Amanda McMullen on the New Bedford Whaling Museum

The Learning Curve Amanda McMullen

[00:00:00] Albert Cheng: Hello again, everybody. I hope you’re having a wonderful day. If not, I hope it’s gonna get better. But welcome to another episode of the Learning Curve podcast. I’m one of your co-hosts this week, Albert Cheng and co-hosting with me is Alisha Searcy. Alisha, hey again. Hello Albert. How are you today? Oh, doing all right. Doing all right. It is, man. We are in the middle of June. I can’t believe it.

[00:00:23] Alisha Searcy: I know time is flying, summer is flying, summer is flying, and I don’t mind. As you know, I’m a. Southern woman, so I like the heat and all of the beauty outside. So looking forward to some summer travel and fun.

[00:00:38] Albert Cheng: Good, good. Well, you know, speaking of summer travel and maybe cooler weather, our guest is Amanda McMullen and she’s the, uh, president, CEO of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

[00:00:48] In case you don’t know where New Bedford is, it’s in Massachusetts, in the Southeast over there. And we’re gonna be talking about her work and what the museum’s doing. So, I don’t know, folks, if you’re, um, got some summer travel to New England, maybe you wanna pay attention to this show and see if you wanna check that place out.

[00:01:04] But before we do all that, Alisha, we should talk some news. Yeah, why don’t you go first. What’d you see this week?

[00:01:10] Alisha Searcy: So one of my favorite topics to talk about is Civics education. Maybe because I’m a former legislator, but also because I just think, you know, our young people ought to understand what’s happening in our government and in society, and we wanna make sure that we’re preparing them to be good, you know, citizens of the country.

[00:01:29] Right, right, right. So came across this article, NYC Civics Education. Are Schools Preparing Future Voters? Hmm, and so it’s from Chalkbeat and just talking about how students in New York City are learning Civics and getting their fundamentals. This was particularly important to me because it seems like as we have many conversations across the country around social studies, well, let me, let me put it this way.

[00:01:57] There’s been such a focus on. ELA and math, English, language arts and math. Some of the other subject areas, science and social studies in particular, seem to kind of go by the wayside.

[00:02:09] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:02:10] Alisha Searcy: And when you talk about social studies in particular, you know, you wanna talk about Civics, you want our students to understand the importance of being engaged Right.

[00:02:18] In society and our government. Understand how the process works and you know, not to be offensive, but. Whenever I was in the legislature and people would ask me when I was going back to DC because they thought I was in Congress. Oh, whoops. Problem. Well, Civics education is very important. Yeah. In this particular article, it’s talking about students in New York City and talking about how perhaps so many students lack the fundamentals in Civics knowledge.

[00:02:52] But in this particular work, these New York City teens, they’re involved in the mayoral race. They understand what’s going on, who’s in the race, how, you know high the stakes are. And so I appreciate Chalkbeat doing this article and just talking about the need for Civics education and some good things that are happening in New York and with students who are.

[00:03:11] Truly engaged, and I could only imagine that as they have this experience, hands-on experience. You know, this New York City election is a big deal for a lot of reasons. We won’t go into that, but just elections in general, right? Yeah. And having young people who may not be able to vote yet. Are exposed to who’s running for office, what the issues are, why this matters to them.

[00:03:33] We know that New York City as a city also runs the schools, so that’s really important for young people to be involved in. Great article. Definitely would recommend people check it out, and I think as a whole, we need to do a much better job in American schools in ensuring that we’re teaching Civics education.

[00:03:52] Albert Cheng: Yeah, well, I couldn’t agree more, which actually I think it’s a nice segue to my article. So I found one on the 74. What’s the best way to measure a school’s quality? Five factors to consider? You know, Alisha, we’ve just been talking about the importance of civic education and forming citizens. So I gotta say I was a little underwhelmed, I’m sorry to say about.

