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A Whale-Oiled Machine

99% Invisible

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*The American Whaling Industry of the 19th century *

Whaling was a vast and brutal industry in the 1800s, sometimes as deadly for the sailors involved as it was for the whales./nThe global epicenter of whaling was just two blocks down from the museum on the piers jutting out into New Bedford Harb./nIn the mid-1850s, we're registered and sailed out of New Bedford. That's a huge fleet. So they're sailing all around the world. They're taking more than half a million animals throughout the 19th century.

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