Introduction
New Bedford is a historic seaport, whaling town, and industrial city facing Buzzards Bay on the south coast of Massachusetts.
According to Wikipedia, New Bedford was once known as "The Whaling City" because it was one of the world's most important whaling ports in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Whaling declined after the 1860s when petroleum was discovered in Pennsylvania and as overfishing almost eradicated whale populations around the world's oceans.
Textile manufacturing replaced the whale trade (from Wikipedia):
In the midst of this decline, greater New Bedford's economy became more dependent on the textile industry, which began to eclipse the whaling industry in the late 19th century. The mills grew and expanded constantly, eventually comprising multiple sites along the Acushnet River. In 1875 alone, the Wamsutta Mills processed 19,000 bales of cotton into 20 million yards of cloth, which had a wholesale value comparable to that of the entire whaling catch, and continued to produce over 20 million yards of cloth yearly after 1883. The Wamsutta Mills remained the world's largest weaving plant until 1892.
My wife and I briefly visited New Bedford in late 2021 and looked at some of the monumental mill buildings. Many are empty now, but some have new uses, including residential. The New Bedford Economic Development Council prepared a
City of New Bedford Historic Mill Inventory in 2008. You need to walk around some of the structures to see what huge businesses these must have once housed and image how many thousands of workers once toiled inside. We have seen similar huge brick mill buildings in
Lewiston, Maine, in 2003 and
Łódź, Poland, in 2016 (in a pre-Covid life).
New Bedford Harbor
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| Harbor Street, New Bedford. Note mill worker houses in the distance |
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| Former power plant, Harbor Street (5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, orange filter) |
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| Mill view from Gifford Street (taken from US Army Corps of Engineers hurricane surge barrier) |
Clarks Cove
Clark's Cove is on the west side of the city, with Rodney French Boulevard running along the shore. We stopped at a driveway leading into a mill complex at 89 Rodney French. The gate was open and no one was around. I could not find a name of the complex or the name of the former milling company. The 2008 inventory does not list the original companies that operated these mills.
The Globe Furniture Company occupies part of the ground floor facing Rodney French. But most of the hulking complex appeared to be empty. The doors were secured and I could not go inside, but did not have enough time to look everywhere.
The patterns of light and shadow were especially interesting in the harsh sunlight. I hope I can return with a 4×5" camera some day.
Details, patters, shapes, textures - no end to interesting photographic topics.
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| Workers' homes, Thatcher Street (digital image) |
Another topic for a future visit is the worker housing that the cotton companies erected near the factories. The morning steam whistle would blow, and the factory workers walked to work.
I took the 2021 photographs on Kodak BW400CN film with my
Leica IIIC rangefinder camera and the 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens.