[00:04:14] This opinion piece. I mean, it’s written by folks from Future Ed and the Keystone Policy Center. Um, you know, so they’ve proposed five measures of school quality growth in student achievement, access to rigorous instruction, effective staff, supportive climate, and post-secondary outcomes. And I mean, I don’t have a problem with any of these, um, but particularly in a lot of the points that you are just making now, I was a little underwhelmed by their premise.

[00:04:41] If you look at their report, they say that, Hey, you know, there’s actually a variety of educational goals that many people want to accomplish. Stronger academic achievement, employment, future employment, things like, as you just articulated, Alisha citizenship. And so far I don’t disagree. But then, you know, they go on to make the premise to say that well.

[00:05:03] For all of those goals, you need strong academic achievement. And so therefore we should focus on academic achievement. And look, you, I mean, Alisha, you and I, I mean we all want, you know, strong academic achievement, but you know, where my concern comes in is if we’re narrowing the focus too much. Because you know, if you’re, look, they’re right.

[00:05:24] If we want to get kids to know how their government works, to be good citizens, to understand issues that are going on, they’ve gotta be able to think straight and process information. I mean, these are all cognitive skills. They need to be literate. You know, last week we’re talking about math literacy with the algebra project.

[00:05:40] These are all important things, but what worries me is are we narrowing things too much? Where if we focus too much on academic achievement, are we gonna shortchange our ability to do some of the things that you said, like citizenship? Yeah, yeah. You know, and, and this is where like my thing on the importance of forming character.

[00:05:58] Yes. And virtue just comes back. Like I could process information, well know how to make the best arguments, but man, if I can’t. Discern between what a good and bad community looks like. Mm-hmm. You know, I, I don’t know, you know, how smart I am, you know, academically speaking if, if that’s gonna be enough. And so I get it with these authors, you know, they really wanna push academics and I’m glad they have indicators like growth, you know, to try to Right.

[00:06:24] Tease out things that are not correlated with, you know, stuff outside the classroom. Like, I get it, but my worry is, are we getting too much tunnel vision here? Mm-hmm. And I’m gonna be missing something if we focus too much on just academic achievement. So, you know, I’d love to see other indicators that get at character and wisdom and those kinds of things.

[00:06:44] So, anyway. Hope I didn’t sound too critical of their piece. I get where their heart is. But yeah. Um, I’d like to see us kind of broadly in, in the education space, broaden our view really to make sure we’re hitting every thing that needs to be addressed for good formation in our kids.

[00:07:01] Alisha Searcy: I couldn’t agree with you more, and as someone who has run schools before, I think about how we were held accountable, and obviously student performance is most important.

[00:07:12] That’s what we’re there to do, but there are other things that make up effective schooling. And even things like when you talk about teachers, the retention rate and how they are performing and are they getting the resources that they needed. So there, and there are a number of things, whether it’s teachers, whether it’s what students are learning, how they’re learning, what they’re experiencing.

[00:07:31] I’m a whole child in education. Yeah. Yeah, and so I absolutely agree with you that, again, if you think about what’s happening in our world today, as much as we want students to understand geometry and you know, English literature, we also want them to be able to apply those things and understand the world around them and be prepared to be citizens of the world.

[00:07:56] So I think having that, measuring those things are also very important. So I absolutely agree with you.

[00:08:02] Albert Cheng: Well, it’s a tall order because, you know, measures of those things are, are tough to come by, but you know, we’ll make progress hopefully on these things. Yes, we will. We must. But speaking of non-academic things, I’m ready to talk about whaling and this new Bedford Whaling Museum. So coming up on the other side of the break is our interview with Amanda McMullen.

[00:08:23] Amanda McMullen joined the New Bedford Whaling Museum as President and CEO in May of 2018. She oversees an operating budget of $6 million plus leads a staff of nearly 50 employees and 125 volunteers and docents. Prior to the New Bedford Whaling Museum, McMullen was at Meeting Street the Smithsonian, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the old State House Bostonian Society.

