The Book
Frozen in Time
The details of daily living, of the marrying, working, and dying of the individuals in the photo album from New Bedford demonstrate the personal side of the development of this famous whaling capital through its transition to a strong mill economy. These details also show how the financial and intellectual capital of the city fueled development throughout the United States.
An excerpt of the book Frozen in Time, found in its Foreword:
“Lukesh, archaeologist working as historian, creates the profile of a closely knit group of individuals—neighbors and kin—who belonged to the leading families of a city that knew Herman Melville and Frederick Douglass during these same decades. Looking at the portraits, leafing through the book and reading her discussion of each of those photographed one comes to recognize the Grinnells, the Snows, the Hunts, the Tabers and others as if they lived next door in that earnest, ambitious and supremely optimistic America of the decades surrounding the Civil War.”