More than a decade before the founding of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, there was another attempt by our community to create a whaling museum.

The history connected to this largely forgotten endeavor is the topic of Daniel Gifford’s new book The Last Voyage of the Whaling Bark Progress: New Bedford, Chicago, and the Twilight of an Industry. The whaling bark Progress was a New Bedford ship transformed into a whaling museum for Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Traversing waterways across North America, the whaleship enthralled crowds from Montreal to Racine. Her ultimate fate, however, was to be a failed sideshow of marine curiosities and a metaphor for a dying industry out of step with Gilded Age America.

Attendees joined (via ZOOM) Dr. Gifford to rediscover the Progress’ fascinating story and what it reflects about New Bedford’s past and the process of turning the whaling industry into a “museum piece.”