[00:08:49] Albert Cheng: She is a recipient of both the 40 under 40 award and the 2016 Chief Operating Officer of the Year slash C-Suite Award. From Providence Business News, McMullen serves on the New Bedford Economic Development Corporations Regen Committee and the board of Directors Rhode Island, PBS Foundation. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University and is a graduate of Leadership Rhode Island Theater two class.

[00:09:16] Amanda, welcome to the show. It’s a pleasure to have you on.

[00:09:19] Amanda McMullen: Good morning, Albert. Thanks for having me.

[00:09:21] Albert Cheng: Yeah, looking forward to hearing about the work at the museum. So let’s get into it. So the new Bedford Whaling Museum. It’s among the premier historical and cultural institutions in Massachusetts and New England, but also has some wider importance in American history, science, art, and literature. So share briefly with our listeners, what’s the mission of the museum, the history, and talk about its recent growth.

[00:09:45] Amanda McMullen: Absolutely. Thank you again. The new Bedford Whaling Museum. Our formal name is the Old Dartmouth Historical Society. We were founded in 1903, sort of turn of the century, and Old Dartmouth is roughly the region of Greater New Bedford, and if you would, in the south coast of Massachusetts.

[00:10:02] It’s Bristol County, essentially the city of New Bedford and surrounding communities. And it was founded originally. One of the original mission statements I always love is the object of this society shall be to create and foster an interest in the history of the territory included in Old Dartmouth. So a bit of a mouthful there, but it really is where, you know, in America, certainly cities of great economic boom, in the turn of the century.

[00:10:29] Were following probably the late 17 hundreds and 18 hundreds of Europe, establishing historical societies and museums and places that were really gonna be important about kind of memory keepers, if you will, and investing in art and culture. And frankly, new Bedford was kind of late to the game, given its.

[00:10:45] Prominence through the whaling industry. So it came online in 1903. It was definitely started by folks who wanted to make sure to capture the height of the 18 hundreds of New Bedford in the economic boom that resulted from whaling. But today, our mission is really a little bit more vibrant. We like to say it’s about igniting learning through explorations.

[00:11:06] Of art history, science and culture through the region essentially, and sort of a more expansive look at the people historically through the city, but also frankly as a historical society. We look at today’s people and try to also capture tomorrow’s leaders and community and people. So a lot of fun work we’re doing.

[00:11:25] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Yeah. Well, let’s go, you know, in the chronological sequence that you just mentioned here, I mean, you first started to, you know, tell the story of New Bedford historically. Yes. Let’s talk about that a bit. So in the 18th century, the Port of New Bedford, they caught whales in nearshore waters and voyages increasingly went beyond the waters off of South America, Africa.

[00:11:45] And as that happened, new Bedford’s whaling industry grew, and so lots of things happened. The railroads in 1840 access to wider domestic markets, I mean. New Bedford just accumulated lots of wealth. And so talk more about that history and, and what was the context there for New Bedford becoming the epicenter of America’s wailing industry?

[00:12:05] Mm,

[00:12:05] Amanda McMullen: yep. It certainly wasn’t the first in many ways, and there were certainly indigenous populations that were wailing long before anyone thought of kind of what is now considered the American and Yankee as it’s. Called Yankee Whaling. The first sort of organized fleets were out of Nantucket, and they’re certainly are a phenomenal partner to us.

[00:12:23] Even today, the Nantucket Historical Association and their whaling museum as well. New Bedford really sort of picks it up, you know, whaling kind American traditional Yankee whaling starts kinda late 17 hundreds, if you will. Definitely goes through all kinds of different impacts of what would be the transition from colonial wailing, per se.

[00:12:43] Certainly impacts of several different wars throughout the many decades and century there. New Bedford becomes kind of the height, if you will, a little bit after the war of 18. 12 is over. American kind of shipping. It opens up globally and the waterways and the access points open up. And what really became new Bedford’s signature was these deep sea voyage, kind of like really long-term whaling voyages.

[00:13:10] And the new Bedford fleet really reaches its peak in about 1850. 1860, with incredible dominance of well over 300 vessels, just. Traversing the globe and becoming and kind of perfecting in this fascinating way. I always think of New Bedford in the 18 hundreds with this entrepreneurial spirit and uh, a way of essentially the whaling voyages and the whaling ships out of New Bedford.

