1876 (dated)
Description
This is the 1876 first state of Oakley Hoopes Bailey bird's-eye view of New Bedford, Massachusetts. When New Bedford officially became a city in 1847, it was one of New England's most productive whaling cities, challenging Nantucket and Providence. Whaling dominated the city's economy for most of the century, and that trade fueled the city's initial population boom until around 1860; in 1857, New Bedford was the richest city per capita in the world – but the discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania would cause an inexorable decline in the market for whale oil, and the predations of secessionist commerce raiders during the American Civil War would speed the decline of an already-fading industry. By the time this view was produced in 1876, New Bedford was not so much a whaling town as it was a mill town: the textile industry had taken over. In 1875, the Wamsutta mills on their own processed enough cotton into cloth to make more money than that year's entire whaling catch. The textile mills fueled even greater prosperity than whaling, spurring the development of industries to serve the city's rich.