Page 6 – Mystic Seaport Museum

“Story Boats: The Tales They Tell” Opens at Mystic Seaport Museum May 28

Post author By Sophia Matsas
Post date April 6, 2022

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s yacht VIREO.

Mystic, Conn. (April 6, 2022) – The exhibition “Story Boats: The Tales They Tell” gathers a diverse selection of boats, large and small, to offer a fresh and exciting view into the American maritime experience. Drawn from the Museum’s extensive watercraft collection (including some that are being shown to the public for the very first time) the boats in the show bring to life remarkable stories of humanity’s connection to the sea.

“Story Boats: The Tales They Tell” will be on view in the Collins Gallery at Mystic Seaport Museum from May 28 through August 14, 2022. It was curated by Quentin Snediker, the Museum’s Clark Senior Curator for Watercraft and Krystal Rose, Curator of Collections.

“While many visitors and field experts are interested in the technical and material aspects of the collection, what resonates with a broader audience are the diverse personal stories that are inherently tied to those boats and how these stories connect with our visitors’ own journeys,” said Christina Brophy, Senior Vice President of Curatorial Affairs and Senior Director of Museum Galleries at Mystic Seaport Museum. “What ties these boats together thematically, and is the inspiration for the exhibition ‘Story Boats: The Tales They Tell,’ is the remarkable richness of human-interest stories behind them, which include themes of hope, exploration, survival, joy, adventure, sport, immigration, and many others.”

One of the Museum’s greatest assets is its collection of small watercraft, which is arguably the largest of its type and the best in the country. Mystic Seaport Museum has more than 450 small boats as well as a fleet of larger historic vessels moored on its waterfront along the Mystic River. Four of these vessels are designated National Historic Landmarks. As a whole, they represent an extraordinary array of design, purpose, and materials beginning in the early 19th century to the present, from dugout canoes to duck boats to recreational Boston Whalers and everything in between and beyond.

Senior Curator for Watercraft, Quentin Snediker and Curator of Collections, Krystal Rose, along with the Museum’s exhibits team consulted with a diverse pool of experts and lay people to distill a list of boats from the collection that have these outstanding stories to tell. The exhibition installation in the Thompson Building Collins Gallery and Pilalas Lobby will fully utilize the grand volume of the space to advantage, where some of the lighter vessels will “fly” suspended from the ceiling, while others will be mounted on the gallery floor. Each vessel will be exhibited with an iconic object that alludes to its story.

A few highlights from the exhibit include:

Franklin D Roosevelt’s Vireo

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1914 knockabout sloop Vireo (from our collection) will be displayed alongside his wheelchair (on loan from the Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites). Roosevelt contracted polio in 1921 shortly before a family trip and was aboard the vessel on the last day he walked without assistance.

Steven Callahan’s 76 Days Adrift

Mystic Seaport Museum recently received a collection of material from Steven Callahan, author of “Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea,” the true story of his survival of being lost at sea in a rubber life raft after his solo sailing trip across the Atlantic met with disaster. His sketches and some of the survival tools he created from his scant supplies will be on display with a similar model of the raft from which he found rescue off Guadeloupe. Callahan’s recent oral histories recorded by Mystic Seaport Museum will also be available in the exhibition.

Escape from Cuba Aboard Analuisa

The Analuisa is a 20-foot fishing vessel built by Luciano Cuadras Fernández, launched from Mariel, Cuba, in 1994 with 19 people aboard bound for Florida. Partway across, they were picked up by a passing cruise ship, abadoning the Analuisa. A very fortunate group of four on a totally different, floundering vessel (also out of Cuba) happened upon the abandoned Analuisa and navigated her safely to Key West. The sturdy Analuisa was a success story for two immigrant groups in one voyage. These are just a few of the hundreds of amazing stories that are tied to our Gallery collection.

To complement the main exhibition, other watercraft will be mounted on the deck surrounding the Thompson Exhibition Building and on the surrounding grounds, including Tango, a bright orange foot-pedal powered craft designed by the legendary naval architect Bruce Kirby. In 1992, Dwight Collins pedaled the boat from Newfoundland to England in 41 days, the fastest human-powered crossing in known history. In addition to these displays, visitors can explore our grounds to floating Story Boats vessels that carry their own powerful tales, including the Gerda III, which is on long-term loan from the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. In 1943, a courageous 22-year-old woman named Henny Sinding organized a resistance team to carry more than 300 Jews from Nazi-occupied Denmark to safety in Sweden aboard the Gerda III.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a souvenir book, “Story Boats,” to be published by Mystic Seaport Museum.