[00:13:35] In many eastern coast ports are their own little. They are the, the hunting vessel. They, obviously, they are where the laborers and the workers and the crew all live. They are out for three to four years because this little factory floats at sea and they capture the whales, they process the whales. They actually.

[00:13:55] Cook the whales down, they make the whale liquified in terms of the oil. They barrel the all the oil on the whaling ships, and then they sell the barrels all around the world. So the New Bedford structure really became that three to four years. It was very typical to be out more than three years. For grueling adventures around the world.

[00:14:17] They would many cases lose crew. They’d take on crew, but that’s kind of the signature of New Bedford in terms of its height of being able to, if you prescribe to a golden age of Yankee whaling, it is in that sort of like early 18 hundreds to about 1870, it starts to fall off a little bit.

[00:14:34] Albert Cheng: Fascinating. Fascinating. So let’s talk, I mean, I wanna talk about, I have a question later about a whaling ship. So I mean the, your description of these floating factories is fascinating, it’s wild. Let’s back to that. But you know, earlier in the introduction you talked about how there’s a mission to su. Generally educate the public and school children alike.

[00:14:51] And so one of the, I should say it’s not just one exhibit. I mean, you have five full whale skeletons. We do really 37 to 66 feet long, blue whale, humpback whale, sperm whale, and a pregnant mother and fetus, north Atlantic right whale, as well as a full scale model of the whale’s hearts. Yes. Um, so tell us about these exhibits.

[00:15:12] How do they capture, I mean, just the size of these creatures and Yeah. What role do they have in just educating. The public and school children.

[00:15:19] Amanda McMullen: Yeah, it’s, I mean, I, I would say it’s a, an extraordinary experience to be able to. Have visibility of their scale. That’s, I think, one of the most overwhelming things for people to realize.

[00:15:31] We do have the five skeletons that you did speak to. I mean, I think one of the interesting things is not only four of them are suspended from the ceiling, right? When you walk into the main entrance of the museum. In what is called the Jacobs Family Gallery for us, which has really been about in the 1990s, we started to really lean into, we will always explain new Bedford’s heritage and history in whaling, but there was a real strategic focus in going from pursuit to preservation and what are the current conditions.

[00:16:02] As a coastal town in terms of marine mammals, what’s going on in the waters? What are the impacts? What are the opportunities? And so a lot of using our natural history collection, quite frankly, and many specimens, including these five skeletons, to be able to get people not only to, I mean who, who sees a blue whale in terms flies and.

[00:16:23] Scope. Right. And our blue whale that is suspended from the ceiling is, that’s the largest one at 66 feet. That was an adolescent. It was by all estimates about a teenager, 13 or 14. Mm-hmm. And so a blue whale would double in size from that. Truly. Yeah. Amazing. In a full grown adult. Exactly. So one of the things, our whale heart that you spoke to, which is a fabricated massive whale heart, it is a full size blue whale heart.

[00:16:48] And so we have that on the floor that you can climb in. It’s got light. Inside so it’s not so scary and dark. ’cause it’s huge. Yeah, it is massive. I mean, you at a, you know, a six foot tall person could lay down inside of it. Wow. And we have had upwards, we have a, a phenomenal education program that’s a high school apprenticeship program for New Bedford students and we have had nine of our high school apprentices be able to fit in the blue whale heart.

[00:17:15] So. That deep sense of perspective of scale and size I think is something we feel really committed to making sure people have an understanding. But further, we really do lean into the current conditions and like I said, the threats for marine mammals and particularly the whale species.

[00:17:32] Albert Cheng: Fascinating. I mean, beautiful creatures. I mean just, yeah, just a description. Just, you know, you just have these moments where you’re like, wow, nothing more needs to be said. Right.

[00:17:40] Amanda McMullen: Yeah. It’s pretty overwhelming. I do think the North Atlantic, right. Well, which is, you likely have heard so incredibly endangered and that is the one that’s a bit heartbreaking.

