We visited the New Bedford Whaling Museum this past weekend. A lot of the exhibits were helpful for understanding the logistical aspects of whaling. We were able to see the size of the harpoon boat and the harpoons themselves with respect to the whales. We were also introduced to a ½ sized scale model of the ship which helped me at least to see how crowded and messy whaling would have gotten since they have so little space to cut up this massive whale and boil the blubber. The whaling industry was the most profitable and New Bedford was one of the richest (if not the richest, I can’t remember) towns in America. Let alone the fact that America was on the front end of the industry, ahead of Europe even, which was mentioned in Moby Dick.

Although all of these logistics and facts surprised me I was most astounded by the room full of scrimshaw art. There was one room full of whales’ teeth and bones with drawings of sailboats, women, men, and whaling scenes of course etched into them. The artwork was magnificent, but besides the etchings there were carved pie crust crimpers, canes, wine glasses and even a device used to wrap yarn. All of these things would have been brought back to wives, children, friends or girlfriends. What astounded me by all of this artwork was that it destroys sailor stereotypes. These rough and tough whale men that put their bodies through agonizingly hard work were artists. They had copious amount of time at night, when there were no whales, on their off shifts, any time really and they filled it with art. The etchings are beautiful, simple sometimes but always amazingly done. I took a picture of the entire room so you can’t see specific pieces but you can see how many there are in this one room. I’ve always loved scrimshaw and I even bought some coasters that were hand made locally and even though they aren’t on authentic whalebone the artistry still makes them beautiful. I loved visiting the museum and getting to see one of America’s most profitable industries.