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Country
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US
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Language of name of institution
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eng
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Contact information: postal address
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150 Empire Street, Providence, RI 02903
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Contact information: phone number
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001 (401) 455-8000
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Contact information: email
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jgoffin@provlib.org (special collections)
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Reference number
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Nicholson MSS
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Type of reference number
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Archival reference number
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Title (official language of the state)
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Nicholson Whaling Manuscript Collection
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Language of title
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eng
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Creator / accumulator
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Paul C. Nicholson
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Date note
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18th century/20th century
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Language(s)
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eng
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Extent
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63 boxes and assorted volumes
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Type of material
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Textual Material
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Object
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Photographic Images
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Scope and content
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The Nicholson Whaling Collection comprises documentary material related to whaling and includes the world's second-largest collection of whaling logbooks, recording over 1,000 voyages. The collection currently contains more than 15,000 items, including prints, manuscript documents, photographs and several artefacts, such as scrimshaw (a form of folk art practised by whalemen in the 19th and early 20th centuries).
Among these materials is a collection of manuscripts and account books, organised into 35 subgroups by ship and topic. In this collection, it is possible to find documentary evidence on the whaling activity developed by Aaron Lopez (1731-1782), a Portuguese Jewish merchant who, from Newport, operated in large-scale Atlantic commerce. One of the series (8-O) of subgroup 13, entitled Miscellaneous whaling and sealing ships, is composed of one folder with the instructions given by Lopez to Thomas Lothrop, master of the brig Leviathan. This vessel shipped from Newport in 1772, directed to the coast of Africa to hunt sperm whales. However, it ended up continuing its voyage toward the Brazilian coast. This voyage, which ended with the Portuguese authorities' arrest of Captain Lothrop and his crew, became the first sperm whaling venture off the coast of Brazil. More documentation on Aaron Lopez is in subgroup 22 (Personal Papers of Individuals), whose series B includes correspondence addressed to Lopez by Joseph Rotch, Henry Lloyd, Abraham Pereira Mendes, Samuel Aborn, Shubael Lovell, Nathaniel Appleton and Moses Hayes, various bills and receipts, shipping receipts (1756, 1760 and 1765) and instructions to whaling captains.
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Archival history
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This collection was donated to the Providence Public Library in 1956 by Paul C. Nicholson, great-grandson of William Thomas Nicholson (1834-1893), the founder of the Nicholson File Company. The collection continues to grow thanks to an endowment provided by the Nicholson family.
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(source: Providence Public Library: The Nicholson Whaling Collection)
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Administrative / Biographical history
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Paul C. Nicholson, Jr. was the head of the Nicholson File Company until 1969. This company, a major manufacturing firm in Providence, Rhode Island, had been founded by his great-grandfather, William Thomas Nicholson (1834-1893), in 1864. Nicholson's offspring successively managed the company. When Nicholson died in 1893, his son, Col. Samuel Mowry Nicholson, took over the company until 1904. Nicholson File Company continued to expand by leasing the Great Western File Company in Pennsylvania and absorbing other companies. After Samuel died, Paul C. Nicholson Jr., his grandson, became the head of the company. By the 1960s, the Nicholson File Company was a substantial player in the American and overseas markets. Paul C. Nicholson left the company's leadership to George C. Williams, the first non-family member to head it. In October 1972, the Nicholson File Company ended through a merger with Cooper Industries.
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(source: Salotto, Lori. 2000. Nicholson File Company Records. Rhode Island Historical Society)
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System of arrangement
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The collection is organised into subgroups by ships and topics.
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Author of the description
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Carla Vieira, 2022