Media Contact:
Sophia Matsas
Director of Marketing & Communications
Mystic Seaport Museum
860.572.5317 (o)
sophia.matsas@mysticseaport.org

About Mystic Seaport Museum

Mystic Seaport Museum is the nation’s leading maritime Museum. Founded in 1929 to gather and preserve the rapidly disappearing artifacts of America’s seafaring past, the Museum has grown to become a national center for research and education with the mission to “inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.” The Museum’s grounds cover 19 acres on the Mystic River in Mystic, CT, and include a recreated New England coastal village, a working shipyard, formal exhibit halls, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities. The Museum is home to more than 500 historic watercraft, including four National Historic Landmark vessels, most notably the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. For more information, please visit mysticseaport.org and follow the Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

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Tags Exhibit, exhibition, story boats

News

Mayflower II Departs the Museum

Post author By Sophia Matsas
Post date April 5, 2022

On Monday, April 11, 2022, Plimoth Patuxet’s Mayflower II departs from the Museum at approximately 3 p.m. The 65-year-old wooden vessel spent the winter months in dry dock at the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard for routine maintenance and painting. The ship’s travel schedule is entirely dependent on tide, weather conditions, and other factors, and therefore subject to change without notice.

We look forward to welcoming visitors as The Mayflower II departs. For those who cannot view the launch in person you are able to track the ships journey here.

Read the press release here.

Enjoy this gallery of images from its time at the Museum this winter.

Tags henry b dupont shipyard, mayflower II, mystic seaport museum, wooden boat

News

Connect with Your Whaling Ancestors

Post author By Mystic Seaport Museum
Post date March 7, 2022

Researchers, historians, and genealogy enthusiasts now have an expanded resource to explore the history of the whaling industry and the individuals who were part of the global enterprise, with recent additions to the Whaling History website (WhalingHistory.org), a joint project of Mystic Seaport Museum and the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

The data presented combines many sources including logbooks, journals, ship registers, newspapers, business papers, and custom house records. Users can find and trace whaling voyages and ships to specific logbooks, as well as the list of crew members aboard many of the voyages.

A popular feature of the site is a dialog where users can search crew lists to discover if they have a relative who shipped out on a whaling voyage.

The foundational fabric of Whaling History features three databases that have been stitched together – the American Offshore Whaling Voyage (AOWV) database, the American Offshore Whaling Log database, and an extensive whaling crew list database. All data is open to the public and is downloadable for any researcher to use with other tools and systems.

The site has been expanded recently with the addition of 370 new whaling voyages to the AOWV database, most from the 18th century, and the integration of the Dennis Wood Abstracts of Whaling Voyages. The latter are brief handwritten summaries of whaling voyages compiled over more than forty years (1830–1874) by Dennis Wood, a merchant and whaling agent in New Bedford. The abstracts were drawn from news reported in the Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchants’ Transcript, and from letters, telegrams, and reports brought back by vessels. The New Bedford Free Public Library scanned the four volumes from its collection, containing more than 2,300 pages, and placed them on the Internet Archive.

“These new additions to the world’s most comprehensive whaling history database enhance the site’s scope and, most important, make it available for all to use,” said Paul O’Pecko, Vice President of Research Collections at Mystic Seaport Museum. “Researchers, genealogists, students, teachers, and history buffs alike will find it to be the most robust and useful repository of whaling history documentation and scholarship.”

Press Releases

Website Connects People with Their Whaling Ancestors

Post author By Mystic Seaport Museum
Post date March 7, 2022

Mystic, Conn. (March 7, 2022) – Researchers, historians, and genealogy enthusiasts now have an expanded resource to explore the history of the whaling industry and the individuals who were part of the global enterprise, with recent additions to the Whaling History website (WhalingHistory.org), a joint project of Mystic Seaport Museum and the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

A popular feature of the site is a dialog where users can search crew lists to discover if they have a relative who shipped out on a whaling voyage.

