About the Nonprofit
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OVERVIEW
The Whaling Museum & Education Center, located in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, is an AAM-accredited, 90-year old institution of outstanding exhibitions, programming and community activities for 20,000 participants every year.
MISSION
The Museum engages the community in exploring the diversity of our whaling heritage and its impacts to enrich and inform our lives.
VISION
The museum brings communities together to cultivate knowledge & celebrate creativity through the arts, science, and history of our whaling heritage - Long Island's biggest story. We empower communities with a deeper understanding of our shared humanity and environment, inspired by our maritime heritage.
PRIMARY MUSEUM ACTIVITIES
The Whaling Museum advances understanding of Long Island’s whaling history through:
1) Permanent & changing exhibitions such as “If I Were a Whaler”; “Heroines at the Helm”; “ Shinnecock Artists” and “Whalers of the African Diaspora.”
2) Year-round cultural programs and events for children & adults including school programs reaching 4,000 students annually; Museum-To-You program reaching 5,000 participants annually; Nautical Journeys and World Adventures camps; Scout offerings; and year-round public programming, including workshops, tastings, talks, and other various events, including large-scale Narwhal Ball, Boo-seum, Whales and Ales, and Sea Glass Festival.
3) Research & Publications including collaborations with researchers, authors, historians, and educators, including an ongoing digitization project.
4) Preservation of a 6,000-item collection & archives. The Museum uses its collection as a gateway to diverse entry points and contemporary interests. The star of the collection is a historic whaleboat, the only whaling vessel with original gear on display in NY. The Museum’s maritime arts collection, including one of the notable scrimshaw collections in the Northeast, offers a creative portal into an industry that had a deep impact on our local & national culture. Collectively, this core work provides the public & researchers with links to explore how whaling was one of Long Island’s most important commercial industries which significantly shaped the economic development & social foundation of the region, and contributed to America’s emergence as an international power in the 19th century.
MUSEUM HISTORY:
Locals founded the 3,900 square foot Museum in 1936 to honor Cold Spring Harbor’s heritage as a microcosmic American whaling village in the 19th century. In the past decade, the museum experienced dramatic growth in engagement from an interpretive transformation, emphasis on contemporary interests, staff restructure, firmer financial footing, exhibition rotations & improvements, and digitization project to increase collection access. The Museum’s outstanding success, and emphasis on the continuing relevance of whaling to contemporary life, generates ongoing excitement in the community.
MUSEUM AUDIENCE
The museum is located in Suffolk County, close to the Nassau County border. The Museum’s primary annual audience of 20,000 people is a multigenerational demographic split evenly between Nassau & Suffolk counties. The museum also welcomes a notable influx of tourists, especially during the summer and holiday seasons. 70% of visitors are children 4-12 years old, making youth and families with children the primary audience for the Museum. Nearly half of the Museum’s audience attends an educational event or program. 70% of walk-in visitors are Caucasian. In 2023, the museum recorded higher rates of diversity among its visitation, which may be tied to its new special exhibition, “Whalers of the African Diaspora.” Several thousand schoolchildren visit every year through field trips; 40% of school youth are minorities. The museum’s galleries are ADA accessible.
