July 18, 2016 –NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center has received a prestigious Archie Green Fellowship from the Library of Congress to support a year-long effort to document shore-side workers in New Bedford and Fairhaven, center officials said,
The center received support for “Workers on the New Bedford Waterfront.” Folklorist and Director Laura Orleans, working with anthropologists, Madeleine Hall-Arber and Corinn Williams, oral historian, Fred Calabretta and photographer, Phil Mello will conduct a large ethnographic field project interviewing approximately 60 shore-side workers involved in the local commercial fishing industry.
The project will focus on recording oral histories about rarely documented occupational skills, knowledge, and trades including: marine electronics and engine repair; fish processing, packing, and trucking; the design and manufacture of fishing gear; work in ice plants and on fuel barges; offloading of fish and scallops; the seafood auction, settlement houses; and shipyard work, the center said in a news release.