Media Contact

Dan McFadden
Director of Communications
Mystic Seaport Museum
860.572.5317 (o)
860.333.7155 (m)
dan.mcfadden@mysticseaport.org

About Mystic Seaport Museum

Mystic Seaport Museum is the nation’s leading maritime Museum. Founded in 1929 to gather and preserve the rapidly disappearing artifacts of America’s seafaring past, the Museum has grown to become a national center for research and education with the mission to “inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.” The Museum’s grounds cover 19 acres on the Mystic River in Mystic, CT, and include a recreated New England coastal village, a working shipyard, formal exhibit halls, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities. The Museum is home to more than 500 historic watercraft, including four National Historic Landmark vessels, most notably the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. At Mystic Seaport Museum, we strive to create an environment where visitors not only learn from us, but we learn from them. The concept is called Public History and it allows our visitors to experience history in ways they have not before. For more information, please visit mysticseaport.org and follow the Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

News

Museum to Honor William “Bill” Pinkney

Post author By Mystic Seaport Museum
Post date February 18, 2022

Mystic Seaport Museum will present its 2022 America and the Sea Award to Captain William “Bill” Pinkney, former Mystic Seaport Museum trustee, U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman, sailor, educator, author, and adventurer. The prestigious award recognizes those individuals and organizations whose extraordinary achievements in the world of maritime exploration, competition, scholarship, and design best exemplify the American character. As a former trustee of Mystic Seaport Museum, Pinkney and his work to open the maritime world to inner-city youth and others around the United States embody the Museum’s mission to inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.

William “Bill” Pinkney (Photo from William Pinkney)

Museum President Peter Armstrong said, “Captain Pinkney expertly and professionally unwraps the stories of the sea, from circumnavigation to the history of the triangle trade, for a wide and diverse audience. An ambassador to those who believe the maritime world is not their world, he has proven adept in showing everyone that the sea connects us all.”

Pinkney has been drawn to the sea from a very young age and has worked to sustain a personal connection as well as provide opportunities for others to learn the important history of people and the sea and the resulting influence on American culture. His work as the first captain of the freedom schooner Amistad – the first vessel constructed from the keel up at Mystic Seaport Museum – and his journey through the Middle Passage on The Sortilege, shared with educators and classrooms across the country, brought to life personal connections to the history of slavery and the crucial role that seafaring played. His solo circumnavigation on his 47-foot cutter, aptly named The Commitment, from Boston around the five southern capes and back to Boston, spanning 27,000 miles and 22 months, grew into an educational opportunity for so many children via video diaries, phone conversations, opportunities to track his progress through satellite technology and lesson plans that included nautical calculations and the influence of faraway cultures. All of this incredible work, born from a desire to leave a legacy for his grandchildren, speaks to the mission of Mystic Seaport Museum.

The Museum will recognize Pinkney’s exceptional life by awarding him the America and the Sea Award on Wednesday, October 26, 2022. The award presentation will take place at the Metropolitan Club in New York City. Individuals interested in an invitation can email advancement@mysticseaport.org.

This affair is the premier fundraising event for Mystic Seaport Museum. Past recipients of the America and the Sea Award include outstanding yachtsman Terry Hutchinson; America’s Cup Hall of Famer Tom Whidden, one of the most acclaimed sailors of all time; American businesswoman and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, whose ocean explorations have advanced our understanding of the ocean’s biodiversity and vulnerability; groundbreaking Whitbread and America’s Cup sailor Dawn Riley and Oakcliff Sailing; philanthropist and environmentalist David Rockefeller, Jr., and his Sailors for the Sea; boat designers Rod and Bob Johnstone and their company J/Boats; author and historian Nathaniel Philbrick; maritime industrialist Charles A. Robertson; America’s Cup Hall of Famer and author Gary Jobson; WoodenBoat Publications founder Jon Wilson; former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman; oceanographer and explorer Sylvia Earle; America’s Cup sailor William Koch; President and CEO of Crowley Maritime Corporation, Thomas Crowley; historian David McCullough; and the first honoree, legendary yacht designer Olin J. Stephens, II.

