New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
Professor Patrick Rael and Historian George Ripley speak on Saturday, September 14
New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park offers two lectures to commemorate the Civil War 150th Anniversary on Saturday, September 14. At 3:00 PM, Professor Patrick Rael, History Professor at Bowdoin College will speak on “Historical Reflections on the Interracial Struggle to End Slavery.” This lecture will explore the relationships between white and black abolitionists prior to the Civil War and how these efforts contributed to the War Between the States. At 5:30 PM, Historian George Ripley will speak on the Stone Fleet and the recent archaeological research to understand the locations of the Stone Fleet within the Charleston Harbor. Both lectures will be held in the theater at New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park (33 William Street).
Professor Rael is an Organization of American Historians (OAH) Distinguished Lecturer, a program that facilitates the partnership between local communities and historians to understand the meaning and cause of the Civil War. Dr. Rael obtained his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley and his dissertation focused on African American Thought in the Antebellum North. He is currently finishing a book Eighty-Eight Years: The Long Death of Slavery in the United States, which examines the process of ending slavery in the United States.
Historian and librarian George Ripley will speak at 5:30 PM as part of the “New B Under the Sea” series, a campaign focusing on underwater archaeology projects. Mr. Ripley will present “The Stone Fleet, Then and Now,” and show video from the first Stone Fleet archaeological site in Charleston Harbor. The Stone Fleet consisted of a fleet of aging ships (mostly whaleships purchased in New Bedford and other New England ports,) loaded with stone, and sailed south during the American Civil War by the Union Navy for use as blockade ships.
This lecture series is sponsored by New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park in partnership with the New Bedford Historical Society, the Martha Briggs Educational Club, the New Bedford Civil War Roundtable and the Fort Taber • Fort Rodman Historical Association
