Latest news with #Abolition
Boston Globe
31-07-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Fishing around for fun things to do? Use the South Coast commuter rail to explore New Bedford.
From the commuter rail station, you'll have to walk 15 minutes to reach Fisherman's Wharf. You'll pass the fish processing plants and cold storage facilities that support the nation's highest-grossing commercial fishing port. True to its name, Fisherman's Wharf is lined by vessels that range up to 100 feet long and tower above the mere human beings along the dock. The vast majority are rigged as scallop dredgers or groundfish boats, although offshore lobster boats, clammers, and deep-sea crabbers also call New Bedford home. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up According to the most recent Advertisement Plaques along the waterfront illuminate New Bedford's maritime history. David Lyon Advertisement That mentality was already part of New Bedford's cultural DNA. From 1830 to 1860, most American whaling ships sailed from New Bedford. Commercial fishing took hold when the whaling industry waned around 1900. Simply put, New Bedford had the infrastructure — why let all those piers go to waste? But the whaling industry has not been forgotten. The cobblestone streets, granite US Custom House, 'double″ bank building, and old candleworks recall that mid-19th-century heyday. Even the visitor center of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park occupies a handsome Greek Revival red sandstone structure. It was built in 1853 as a bank during the height of New Bedford's whaling fortunes. Stop in to pick up a map and get a swift overview of how whaling transformed New Bedford. Whale skeletons seem to float in the two-story atrium of the New Bedford Whaling Museum. David Lyon A block away, the This half-scale model of the whaling bark Lagoda is a prime exhibit in the New Bedford Whaling Museum. David Lyon On the museum's main level, a half-size model of the whaling bark Lagoda gives an idea of the complexity of a typical whaling vessel. An adjacent gallery holds the skeleton of a 48-foot sperm whale, the chief prey of New Bedford whalers. This 30-year-old male was found stranded on Nantucket in 2002. The toothed leviathan dwarfs the six-man whaleboat installed on a back wall in the same room. It is amazing that any whalers survived. Advertisement The New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park Visitor Center occupies a former bank building from the city's whaling heyday. David Lyon That sense of imminent mortality weighed on many a whaler. Central to the The Seamen's Bethel, established in 1832, offered solace and comfort to whalers and other sailors. David Lyon Herman Melville visited the Advertisement The Nathan and Polly Johnson House was a key location in New Bedford's anti-slavery struggle. David Lyon The Abolition movement burned bright in New Bedford, which had the highest percentage of African Americans in the Northeast. Among Rotch's neighbors in what is now called the County Street Historic District were Nathan and Polly Johnson, who owned a block on 7th Street. As free African American businesspeople, the Johnsons were leading anti-slavery activists. They also opened their home to harbor men and women fleeing bondage. On Sept. 17, 1838, they took in a fugitive who would assume the name Frederick Douglass along with his wife, Anna. The Johnson house at 21 7th St. is now owned by the The fried scallop plate at Moby Dick Brewing Co. comes with cole slaw and fried potato wedges. David Lyon From the park, it's only a 10-minute walk back to New Bedford's central historic district. Before leaving town, be sure to sample some New Bedford scallops. At If you go … One-way weekday fare on the MBTA commuter rail is $12.25 for adults, $6 for seniors and students. The MBTA offers a $10 Commuter Rail Weekend Pass for unlimited travel. On weekdays, 15 trains per day leave South Station for New Bedford (536 Acushnet Ave.) Advertisement New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center 38 Bethel St. 508-993-8894, Thurs.-Mon. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Adults $8, seniors and students $5, under age 12 free New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park Visitor Center 33 William St. 508-996-4095, Wed.-Sun. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Check for schedule of tours. Free New Bedford Whaling Museum 18 Johnny Cake Hill 508-997-0046, Open daily 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Adults $23, seniors $21, youth $13 Seamen's Bethel 15 Johnny Cake Hill 508-992-3295, Open Tues.-Sun. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Donation requested Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum 396 County St. 508-997-1401, Wed.-Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m., also Sun. noon-4 p.m. (closed Sun. after Oct. 13). Adults $8, seniors and students $6, ages 7-17 $3, under age 7 free Moby Dick Brewing Co. 16 South Water St. 774-202-6961, Mon.-Thu. 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun. noon-8 p.m. sandwiches and entrees $13-$45 The Whale's Tail Clam Bar Advertisement 52 Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 3 774-425-8980, Open daily 11:30 a.m.-8 p.m. sandwiches and baskets $12-$28 Patricia Harris and David Lyon can be reached at . Patricia Harris can be reached at
Telegraph
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Cambridge museum offers reflection room for ‘triggering' slavery exhibit
Cambridge's leading museum has provided a reflection room for visitors 'triggered' by an exhibition about the slave trade. The university's Fitzwilliam Museum has launched a flagship exhibition titled Rise Up Resistance, Revolution, Abolition, which explores the fight to end transatlantic slavery. The show's accompanying book has caused an academic row at Cambridge over claims that Prof Stephen Hawking benefited financially from slavery. In addition to a content warning on entry to the exhibition, curators have provided a room for those who 'may feel overwhelmed or triggered by this subject matter'. The Fitzwilliam will also host events designed to facilitate dialogue and centre on key themes in the exhibition. The first of these will cover issues including the 'transmission of cultures by people of the African diaspora in response to empire, colonialism and the slave trade'. The room in the Fitzwilliam provides pamphlets to guide visitors to 'wellbeing' material and other resources. These include the websites of mental health charities, including specialists with the Black African and Asian Therapists Network, and curriculum material covering black history. The guide also directs visitors to citizens' advice. The large room is furnished with tables and soft chairs and filled with books covering issues of race, including volumes by TV historian David Olusoga. Also available is Richard Dyer's set of essays, White, which looks at the 'representation of whiteness by whites in Western visual culture'. The Fitzwilliam website states that the exhibition is suitable for children and 'for everyone' because 'all live with the consequences of transatlantic slavery, and we cannot understand today's world or the legacies of structural racism and inequalities without knowledge of it'. It covers everything from abolition movements to modern-day racist injustices and has an accompanying book-length catalogue. A central claim in the catalogue is that 'slave trade financial instruments shaped the intellectual life of the university by supporting the country's most renowned mathematicians and scientists'. This states that men including Hawking, Charles Darwin's scientist son George, and physicist Arthur Eddington benefited financially from the slave trade. It says that their professorships were paid for through an initial request in 1768 of £3,500 from a mathematician and university vice-chancellor named Robert Smith. This was from stock bound up in 'South Sea Annuities', stock the Fitzwilliam has claimed was linked to investments in the slave trade. Leading British men of science are therefore linked to what the book exhibition terms 'dark finance'. However, the research has been disputed by leading historians, including Lord Andrew Roberts, Sir Noel Malcolm, and Cambridge professors David Abulafia, Lawrence Goldman, and Robert Tombs. Prof Tombs criticised the work of Cambridge to attach historic guilt, saying that 'we are sadly accustomed to seeing our great institutions damaging themselves and the country that supports them'. 'This case is doubly dispiriting as a great university institution shows itself resistant to argument and indifferent to evidence.' The Rise Up exhibition was launched in February to document the history of black and white abolitionists, particularly those linked to Cambridge. It offers an overview of life on plantations and the move toward abolition and states that some African merchants participated in the slave trade. The book created for the exhibition contains a number of academic contributions on the slave trade and opens with a statement that the 'fight for true equality, justice and repair continues'. The Fitzwilliam said the research was correct and important. A spokesman said: 'The Rise Up reflection space gives the opportunity for visitors to explore, create, read, learn and reflect after viewing the exhibition.'
