Calendar – Past Event

American Experience Presents Ric Burns'
"Into the Deep: America, Whaling, & the World"
on PBS


Into the Deep: America, Whaling, & the World, from acclaimed filmmaker Ric Burns, is the epic story of America's quest for the leviathan. Premiering on the PBS series American Experience on Monday, May 10 at 9 p.m., the film combines a fantastic sea adventure, a cautionary economic and environmental tale, and a mythic saga of man and nature. It's also the thrilling story of three centuries of American whaling, and the unique relationship between american whalers and the giant creatures they hunted. The hunt for these mysterious, mammoth beings helped fuel the expansion of the American economy, propelled tiny backwater ports like Nantucket and New Bedford to the unrivalled center of the whaling world, and pioneered the first truly global enterprise America ever knew.

At the height of the whaling industry, U.S. whaleships encircled the globe, a massive state-of-the-art fleet crewed by highly-skilled mariners whose ever-widening search for whales enabled them to chart the seven seas. The magnificent creatures were slaughtered for the precious oil that filled their massive heads, the high-quality illuminant that lit the drawing rooms of Europe and greased the wheels of the Industrial Revolution.