Pinkney’s full biography can be read at mysticseaport.org/gala.

Press Releases

Mystic Seaport Museum to Honor William Pinkney with the America and the Sea Award

Post author By Mystic Seaport Museum
Post date February 18, 2022

Mystic, Conn. (February 22, 2022) — Mystic Seaport Museum will present its 2022 America and the Sea Award to Captain William “Bill” Pinkney, former Mystic Seaport Museum trustee, U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman, sailor, educator, author, and adventurer. The prestigious award recognizes those individuals and organizations whose extraordinary achievements in the world of maritime exploration, competition, scholarship, and design best exemplify the American character. As a former trustee of Mystic Seaport Museum, Pinkney and his work to open the maritime world to inner-city youth and others around the United States embody the Museum’s mission to inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.

William “Bill” Pinkney (Photo from William Pinkney)

Individuals interested in an invitation can email advancement@mysticseaport.org.

Pinkney’s full biography can be read at mysticseaport.org/gala.

Media Contact

Dan McFadden
Director of Communications
Mystic Seaport Museum
860.572.5317 (o)
860.333.7155 (m)
dan.mcfadden@mysticseaport.org

About Mystic Seaport Museum

Mystic Seaport Museum, founded in 1929, is the nation’s leading maritime museum. In addition to providing a multitude of immersive experiences, the Museum also houses a collection of more than two million artifacts that include more than 500 historic vessels and one of the largest collections of maritime photography. Mystic Seaport Museum is located one mile south of Exit 90 off I-95 in Mystic, CT. For more information, please visit www.mysticseaport.org and follow Mystic Seaport Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

America and the Sea Award

William “Bill” Pinkney: 2022

Post author By Mystic Seaport Museum
Post date February 18, 2022

Mystic Seaport Museum recognized Capt. Bill Pinkney by awarding him the America and the Sea Award at a black-tie gala on Wednesday, October 26, 2022, at the Metropolitan Club in New York City. To view a tribute video, award presentation, and an interview with Captain Pinkney conducted by 2013 America and the Sea Award recipient, Gary Jobson, please visit here.

William Deltoris Pinkney was raised in Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s. In elementary school he discovered Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry and resolved to have a great adventure when he grew up. In high school, Pinkney joined the Naval Reserve and after graduating from Tilden Tech High School, he trained as an X-ray technician, followed by active duty with the Navy, beginning at the Naval Hospital Corps School in Bainbridge, Maryland. He was then stationed in Puerto Rico, where he settled after his discharge years later and where he learned to sail and developed the sailing prowess that would serve him well in the adventures to come.

Pinkney eventually returned to Chicago, where he continued sailing and began racing. In 1977 he bought his first sailboat, a 29-footer that he sailed out of Belmont Harbor in Chicago. Often without a partner available, he learned how to sail single-handedly. As he approached the age of 50, he began to think about what legacy he would leave for his grandchildren. His mind returned to the idea of the great adventure he had promised himself when he was 12. He thought that sailing around the world would show his grandchildren how a person could apply the things that were learned in school to real life.

While Pinkney was planning for the circumnavigation, the principal of Douglas Elementary School, his alma mater, suggested that he use the trip to inspire a wider range of children. The project grew, funded by investors, and true adventure ensued in 1990 as Pinkney embarked on his solo circumnavigation of the globe on his 47-foot cutter, aptly named The Commitment, traveling from Boston around the five southern capes and back to Boston, spanning 27,000 miles and 22 months. The voyage had developed into the educational opportunity of a lifetime for so many children via video diaries, phone conversations, opportunities to track his progress through satellite technology, and lesson plans that included nautical calculations and the influence of faraway cultures brought to America from across the sea.

