Wider World Catalog

The Wider World & Scrimshaw explores carving traditions that emerged alongside subsistence and commercial whaling routes around the Pacific, from New Bedford, MA to Oceania and the Arctic. The New Bedford Whaling Museum holds the largest collection of “scrimshaw” in the world, defined as a decorative, folk, or vernacular art made by whalers from the byproducts of whales. General audiences frequently misconstrue maritime history and scrimshaw specifically as linked only to white, male, New England makers. Wider World overturns these assumptions by placing our incredible scrimshaw collection into conversation with Indigenous material culture from across the Pacific world.