New Bedford, MA—The City That Lit the World, the official National Park Service orientation movie for New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park is now showing.  Visitors can catch the show daily, free of charge, every hour, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the 250-seat theater at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, 18 Johnny Cake Hill in the heart of the National Historical Park.

The City That Lit the World uses dramatization, documentary footage, and the vast collections of the New Bedford Whaling Museum and New Bedford Free Public Library to introduce visitors to the themes of the Historical Park, illustrating a remarkable time—long before we siphoned oil from the earth and before electricity pulsed through out lives, when oil from the great nomadic whale illuminated the homes and streets of America with a light smokeless and clear.  Whale spermaceti was so pure that it lubricated the machines of the new industrial age, and baleen—or whalebone—firm and pliable, gave shape to the fashion of the Victorian age.  To deliver these products to the world and entire industry arose.  One that amassed great fortunes, caused tens of thousands of men to leave home to risk their lives in far flung seas, created one of the wealthiest cities in 19^th century America, and left a lasting legacy in New Bedford.

To make the movie, Northern Light Productions filmed on location throughout a one-year period, roughly spanning 2001.  Among the buildings featured in the movie are the Seamen’s Bethel, Herman Melville’s inspiration for the whalemen’s chapel in Moby-Dick, and the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum, a 19^th century whaling merchant’s home.  The crew also captured scenes of New Bedford’s active commercial waterfront and fishing fleet, filmed in the city’s neighborhoods, and took to the air for dramatic aerial shots above the harbor.  To represent the historic link between New Bedford and the Iñupiat people of Alaska, Northern Light also traveled to Barrow, the northernmost community in the United States to film segments illustrating traditional and contemporary Iñupiat culture.  Extensive filming also took place aboard Schooner Ernestina in New Bedford and the whale ship Charles W. Morgan at Mystic Seaport.

New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park was established by Congress in 1996.  One of over 380 National Park Service areas, it is the National Park Service site addressing the history of the whaling industry and its influence on the economic, social and environmental history of the United States.  The park includes New Bedford’s 13-block waterfront historic district, Schooner Ernestina, the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum and several sites along the waterfront.  The legislation establishing the park also established a connection between the NPS and the Iñupiat Heritage Center in Barrow, Alaska.

The New Bedford Whaling Museum holds the world's largest and most outstanding American whaling and maritime history collections.  Highlights of the museum include a half-scale replica of the whaling bark Lagoda, a re-creation of a whale ship foc’s’le, a 66-foot blue whale skeleton, and the newly created Kendall Institute, a world-class scholarly research facility.  The whaling museum collection embraces over 500 whaling implements; 2,000 paintings, prints and drawings; 35,000 original photographs and negatives; 2,000 scrimshaw items and carvings; thousands of ethnographic objects; hundreds of ship models; and an extensive collection of ships’ log books. 

Northern Light Productions of Boston has been creating striking images and compelling narratives, which tell provocative stories and engage audiences for over 17 years.  Northern Light has won numerous awards for its work and recently completed movies for Yosemite National Park and Sitka National Historical Park.  Other NPS sites Northern Light has completed work for include Minute Man National Historical Park and Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site.    

For more information about New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park or the movie, contact the park Visitor Center at (508) 996-4095, or visit the park’s website at www.nps.gov/nebe.