The City That Lit The World

I have to give a big shout out to my Mémère, Miss Susanne Yolande, right now. I'm starting to write my introduction & this summer she handed me a GIANT GIANT bag of every article that mentions New Bedford over the past 40+ years, every inch of paper from her many year volunteering with the NPS, and every brochure, photo, postcard, etc from this city she loves so much. I wasn't sure how I would utilize this massive amounts of material until right now. It's a wealth of information & the fact that a lot of it dates back to the 1950s is actually pretty useful when working on a narrative of New Bedford's recent past. So, thanks Mémère!

Here is the introductory paragraph from the Common Ground: Preserving Our Nation’s Heritage magazine from Winter 2005. The article is entitled The City That Lit The World: Rekindling a Legacy at New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. I basically need to write exactly this for my introduction - they said it better than I could, & so succinctly.

“New Bedford…was growing rich on whale oil, evident in its teeming waterfront, its grand houses, and its thriving financial institutions. Whaling money founded railroads, textile mills, and land corporations. It transformed New Bedford into an exotic, cosmopolitan city, its streets crowded with people from Cape Verde, the Azores, Portugal, and other distant ports. The New Bedford of Melville’s time exuded the vitality of a place that had urgent business in the world, that had exceeded its humble beginnings. A hundred years later, New Bedford had the desperate and hollowed-out look of so many New England towns that hit their prime in the 19^th century, then were left behind by advancing technology and economic change. The glory days of whaling were a distant memory. What was not visible, looking down on the decay from the elevated interstate that cuts through the city, was the struggle to preserve a heritage. It was a struggle fought locally, against sometimes high odds. In the face of indifference and the shadow of urban renewal."