NMHS MISSION: Introducing a New Guide to Maritime Museums "I don't want to see any clean copies of this book lying around! " The speaker was 20-year-old Joseph Stanford , and he was speaking about the new Guide to American and Canadian Maritime Museums published by the Society. "I want to see it covered with notes, stuffed wi th fl yers, used, re-used and dog-eared." The occasion was the introductory reception of the Guide at the South Street Seaport Museum Bookshop. The fo rmjdable, white-bearded Jack Putn am, bookshop manager, was our host. He has served as directorofthe Uni versity Press Assocati on, bartender at Carmine's on Front Street and actor impersonating Herman Melville fo r the Hudson River Waterfront Museum aboard their travelling barge last summer. He says you've got to see life to sell books. Norman Bro uwer, Curator of Ships at the South Street Seaport Museum , was on hand for the occasion. He was one of the committee of five, chaired by Michael Naab of the National Trust, which oversaw the compilation of the Guide. Bob Herbert, whose letters have brightened the pages of Sea History (sometimes with fl yi ng sparks!), was with us, shaking hi s head-alas, he hadn ' t fo und any errors in the work .. . as yet. And Dick Rath , fo rmer editor of Yachting and chairman of the innovative Pioneer Marine School in the 1970s, who writes of sai l training and other matters in Sea History- he left before we could announce that he was being drafted as Associate Editor of Sea History. (Never fear, we caught up with him later.) Oh, and there was Ralph Freeman, author of that marvellously evocati ve memoir of the UK 's Manchester Ship Canal, with its images of great ships fro m fore ign parts slid ing by, their smokestacks gliding over the tiled roofs of farms-what an outpouring of letters that memoir produced when it appeared in SH 53 ! And Tom Gochberg, new ly returned from sailing his fast yaw l Mistral to Greece with hi s wife Lettie as crew, and . . . but you get the picture. What a grand ro ut of peopl e you find in a museum bookshop! As good as you fi nd in a fi sh market bar, or a museum , or a neighborhood pub like, for instance, the Plume of Feathers just outside the gate of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England. The mission of NMHS is a practical one, but we are aware, and ever reminded anew, that it is done in , of, and fo r a community of real people, not SEA HISTORY 57, SPRING 199 1
poses-as well as assure its future.
"For this is a community ***** that thrives not by exclusion, There are 343 maritime museums in the but by inclusion, and its newest United States and Canada-343 centers members freshen its purposes- of our hard-won learning at sea. Of these, five are truly national museums, seaas well as assure its future." symbolic numbers stored in the memory circuits of someone's computer. When I came up the steps into the bookshop to hear my son Joseph 's talk on "dirty books," I was greeted by Jack Putnam with the hail-soon picked up by others: "Welcome to the Square Rigger Bar!" The Square Rigger Bar? This is a long-gone seamen's bar housed in the old counting house of clipper ship owner SEA HISTORY's GUIDE TO American mul Canad ian
MARITIM E MUSEUMS
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de Mille on Front Street, looking out on Burl ing Slip. When the big square rigger Wavertree came in , we told the fi sh market patrons that we 'd brought her in at the foot of the street to improve the view out the bar 's front door. The people of the South Street Museum used to go there to grouse and to exchange notes and to dream tall dreams. The actual land leases for the South Street Seaport urban renewal development (weighing several pounds) were signed on one of its formi ca-topped tables-but that's another story, fo r another occasion. That entire block of buildings is gone now, but the Square Rigger Bar has not gone out of the communal memory in the South Street Bookshop! It lives on, and those who joined too late to know it were soon instructed in its mythos. It makes me very happy to publish a guidebook to such a community's sacred groves and water holes, both to reinforce its own sense of identity and to invite new people to come share in its experience. For thi s is a community that thrives not by exclusion , but by inclu sion, and its newest members freshen its pur-
villages in themselves , with thousands of members, big libraries, their own publications, and collections dating back to the days of British (and Spanish and French) rule in North America. These are The Peabody Museum in Massachusetts, Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut, South Street Seaport Museum in New York, The Mariners ' Museum in Virginia, and the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in California. These are followed by 15 museums of regional importance, ranging from the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath to the Hawaii Maritime Center-complete museums worth a long trip to visit, usually on the water, often with their own hi storic ships, boats and sea programs. Then there are 78 museums that are local gems, exemplified by such beautiful creations as the Connecticut River Museum in Essex, just off Long Island Sound, and Galveston Seaport Museum , which sails the tall ship Elissa in the Gulf of Mexico (and further afield). Finally there are, at last count, 246 maritime collections which keep authentic artifacts and invite the public to share in their story. These exist in indescribable variety. You have to sniff them out in odd corners of seaport towns, or in the hallways of larger institutions. Or, of course, you can beg, borrow or buy a copy of the Guide, as shown above. As spring rains streak your windows, let your eyes feast on the contents of the fact-crammed pages of the Guide-and may your footsteps follow, in rain or shine, to seek out the treasures of America 's maritime museums. Everyone except the family dog will enjoy this , and the dog will be happy to see everyone talking to each other in animated fashion as they return . Have you ever seen people come out silent from one of these museums? I PS haven ' t.
Norn: NMHS members have received a special mailing about the Sea History Gazette, a monthly newsletter that keeps its subscribers abreast of museum news and other maritime heritage developments. Readers who have not seen this mailing are invited to write or phone for information about the Gazette.
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