Local History Guild

According to Alan Jamieson’s book Out of the Depths: A History of Shipwrecks, UNESCO estimates there are more than 3 million shipwreck sites around the world. In every seafaring culture, shipwrecks have long captured the imagination. This September, the New Bedford Whaling Museum hosts a discussion about shipwrecks on our own shores and beyond.

Local History Guild is the NBWM’s quarterly Zoom program, an informal discussion about art, history, science and culture related to the museum mission, collection, and the surrounding region. This June, NBWM invites two important marine mammal scientists to speak on their work and the changing world of underwater marine mammal sound and ocean noise.

During Women’s History Month, this Local History Guild program will focus on the underexplored histories of women of the South Coast, specifically in New Bedford and Fairhaven. Three speakers will explore how women actively shaped and improved their communities during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Join Dr. Naomi Slipp, Dr. Rachel Stephens, and Dr. Renée Ater, for an important conversation about the power of sculpture in public spaces and institutions, the legacies of white supremacy and histories of enslavement, and the landscape of commemoration in the United States.

Join us for an exciting Local History Guild conversation with New Bedford artist Carl Simmons and photography historian Jesse Dritz. Simmons will discuss how he composes New Bedford views, juxtaposing historic photographs by Lewis Hine with views from today.

A conversation with Ymelda Rivera Laxton and multi-disciplinary artist and curator Cora-Allan Lafaiki Twiss (Niuean/Maori) about a Niuean barkcloth in the NBWM collection and Twiss’ journey as a contemporary practitioner of Hiapo.

Virtual discussion focusing on the complex human relationships with seals over millennia and how that’s changed in a variety of ways over the past 4,000 years and continues to evolve as seals rebound in our region.

Join informal conversations with experts, aficionados, librarians, archivists, curators, historic preservation specialists, historians, and collectors.

Local History Guild is the NBWM’s quarterly Zoom program, an informal discussion about art, history, science and culture related to the museum mission, collection, and the surrounding region. This December, staff from the museum’s Curatorial Department will present on their “Favorite Things”!