He departed on Sunday, August 5, 1990, sailing out of Boston Harbor. His first stop was Bermuda. From there he sailed to Salvador de Bahia, a province of Brazil that had been settled by enslaved people from Africa. From Brazil, he sailed across the Atlantic to Cape Town, South Africa, a voyage of over 3,000 miles that took 34 days. After another 56 days, Pinkney completed the 5,300-mile leg from South Africa to Hobart, a port on the island of Tasmania that is part of Australia. He arrived in April of 1991, winter in Australia. Too late in the year to attempt the passage from Australia to South America, Pinkney took a six-month hiatus, returning to the United States and visiting schools to tell of his adventures up to that point in the voyage. He returned to Hobart in October of 1991 for the 4,600-mile journey to Cape Horn that took 65 days. Pinkney was greeted in Cape Horn by unceasing wind and waves, and despite having lost the aid of many of his instruments that had failed during the long crossing, Pinkney and The Commitment persevered, rounding Cape Horn successfully on Valentine’s Day 1992. When he sailed back into Boston Harbor on June 9, 1992, after having successfully circumnavigated the globe, he became the first Black man to sail around the world solo via Cape Horn. Gathered around to meet him and celebrate the day were hundreds of schoolchildren from schools all around Boston who had been following Pinkney’s voyage for two years, tracking his progress in their classrooms. A week later, Pinkney met another cheering crowd of adults and schoolchildren in Chicago, including students from over 150 schools who had followed his voyage. In the crowd were his two grandchildren, who had inspired the voyage.

In 1994 Pinkney joined the Board of Mystic Seaport Museum, serving for 14 years. During this time, he led a journey through the Middle Passage, the stage of the Atlantic slave trade in which millions of enslaved Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas as part of the triangular slave trade. He recruited teachers to sail with him while developing curriculum for their students. Departing in 1999 on a 78-foot ketch, The Sortilege, Pinkney, teachers, and the crew traveled a 12,000-mile route in six months, sailing first from Puerto Rico to Brazil where they visited the sites of former slave markets. They then sailed across the Atlantic to Accra in Ghana, and to Dakar in Senegal, where they also visited the infamous “Door of No Return,” a small island off the coast of Senegal, where enslaved people were loaded onto ships. On this trip, they were able to communicate with students in several hundred schools back in the United States via online computer service and satellite TV. This remarkable journey, shared with educators and classrooms across the country, brought to life personal connections to the history of slavery and the crucial role that seafaring played in that history.

Also, while a Mystic Seaport Museum Trustee, Pinkney became the first captain of the replica schooner Amistad, which was the first vessel constructed from the keel up at Mystic Seaport Museum.

The story of the original Amistad is one of remarkable bravery and great historic significance. In 1839, Mende captives from Sierra Leone had taken control of the Amistad, the ship transporting them to slavery. Unable to navigate back to Africa, the ship was captured and towed into the port of New London in Connecticut. The Mende were faced with slavery or execution, and their cause was taken up by many residents throughout Connecticut. U.S. Circuit and District courts ruled in favor of the Mende. This case was then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and in 1841 the court agreed with the lower court decisions and the Mende captives were ordered freed.

Pinkney served as captain of the replica schooner Amistad from 2000 to 2003. Following retirement, he settled back in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, where he became the captain of the term charter catamaran Lady Dee cruising the U.S., British, and Spanish Virgin Islands.

Pinkney and his hometown friend Paul Mixon developed the Black Boaters Summit, a gathering of Black sailors and would-be sailors to bring the joy of sailing to a group that had not yet had the opportunity to go to sea. Over 20 years they have introduced more than 5,000 men and women to the sport. Many of the early attendees have developed new groups that have expanded the reach to others who have now sailed in faraway places such as Croatia, East Africa, and the Seychelles.

Pinkney has written two children’s books: Captain Bill Pinkney’s Journey, which became part of the Open Court Reading series for schools and the first-grade reading program of SRA/McGraw-Hill in 1994, and the recently published Sailing Commitment Around the World.

Pinkney is a member of the New York Yacht Club, the Belmont Yacht Club (Past Commodore), and the International Association of Cape Horners.

He has received the following awards and honors:

Recognized by President George H.W. Bush, Lord Mayor of Hobart (Tasmania, Australia), the Premier and President of Bermuda, and Senators Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), Paul Simon (D-Ill.), and John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).
Recipient of honorary degrees from Becker College, Southern Connecticut State University, and Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
Chicago Yacht Association Yachtsman of the Year in 1992.
Chicagoan of the Year by Chicago Magazine in 1999.
Illinois Governor’s Distinguished Achievement Award.
Received the George Foster Peabody Award for the Documentary, The Incredible Voyage of Bill Pinkney.
Received the John Southam Award for the autobiography As Long as It Takes.
The account of his voyage was read into the Congressional Record of 102nd Congress by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.
Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2021.

