The Two New Bedfords: Spatial and Social Analysis of the City, 1800-1870 Main Menu Home Page Emily Esten, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Introduction

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Over a few decades in the first half of the nineteenth century, the small town of New Bedford, Massachusetts, transformed into the whaling capital of the United States. The New Bedford waterfront experienced an abundance of commercial and social activity during the nineteenth century. The port’s convenient location on Buzzard’s Bay with access to larger markets in New York and Boston contributed to the rapid escalation of its whaling industry. At whaling’s peak in the early 1850s, over three hundred ships departed from the harbor each year.⁠1 Due to its active waterfront’s multiple employment opportunities, the city experienced rapid population growth and diversification, increasing from 3,947 in 1820⁠2 to 18,000 in 1853⁠3 with the arrival of immigrants and self-liberated African-Americans of the South. 

This project shows the growth of New Bedford during this period. Using spatial and social analysis, this project explores contemporary perceptions of the waterfront. 

1 Kathryn Grover, The Fugitive’s Gibraltar: Escaping Slaves and Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001): 24.
2 Ibid., 24.
3 Ibid., 56.

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