The New Bedford Whaling Museum wants to hear your story. Here's where to record it.
NEW BEDFORD — What is your story? The New Bedford Whaling Museum wants to hear it to add to its archives.
"Common Ground: a Community Mosaic" is an oral history project and exhibition that aims to create a full picture of the SouthCoast region and its residents through story collection.
It's all about what story the community will paint 50 years from now.
Since launching the project in 2018 — with recording booths available in the museum and around the community — they've recorded 300 stories, but still want to add many more for the collection.
"I think a lot of people don't think they have a story that's worth contributing," said Naomi Slipp, Douglas and Cynthia Crocker Endowed Chair for the Chief Curator.
"People don't feel like they have something valuable to contribute; I think they underestimate how interesting their life experiences might be."
The recording booths offer various prompts to get people started such as describe your childhood neighborhood or share a story about somebody who was important in your life.
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And guests don't have to pay admission to the museum if they are coming to specifically record a story in the booth, which is located on the second floor in the Big & Little Braitmayer Gallery.
Some of the stories on record
So far, the stories have been all over the map from people of all ages, ethnicities and backgrounds talking about topics such as neighborhood, immigration and history.
One story in particular recalls growing up as an African American male in the area and what it was like in the school system. It led him to become an activist within the NAACP, pushing toward greater equality across public education in the New Bedford area.
Slipp said there are a number of stories that speak to the regional history and how a lot of different communities living in the same shared space has caused a fair amount of tension.
An anonymous storyteller shared her experience growing up Jewish in New Bedford in the 1940s and 50s, and her encounters with anti-Semitism in which she couldn't buy houses in certain neighborhoods or receive invites to certain organizations and clubs.
Juliana Melara-Recinos shared her experience of leaving El Salvador to come to New Bedford so she could attend law school, an option that people back in her country wouldn't even dream of pursuing. "They think of it as something unachievable, at all. It's impossible. So I guess coming here was really an opportunity for me to actually pursue this," she said in her recording.
Paulina Arruda shared a story about listening to 97.3, which was an ethnic community radio station started in the 1950s, with programming in several languages.
She recalls listening to the "Portuguese Hour," and how people to this day still remember the segment. In 1975, Edmund Dinis bought 97.3 and he named it after his father.
"So since 1975, we have been transmitting in Portuguese 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Arruda.
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All materials, including audio files of stories, transcripts produced from those files and any supporting documents and objects that are donated will be accessioned into the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s permanent collection.
The materials will be freely accessible to researchers and community members through the museum's online database or by visiting in person.
Collecting 21st-century history
"It is about preserving history in our area," said Charles Chace, vice president of Descendants of Whaling Masters, Inc.
"We want to preserve history, the same way that the old Dartmouth Historical Society wanted to preserve whaling history."
Chace has already recorded two stories in the booth.
"And your descendants may want to come back and listen to your voice," he added.
Slipp said she doesn't define the museum as just about whaling. "We are the old Dartmouth Historical Society," she said.
"That's how we functioned for the majority of our history. In 1986, we started using the New Bedford Whaling Museum only on our letterhead."
The museum, which has over a million objects, encompasses everything from textile history, to immigration and Wampanoag history among its exhibits.
"We have 22,000 square feet of galleries, two of them are devoted to whaling only," Slipp added.
With only a year under her belt as chief curator at the museum, her goal is to collect more 20th- and 21st-century history.
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"Getting to know the community and having an opportunity to connect with people and share kind of who I am and learn about them and have that equal exchange, it's really wonderful for me personally," Slipp said.
"We're able to step out into the community and expand beyond our walls, which is so hard oftentimes."
Common Ground: a Community Mosaic exhibit
In addition to the archive, the New Bedford Whaling Museum will launch a special exhibition, also titled "Common Ground: a Community Mosaic," which is on display now through Aug. 6, 2023.
The exhibition present highlights from the archive, presenting as many stories as possible in the gallery spaces in order to demonstrate the depth and breadth of the stories collected, the archive created and the SouthCoast community.
"This will help lay the groundwork to tell stories 50 or 75 years from now, that will continue to interest our community as it grows and changes," she said.
Standard-Times staff writer Seth Chitwood can be reached at schitwood@s-t.com. Follow him on twitter: @ChitwoodReports. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Standard-Times today.
This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: New Bedford Whaling Museum launches Common Ground recording booth