[00:17:47] ’cause she was a pregnant female and she was pregnant with a female mm-hmm. Calf. So it’s a, there are, I think less than 400 North Atlantic Right. Whales that are sort of known and identified. Mm-hmm. So that’s always a bit of a heartbreaking lesson for people to. Learn a little bit more about, but we think it’s an important opportunity to, it’s a teachable moment, if you will.

[00:18:07] Albert Cheng: Right, right. Well, like I said, I don’t wanna talk about ships. Let me ask last question for me, and then Alisha will have a few questions for you. Sure. The Lagoda, this is a half scale model of a whaling ship commissioned in 1916 and is the world’s largest model whaling ship. So it’s sitting right there in your museum. Tell us maybe a bit about that shit, but more generally, you know, the industry and how are these vessels built and rigged and crude, I mean. Like you said, they’re floating factories, so we pulled this off in the 17 hundreds. That’s pretty amazing.

[00:18:39] Amanda McMullen: It’s pretty crazy and it’s amazing actually, to your question of how are they built, I mean the Charles W. Morgan, which is, was built in New Bedford, but it lives today at Mystic Seaport Museum and it’s really, if you have not visited there, you should see it. ’cause you will see a wailing ship that was active. I mean, I think that one was. Built in about two months. I mean, there again, the industry was turning things around quickly.

[00:19:01] Obviously they wanted safety and things to be, you know, all ships needed to be seaworthy, but there was an efficiency and they expedited the building industry, if you will, that you know, surrounded. The New Bedford system of whaling. So they were constructed pretty quickly. The Lagoda that we have in our space, we have this just magnificent, it’s one of our earlier buildings that came online.

[00:19:24] It is affectionately known as the Jonathan born Memorial Whaling Museum at the old Dartmouth Historical Society. So that’s a mouthful too. We lovingly just call it the Born Building Today. True. And people do know of it just. By the ship’s name of the Lagoda, which was one of, uh, Jonathan Bourne, who was a real significant player in the whaling fleet as an owner operator.

[00:19:47] He had a number of ships in his fleet. The Lagoda was his favorite and arguably his most profitable also had a great safety record. And one of the stories I always like to tell people is that Lagoda is spelled L-A-G-O-D-A. And when she was commissioned and named, they actually. Jonathan Bourne originally had intended it to be named after Lake Ladoga, so DOG, but when they did it incorrectly and spelled GOD in the middle, the superstition of you we’re not painting over the word God and ended up being how it got this really original name.

[00:20:22] And so sort of superstition carries in terms of why it turned into his safest and ar arguably one of his most. Profitable. So it is a half size wailing ship, which is an interesting thing. I always remind us all to do our fifth grade math. When you think of half size, it’s a half size in every direction.

[00:20:39] So it’s massive on its own. It came, you know, to be in the uh, through a gift by Emily born again to celebrate her father and hold true to the whaling heritage in 19 14, 19 15. The building opens up in 1916. It’s one of the first American. Immersive experiences in a museum. You can climb on board, you can go below deck.

[00:21:00] You can really get up close to see how the rigging is actually done. You can see the crow’s nest. You really get a sense of what it would be like to live and work and be on this whaling ship.

[00:21:13] Alisha Searcy: Thanks for being with us, Amanda. I have a question for you. So the Society of Friends or Quakers Yes. Came to America for religious liberty.

[00:21:22] Mm-hmm. And held the wailing industry and made New Bedford and Nantucket hotbeds of anti-slavery activism. Yes. Can you talk about how the museum represents the relationship between the whaling industry and New England’s abolitionist movement?

[00:21:38] Amanda McMullen: Yeah. Uh, Alisha, that’s a great question and thank you. We had a wonderful exhibit several years ago that’s actually now traveling, and it was in partnership.

[00:21:45] With the New Bedford Historical Society, which is honestly the leader in this community of telling the Black and African American and abolitionist movement within New Bedford. So we really look to them as partners on this, as well as University of Massachusetts, professor of History, Timothy Walker, who had published a book called Sailing to Freedom.