Aside from his significant maritime adventures, Pinkney’s career took many turns following his discharge from the Navy. While in Puerto Rico he worked as a stringer for a local newspaper, as an elevator mechanic, and as a professional limbo dancer (after proving his skill in Friday night limbo contests in local clubs). He was a makeup artist, a product developer for Revlon and Johnson Products Company, and the Director of Program Services for the City of Chicago’s Department of Human Services.

The America and the Sea Award recognizes those individuals and organizations whose extraordinary achievements in the world of maritime exploration, competition, scholarship, and design best exemplify the American character. As a former trustee of Mystic Seaport Museum, and an ambassador to those who believe the maritime world is not their world, Capt. William “Bill” Pinkney has proven adept in showing everyone that the sea connects us all, embodying the Museum’s mission to inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.

Past recipients of the America and the Sea Award include outstanding yachtsman Terry Hutchinson; America’s Cup Hall of Famer Tom Whidden, one of the most acclaimed sailors of all time; American businesswoman and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, whose ocean explorations have advanced our understanding of the ocean’s biodiversity and vulnerability; groundbreaking Whitbread and America’s Cup sailor Dawn Riley and Oakcliff Sailing; philanthropist and environmentalist David Rockefeller, Jr., and his Sailors for the Sea; boat designers Rod and Bob Johnstone and their company J/Boats; author and historian Nathaniel Philbrick; maritime industrialist Charles A. Robertson; Hall of Famer sailor and author Gary Jobson; WoodenBoat Publications founder Jon Wilson; former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman; oceanographer and explorer Sylvia Earle; America’s Cup sailor William Koch; President and CEO of Crowley Maritime Corporation, Thomas Crowley; historian David McCullough; and our first honoree, legendary yacht designer Olin J. Stephens II.

News

Letters From the Colored Sailor’s Home in the Mid 19th Century

Post author By Mystic Seaport Museum
Post date February 11, 2022

The G.W. Blunt White Library manuscript collection at Mystic Seaport Museum recently offered up an exciting find in the form of reports and correspondence relating to the Colored Sailors’ Home(s) run by the American Seamen’s Friend Society in the mid-19th century. As the name suggests, these were boarding houses specifically for sailors of color; the one referenced here was located in New York City, and run by abolitionist William Peter Powell, Sr.

Colored Sailors Home Letter 1 — Figure 1

These letters are striking in terms of Powell’s frankness regarding the state of racism in the United States during the mid-19th century, as well as his dedication to advocating for his boarders. In one letter from April 15, 1862 (fig. 1), he writes to the Board of Trustees of the Sailors’ Home Committee to ask for financial help in securing a building to open a new Colored Sailors’ Home. He cites his success in operating one many years before, and pointedly states that he only left it to take his children to England in 1851 for their schooling, since “…owing to the prejudice against Color they could not acquire [an education] in this their native Country.” In another letter accompanying a financial report in December 1862 (fig. 2), Powell describes the harrowing circumstances encountered by Black sailors arriving in New York before they found safe quarters in the Sailors’ Home; in many other letters, he takes care to detail the sailors’ exemplary behavior despite having faced these difficulties. He seems to be working hard to demonstrate to the Board that even the “free” northern U.S. is not a welcoming place for sailors of color, and that it is worthwhile to provide safe, secure places for them to stay while on land.

Letters for the Colored Sailors Home 2 — Figure 2

These are just two letters out of 28, and the whole collection gives us the opportunity to view the Civil War era from this compelling perspective. They are especially meaningful during Black History Month and the continuing work on the “Just Futures, Reimagining New England” project, funded by the Andrew C. Mellon foundation, both of which spur us on to examine our understanding of history through the lens of racial justice.

Written By Emma Burbank, Registrarial and Research Assistant

Tags black history month, collections, mid 19th century letters

News

Museum Receives BlueFuture Grant

Post author By Mystic Seaport Museum
Post date February 10, 2022

Mystic Seaport Museum is proud to announce that it is the recipient of a $2,000 grant from West Marine’s BlueFuture grant program. The program supports nonprofit organizations dedicated to getting more kids out on the water through boating, fishing, paddling, and marine science. The grants provide much-needed funds so that these valuable, community-based organizations can provide scholarships, purchase new equipment, maintain staff, add programs, and other needs.

