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ADVANCEMENT NEWS
Past recipients of the America and the Sea Award include American businesswoman and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt; groundbreaking America’s Cup sailor Dawn Riley, philanthropist and environmentalist David Rockefeller, Jr.; boat designers Rod and Bob Johnstone and their company J/Boats; author and historian Nathaniel Philbrick; maritime industrialist Charles A. Robertson; Hall of Fame 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 legendary yacht designer Olin J. Stephens II.
Sherri Ramella is Advancement events manager. THE MUSEUM SINCERELY THANKS THE FOLLOWING GALA SPONSORS GOLD Robb Aley Allan J. Barclay Collins II Betsy and Hunt Lawrence Joanne and Michael T. Masin Travelers SILVER Irene and Charles Hamm Cayre and Alexis Michas Laurie Olson and Maria Fasulo Betsy and Tom Whidden
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…and our 8 Bronze sponsors
Federal Grants to Support Collections, L.A. Dunton Work
Mystic Seaport Museum was the recipient of two significant federal grants awarded over the summer. The National Park Service Save America’s Treasures program awarded the Museum $102,000 to support collections access and preservation, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) awarded $167,303 for the restoration of the fishing schooner L.A. Dunton.
The Save America’s Treasures Program grant will help preserve and make accessible at-risk primary source material and artifacts inadvertently hidden for decades in the Museum’s curatorial accession files, and to provide urgently needed conservation measures.
These files, which date back to 1930, contain an extraordinary and significant body of material. Routine staff use and a recent careful evaluation have revealed a substantial quantity of important, but largely undiscovered, primary source material. Some files became receptacles for items related to accessioned objects in the Museum’s permanent collection. At the time of the original cataloguing and processing of objects, and in subsequent years, ancillary items deemed unworthy of accessioning, but worthy of keeping, were maintained as supporting material in these files.
The proposed project will enable the Museum to thoroughly mine these files for material of considerable historic value, accession it, process it, ensure its preservation, scan or photograph it, and make associated images and information available to a broad range of in-house and outside users through the Mystic Seaport for Educators website, www.educators.mysticseaport.org and on the website’s dedicated collections pages.
The target date range for this project are the files for the years 1930-1960, a period during which professional collections management and archival staffing at the Museum was limited.
The IMLS grant will support preliminary work on the Dunton’s restoration. The project will involve removal of the vessel’s interior joinery, cataloging and storage of the joinery for future re-installation, and documentation of the entire process. Interior joinery consists of forecastle and aft cabin accommodation and fish hold structures. Removal clears the way for major structural hull work.
The work will be performed by the Museum’s Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard with the support of two students from the IRYS School of Technology & Trades, who will join the project team for a 12-week internship.
The restoration, which will preserve the vessel’s design and structural integrity, was set to begin this fall, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal is to begin the full restoration in the fall of 2021.
Launched in Essex, MA, in 1921, the Dunton is a Nation- al Historic Landmark vessel and one of the last surviving examples of its kind.
The Legacy of Carleton Mitchell By John Urban
In 1996, yachtsman, author and photographer Carleton Mitchell donated his personal papers, including correspondence, logbooks, and more than 20,000 photographs to Mystic Seaport Museum. Like the Museum’s Rosenfeld Collection, the Mitchell Collection provides an historical account while also being a source of beauty and wonder. As part of the Museum’s effort to reach audiences online and at home, we have created the presentation Far Away Places – An Earlier Time pulling images from Mitchell’s photos.
As a young boy Carleton Mitchell was asked what he wanted to do when he grew up; his response was “sail and write about it.” Eventually, he added the element of photography, which led to seven books and hundreds of articles for publications such as National Geographic, Yachting, and Sports Illustrated.
Mitchell’s love for cruising in his sailboat combined with an impressive run of victories as a blue water racer, including the feat of being the only person to win the Bermuda Race three times in a row, this aboard his Sparkman & Stephens yawl Finisterre. He also served as Dick Bertram’s navigator in several famous power boat racing victories aboard Moppie and Brave Moppie. Later in life, he switched to powerboat cruising further expressing his perspective that it’s “not the type of boat, it’s not the size of boat… Just the fact that water’s around you is what’s important to me.”
Mitchell’s books about the Bahamas and Caribbean inspired others to head their boats south. His work still inspires today. Consider his words heard in the Museum’s recorded oral histories: “To desire nothing beyond what you have is surely happiness. Aboard a boat, it is frequently possible to achieve just that. That is why sailing is a way of life, one of the finest of lives… the fact of being afloat, the fact of being able to live a life that’s free and pretty much able to control your destiny, at least for a time, weather permitting, is what counts.”
When many people think of Mystic Seaport Museum, the first thought likely centers on in-water vessels, the village, and exhibitions. Yet the Museum also holds remarkable collections that include maritime photography, fine art, ships plans, books, and artifacts of all types. Far Away Places – An Earlier Time is an illustration of how these collections can come together to provide a comprehensive account through books and articles, photographs, recorded oral histories, and ships plans.
Parties interested in scheduling a presentation should contact Chris Freeman or John Urban at the Museum.
John Urban is director of major gifts and strategic partnerships.
THE NEW PRESIDENT AND CEO
MEET PETER ARMSTRONG
With 25 years of experience in museum work, Peter Armstrong comes to Mystic Seaport Museum from the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation (JYF), where he was Senior Director for Museum Operations and Education.
A native of the United Kingdom, he moved to Virginia in 2014 to join JYF, where he made a priority to promote social issues still relevant at both Jamestown and Yorktown. His role included education, collections, exhibitions and interpretations as well as overseeing two major museums and their living history sites. He led the transition from the Yorktown Victory Center—a small museum with some living history areas—to the new, $50-million, state-of-the-art, American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, which opened in April 2017. Most recently in 2019, he oversaw the creation of the special exhibition TENACITY, which focused on the arrival of the first women to Jamestown, and Forgotten Soldier, which features the personal stories of enslaved and free African Americans who fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War. TENACITY was selected as one of the Smithsonian’s “10 Must-See Fall Exhibits” and included loaned documents never before displayed in America.
Peter came to this country from the U.K.’s National Museum of Arms and Armour, also known as the Royal Armouries. The Royal Armouries has three museums, the most famous of which is the Tower of London. During his tenure, Peter developed and promoted several major exhibitions, including Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill at the Tower of London. Prior to that position he was CEO of the Galleries of Justice Museum in Nottingham. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), Member of American Alliance of Museums, Member of Virginia Association of Museums, and a Member of Museums Association UK. He has lectured across the globe on the theme of museums as agents of social change. Peter graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in Performing Arts from Manchester Metropolitan University.
Peter lives with his wife Sue and their two rescued Labradors, while his three adult children reside in the U.K. He is now on the lookout for a soccer team that will have him in Connecticut.