[00:22:05] Which is a phenomenal overview of exactly what you’re talking about, why New Bedford as this Quaker epicenter of abolitionist movement and a place where Frederick Douglass came through and there was just a really different perspective from other. American cities, frankly, in the Northeast, around the view of civil rights, frankly, early, early on.

[00:22:28] And the connection to whaling is even more fascinating. And this exhibit really highlighted that it’s all, too often, we all assume that the Underground Railroad was by land, right? Emancipation was predominantly people moving by foot or train or in some other horse, you know, some other venture again, on land.

[00:22:49] The vast majority of self emancipated and escaped slaves actually came through maritime roots from the south to the north. Really? I know Alisha. I didn’t know that until our exhibit, I have to tell you, and this book Chronicles that and details the numbers and New Bedford in particular because of the strong Quaker presence and their deep commitment to abolitionist movements.

[00:23:15] And advocacy. It became a place where a number of self emancipated and freed slaves just came by purpose. It was one of those things. It’s not unlike other migration movements where you know where you’re going will be safe, and you will have a community. You are welcomed. And so it became a. New Bedford really became, like I said, the epicenter for this.

[00:23:33] In addition, the whaling industry was so strong here that if you were self emancipated and you were literally on the run from a bounty hunter trying to find you going on a whaling voyage for three to four years, was a great way to stay alive, and that happened all the time. I think one of the other really interesting strands that has been highlighted in this show is that, again, ’cause the Quaker presence here and many of them of great wealth owned these whaling fleets.

[00:24:04] There was a philosophy of they hired anyone they wanted anyone. Regardless of who you were, what you look like, what you prayed, who you prayed to, all of the above, what languages you spoke, none of that mattered to the Quaker owners. And if you were the best harpoon, you were gonna get paid as the best harpoon period.

[00:24:25] And so all those elements came together in and around New Bedford and obviously the whaling industry as just a really interesting and different marker than a lot of northern cities, frankly.

[00:24:38] Alisha Searcy: Very interesting. Yeah. So I wanna talk about some of the museum’s collections. Mm-hmm. That comprise nearly 1 million items, including 3000 pieces of Scrimshaw, 2,500 log books from whaling ships, both of which are the largest collections in the world.

[00:24:55] Can you tell us about these artistic and archival holdings and how you and your staff present them to researchers, the public and school children? Yeah, I love talking about our collection.

[00:25:07] Amanda McMullen: It is a fascinating collection. Again, as a hundred plus year old organization, it is deep and wide and vast and also amazingly weird, which I love people to know.

[00:25:19] Like it’s just weird cool stuff from voyages all over the world. But it’s also, again, with New Bedford having such incredible height of economic. Strength and wealth. It also became a city that, you know, what wealthy cities in the 18 hundreds did was they attracted a lot of artists. They attracted and built on culture.

[00:25:41] So the creative Sydor, new Bedford is extraordinary. I mean, there are some phenomenal artists. Albert Pinkham writer, probably one of the most famous of painters who’s got an entire gallery at the Smithsonian dedicated to him. And we’ve done a show on him, but not, you know, he’s not the only one. I mean, there was just.

[00:25:59] Such, such a significant feeling of creativity and commissioned artwork. There were companies in the 18 hundreds that moved from Boston for art glass manufacturing, Mount Washington and PowerPoint being two that came together and they moved specifically to New Bedford because of the wealth in New Bedford.

[00:26:15] And so there’s a vibrancy to a. City that was that successful early on in the country, and our collection represents that. I think the unique thing about our collection is because of whaling and then because of the second wave of economic boom with the textile and manufacturing industry. This is an incredible city that embraced early on as we just talked about, even.

[00:26:39] In terms of the abolitionist movement, this city has always embraced difference and other perspective and a global perspective. And I think especially in sort of looking at this moment that we’re in right now in terms of the way immigration is viewed, new Bedford has been a city that has grown. By strength through immigration, and again, waves from both the textile industry as well as whaling.

