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Primary Source Sets
The American Whaling Industry
A whale-oil lamp.

A whale-oil lamp.

This is a double-wick brass-chamber lamp of the type commonly used between 1750 and 1850. Whale oil was highly prized as the best lamp fuel as it burned very brightly and with little smoke. This small lamp was likely used in a bedroom; it could easily be carried from room to room without going out.

Citation Information
“Lamp, whale oil,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/6891a593968da90dc1366aee47eb2554.
Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.
Courtesy of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign via Illinois Digital Heritage Hub.

Tips for Students

For this source, consider:

  • the author's point of view
  • the author's purpose
  • historical context
  • audience

Item 14 of 14 in the Primary Source Set The American Whaling Industry

Previous Item
Excerpts, including illustrations, from an 1839 text describing how whalers captured and killed the sperm whale.
A “skimmer” tool used in the processing of whale oil aboard nineteenth-century ships.
The introduction to a 1918 text about John Manjiro (Nakahama Manjiro) and William H. Whitfield, including source documents and photographs.
A photo of John Manjiro and a bearded man, possibly Captain Whitfield.
An excerpt from Herman Melville’s 1851 novel about whaling, Moby Dick.
A photograph of the interior of the Seamen’s Bethel Church in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
An 1845 world map showing sea currents and whaling grounds.
A photograph of a model whaling ship and whaleboats.
An 1882 photograph of African American sea captains.
A scrimshaw tooth from 1840, carved aboard a whaling ship.
A photograph of the New Bedford whaleship Plantina.
A map showing Boston’s top-five foreign languages spoken at home in 2015.
A photo of Bishop Charles M. Grace, a Cape Verdean American pastor and community leader who was born in the 1880s and died in 1960.
A whale-oil lamp.

These sets were created and reviewed by teachers. Explore resources and ideas for Using DPLA's Primary Source Sets in your classroom.

To give feedback, contact us at info@dp.la. You can also view resources for National History Day.

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