The Penniman House: A Whaling Story (Teaching with Historic Places)

This lesson is part of the National Park Service’s Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) program.

Captain Edward Penniman steps outside his house on Fort Hill in Eastham, Massachusetts in the late summer of 1881. He can feel the chill of the winds blowing off the Atlantic Ocean. He can smell and taste the salt air. By habit, he scans the whitecapped horizon in search of a whale's spout. Soon he would leave on his fifth voyage across the world's oceans, to hunt these "leviathans of the deep." The voyage could last for four years. Would his wife Gustie come along this time? Would any of their children accompany them? Where would he find his crew? Would this whaling voyage be successful? It was the whaling industry, or "whale fishery," as it was known then, that satisfied Captain Penniman's adventurous spirit and offered him an opportunity to earn enough money to support a family and to construct an impressive home in Eastham. Captain Penniman built his French Second Empire style house on Cape Cod in 1868. Today, over 100 years later, the Penniman House is a National Historic Site owned and interpreted by the National Park Service as part of Cape Cod National Seashore. The house holds the Penniman family's written records and artifact collections, which provide glimpses of the places and people that the family visited on their whaling voyages. Theirs is a true life whaling story representative of hundreds of other whaling captains and their families that traveled the globe to pursue whale fishery.

Essential Question

Meet Captain Edward Penniman, and learn about 19th-century whaling in southeastern Massachusetts and how the whaling industry impacted Penniman's family and life.

Objective

1. To chart places associated with the whaling industry;
2. To describe the impact of the whaling industry on a captain and the captain’s family;
3. To identify the global, cultural, and economic connections made by the whaling industry in the middle through late 1800s;
4. To explore the concept of "sky glow" and list ways to protect the night sky;
5. To research historic homes in their community that are historically significant because of their association with a particular industry.

Background

Time Period: 1850-1874
Topics: This lesson could be used in US history, social studies, and geography in units on maritime history and the whaling industry.

Full Lesson Plan