the women in their lives.
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