“We are honored and grateful to West Marine for selecting us to receive this grant, which we will use to enhance and expand STEM and environmental education learning at our Sailing Center,” said Sarah Cahill, Director of Education at Mystic Seaport Museum.

Photo from left: Elizabeth Jaccoma, West Marine’s Operations Manager in Old Saybrook; Sarah Cahill, Director of Education, Mystic Seaport Museum; Liz Sistaire, Mystic Seaport Museum Sailing Center Supervisor; and Ed Alberghini, Mystic Store Manager. February 9, 2022.

Press Releases

Mystic Seaport Museum Celebrates Black History Month

Post author By Mystic Seaport Museum
Post date January 27, 2022

Schooner AMISTAD at Mystic Seaport Museum, June 2020.

Mystic, Conn. (January 27, 2022) – In honor of Black History Month, Mystic Seaport Museum will introduce several programs celebrating important and often under-recognized figures that have changed the course of history. The programs are part of an ongoing initiative at the Museum to incorporate a more diverse range of voices in its programming and exhibits about American maritime history.

All month, visitors to the Museum can hear a talk aboard the whaleship Charles W. Morgan about Lewis Temple. Temple was an African American blacksmith, abolitionist, and inventor born in Virginia around 1800, who found his way to the whaling port of New Bedford. He is best known for the development of the Temple Toggle Iron, an iron harpoon design that featured a pivoting head that would not slip out of the whale. The invention, similar to harpoons used by Native Americans and Inuit to catch fish and seals, revolutionized the whaling industry.

Visitors are further invited to explore an outdoor exhibit, The Sea Connects Us, a series of panels highlighting the achievements of African American and Indigenous people who made significant contributions to U.S. maritime history.

Collaboration with Discovering Amistad

In addition, Mystic Seaport Museum and Discovering Amistad are embarking on a new collaboration with the shared mission of furthering racial justice. The ongoing initiative will promote learning and exposure to contributions made by African Americans in U.S. maritime history.

Schooner Amistad — Schooner AMISTAD at Mystic Seaport Museum, June 2020.

The two organizations are partnering to offer a new joint program for schools that tells the story of the ship Amistad and how it serves as an example of how citizens and communities, working together, can bring about meaningful change. Students will be able to board the Amistad at the Museum and learn about the vessel, the story of the 1839 Amistad Uprising, and the landmark Supreme Court case that freed the Mende captives who were facing slavery or execution. The program also includes a segment in the Museum’s planetarium that highlights the role celestial navigation played in the story. Using the legacy of the uprising, the program bridges history and the challenges of that time to present-day issues of inequity. This program is a permanent offering by the two organizations.

The Museum is also supporting a Discovering Amistad program to engage middle school students in Connecticut to research and become involved in Black maritime history. Ten schools will be invited to participate in the program, in which students will create an art project on figures from Black maritime history. The top submission from each school will receive a prize including the opportunity to participate in a Discovering Amistad art exhibit and free admission to Mystic Seaport Museum with a special behind-the-scenes tour. Awards will made by April 1.

African Americans in Astronomy

On Wednesday, February 23, the Museum will present a program as part of its AARP Webinar Wednesday: African Americans in Astronomy. Brian Koehler, the supervisor of the Museum’s Treworgy Planetarium, will discuss the groundbreaking achievements by African Americans in the fields of Astronomy and space exploration. Despite hundreds of years of discrimination and prejudicial treatment, these pioneers achieved remarkable accomplishments that changed and shaped the present understanding of the cosmos. This virtual program is from 7 to 8 p.m. EST and is free for AARP and Mystic Seaport Museum members (non-members may attend for a $15 admission fee). AARP CT is the sponsor of this program. People should visit www.mysticseaport.org/calendar/ to register for this event.

Media Contact

Dan McFaddenDirector of Communications
Mystic Seaport Museum
860.572.5317 (o)
860.333.7155 (m)
dan.mcfadden@mysticseaport.org

About Mystic Seaport Museum

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