[00:27:02] You’ll hear every language spoken on our street corners and you always have. So our collection represents that range in diversity as well. We have an amazing two exhibits opening up this summer, celebrating the Cape Verdean community and culture here, both through historical artifacts and artistic representation.

[00:27:21] Marking the 50th anniversary of Cape Bird’s independence from Portugal, and we have a really strong active Cape Verdian advisory committee that’s helped us build our collections and look at underrepresented areas of our collection. So it really ranges from these whaling log books. That can tell you the weather in, you know, the 18 hundreds and, and are studied from an organizational development standpoint by business schools and meteorologists, looking at science conditions and ocean temperatures.

[00:27:48] And then it goes into this incredible range of the global story of the people who migrated to New Bedford.

[00:27:55] Alisha Searcy: Very fascinating. So speaking of New Bedford, no conversation about New Bedford and whaling is complete Without discussing Herman Melville and 19th Century novel, Moby Dick. Yeah. Could you tell us about Melville’s linkages to New Bedford and how the museum draws visitors and the public into New England’s deep literary heritage?

[00:28:16] Amanda McMullen: Such a fun topic. So Melville Herman Melville wrote he, well back up before he wrote Moby Dick. He was on a whaling voyage that left from the port of New Bedford in January of 1841. And so 10 years later, he then came back and he crafted what is now known as his very famous epic tale, Moby Dick. And. You know, there are lots of connections to Melville and lots of areas on the coast, if you will, and between Mystic certainly has a connection.

[00:28:43] We have a connection Nantucket, and then Central or Western Mass also where he lived, we sort of claim Herman Melville for that little moment that he was here and left from, from our port. And it really lends itself to what I think is the New Bedford and the region here is so incredibly authentic and real kind of gritty, just a really.

[00:29:07] Genuine town and Melville really articulated that genuine town in the mid 18 hundreds, if you will. And so we do an annual reading of Moby Dick in January. Try to line it up to as close as the day that he set sale, and it’s coming on our 30th. Anniversary. This coming January will be the 30th reading of Melville.

[00:29:28] We read the entire Moby Dick page by page, by page over 26 hours overnight in the museum. It is something that does hold up our literary commitment to him as obviously the author, but also just. The authenticity of knowing that he walked our cobblestone streets. He stayed at the Mariner’s home. He prayed at what’s called the Siemens Bethel before leaving, which is where Whalers prayed that they would make it through the voyage alive in return.

[00:29:53] And so there’s a real authenticity about our connection to Millville that’s pretty special. And we. Definitely lifted up every year with this Moby Dick Marathon reading. It is what people will call a bucket list item, and we get people from nearly every state in this country and over dozens of countries will come every single year as sort of this destination to either be a reader or just have a story read to them.

[00:30:18] Alisha Searcy: Fascinating. I love that. So my final question, the new Bedford Whale Museum welcomes more than 82,000 visitors through its doors and nearly 60,000 through its traveling exhibits impacting 140,000 people throughout the country, as you just talked about. In addition, it’s a major economic driver for Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

[00:30:40] So can you talk about the museum’s plans for the summer and maybe some future projects?

[00:30:45] Amanda McMullen: Absolutely. Yeah. Those are all our great stats from 2024. I think I’ll start with by telling you the phenomenal news is that we’ve continued strong in 2025 with audience growth and visitation, and in fact have had the best first five months of visitation in the history of the entire institution. So 120 plus years. This is our strongest visitation and I think several factors are at play there. A lot of it is our special exhibits that open for a moment in time and they’re sort of, that must see the two that I mentioned around the Cape Verdean community and culture and then our artistic side of it.

[00:31:18] Those two exhibits are companion exhibits. One is called Mobi, which is the community story, and the other is CLA do, which is really about a celebration of international Cape Verdean. Contemporary artists, living artists today, which is something we focus a lot on. We also just opened up an unbelievably cool sound exhibit by a sound wave artist, which is not only a full immersive gallery wallpapered in her layered photo collage, but it’s actually got a loop that she has of recordings from the Arctic meshed with.

