Lights,
Camera, Action! New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park’s
Official Orientation Movie 'The City That Lit the World' Now Showing
'The City That Lit the World', the official National Park Service
orientation movie for New Bedford Whaling National Historical
Park, is now being shown at the theater of the New Bedford Whaling
Museum. The 20-minute movie is shown free of charge to the public
every hour, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., seven days a week in the 250-seat
theater at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. 'The City That Lit
the World' uses dramatization, documentary footage, and the vast
collections of the New Bedford Whaling Museum and New Bedford
Free Public Library to introduce visitors to the themes of New
Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. The orientation movie
for park visitors was produced by Northern Light Productions of
Boston for the National Park Service in collaboration with the
New Bedford Whaling Museum.
To make the movie, Northern Light filmed scenes inside the Haile
Luther House on North Second Street (headquarters of the Bristol
County Convention and Visitors Bureau), along Centre Street, at
the Seamen’s Bethel and the Rotch-Jones-Duff House &
Garden Museum, and along New Bedford’s commercial waterfront
and fishing fleet. In order to represent the historic link between
New Bedford and the Iñupiat people of Alaska, Northern
Light traveled to Barrow, the northernmost community in the United
States. Extensive filming also took place aboard Schooner Ernestina
in New Bedford and the whale ship Charles W. Morgan at Mystic
Seaport.
New Bedford photographer John K. Robson captured the filming of
the movie, traveling with the film crew on the location shoots,
including Alaska. His work is displayed in an exhibition titled
"Through the Digital Lens" at the park Visitor Center,
33 William Street.
New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park was established by
Congress in 1996. One of over 380 National Park Service areas,
it is the National Park Service site addressing the history of
the whaling industry and its influence on the economic, social
and environmental history of the United States. The park includes
New Bedford’s 13-block waterfront historic district, Schooner
Ernestina, the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum and
several sites along the waterfront. The legislation establishing
the park also established a connection between the NPS and the
Iñupiat Heritage Center in Barrow, Alaska. Funding for
the movie is from the National Park Service 20% Fee Demonstration
Program, authorized by Congress to utilize new fees at specific
NPS areas to accomplish a wide range of projects throughout the
National Park System.
The New Bedford Whaling Museum holds the world's largest and most
outstanding American whaling and maritime history collections.
Highlights of the museum include a half-scale replica of the whaling
bark Lagoda, a re-creation of a whale ship foc’s’le,
a 66-foot blue whale skeleton, and the newly created Kendall Institute,
a world-class scholarly research facility. The whaling museum
collection embraces over 500 whaling implements; 2,000 paintings,
prints and drawings; 35,000 original photographs and negatives;
2,000 scrimshaw items and carvings; thousands of ethnographic
objects; hundreds of ship models; and an extensive collection
of ships’ log books.
Northern Light Productions of Boston has been creating striking
images and compelling narratives, which tell provocative stories
and engage audiences for over 17 years. Northern Light has won
numerous awards for its work and recently completed movies for
Yosemite National Park and Sitka National Historical Park. Other
NPS sites Northern Light has completed work for include Minute
Man National Historical Park and Martin Luther King, Jr. National
Historic Site.
'The City That Lit the World' illustrates a remarkable time—before
we siphoned oil from the earth and before electricity pulsed through
out lives, when oil from the great nomadic whale illuminated the
homes and streets of America with a light smokeless and clear.
Whale spermaceti was so pure that it lubricated the machines of
the new industrial age, and baleen—or whalebone—firm
and pliable, gave shape to the fashion of the Victorian age. To
deliver these products to the world an entire industry arose.
One that amassed great fortunes, caused tens of thousands of men
to leave home to risk their lives in far flung seas, created one
of the wealthiest cities in 19th century America, and left a lasting
legacy in New Bedford. Discover their stories.
For more information about New Bedford Whaling National Historical
Park, contact at the Visitor Center at (508) 996-4095, or visit
the park’s website at www.nps.gov/nebe. |
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