[00:31:50] Recordings from the Port of New Bedford and meshed with our Bioacoustics recordings, which we have from Woods Hole. So a really beautiful kind of respite exhibit to come in and just sort of listen to the water and be still and be quiet, which we are feeling everyone needs right now to have a space to come in and be quiet.

[00:32:09] So altogether, those special exhibits combined with things like the Lagoda, things like our narratives around current conditions for whale health. And Coastal impact really do lead to that 80 plus thousand visitor coming through our doors. And then the real really great growth for us strategically has been through traveling exhibits.

[00:32:29] Our expansion that we are currently working on and hoping to be on the horizon. Very soon. We’re about to do the demolition of the building across the street, which will be coming down to make space for a brand new 20,000 square foot welcome and exhibition center that will have. A real commitment to being a community hub and an anchor that we feel strongly about being with this sort of welcome center and community living room space.

[00:32:54] But the second floor will have, it will triple our rotating and special exhibition galleries and be state of the art where we can be bringing in shows from major lending institutions, and we can also curate our own and send them on the road. And as much as everything we’ve talked about is so important and I feel deeply about our role in being a museum that is of the highest scholarship and you know, academic rigor.

[00:33:17] I also am very aware of our role in cultural tourism and the visitation stats become incredibly important when I look at the businesses and our neighbors in the community and making sure people are employed around the museum in New Bedford and. We take very seriously that role and responsibility. And annually the museum contributes over $10 million to the South Coast community through our visitors, and frankly, our visitors spend actually over $3 million outside of our doors.

[00:33:46] Wow. So this is that combination of being an important place for education and inspiration, but it’s also really vital that we contribute to the community.

[00:33:55] Alisha Searcy: Yes. Well, you’re doing incredible work. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you, Alisha, and thank you Albert.

[00:34:03] Albert Cheng: Yes, thank you Amanda, and best of luck with the future of this museum. I know it’s on my list to visit when I am in New England again, but excellent. Well, and I’ll encourage, uh, folks listening to do the same. I mean, it’s fascinating.

[00:34:15] Amanda McMullen: That’s great. I appreciate it. Thanks so much. Keep up the great work.

[00:34:30] Albert Cheng: That was fun. Alisha, I dunno about you, but I, I just love broadening my horizons and Yes, talking about something that we usually don’t talk about every day.

[00:34:38] Alisha Searcy: Right. And I’ll tell you, I don’t know if I would’ve been able to put whales and freedom from slavery in the same conversation, but quite fascinating.

[00:34:49] Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fascinating history, you know, just to know our story and where we all come from. And so we’re approaching the end of our show. And Alisha, we’ve got a tweet this week, don’t we?

[00:35:00] Alisha Searcy: We do, and I’m happy to do our tweet of the week. It’s from Charlie Barone, who is a former colleague of mine from Democrats for Education Reform, but now he works over at the National Parents Union.

[00:35:11] And in true form for Charlie, uh, he says their Democrats do better. On innovation and public school choice from the National Parents Union, so make sure you check out that piece. Charlie is a brilliant researcher and has worked with the Department of Education and done a whole lot of things in education and as usual, very provocative and informative.

[00:35:34] Albert Cheng: Great. Great. Well, I’m gonna take a look at that a little bit more closely after the show and we’re gonna wrap up here. But before we do that, let’s just tease next week’s episode. We’re gonna have Shaka Mitchell. He’s a senior fellow for the American Federation for Children. Good friend of mine. I think many of you listening probably know him as well.

[00:35:52] Always love sitting down to chat with them. So tune in next week as well. We’ll be talking to Shaka Mitchell. But until then, everyone, be well and enjoy the rest of your day. Yes. Hey, it’s Albert Cheng here, and I just wanna thank you for listening to the Learning Curve podcast. If you’d like to support the podcast further, we’d invite you to donate to the Pioneer Institute at pioneerinstitute.org/donations.