.SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS In January, the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, VA, announced it is temporarily closing the 5,000-squarefoot wet lab that houses the turret and other artifacts from the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor following the 31 December 2013 expiration of an agreement between the museum and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The artifacts recovered from the wreck site are federally-owned and administered by NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary Program but are conserved by staff from the privately owned museum.
USS Monitor Center Wet Lab The National Marine Sanctuary Program had provided funding to operate the facilit y and keep it open to the public, but at present NOAA is waiting on Congressional approval of a budget to determine what funding will be available for 2014. In 2013 , the conservation cost approximately $500,000. NOAA provided approx imately 10% of the funding, and no funds had been designated in 2012. The museum has stated that it remains committed to its lon g-term conservation goals and its partnership with NOAA, but without addit iona l funds from NOAA, conservation work wi ll not be able to proceed. "These artifacts are owned by the federal government, protected under the Nationa l Marine Sanctuaries Act, and managed by the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. The museum is proud to partner with NOAA to conserve these artifacts, but their preservation is ultimately the responsibility of the federal government," said Elliot Gruber, CEO and president of the museum. He explained that the museum has had to use its own resources to cover the shortfall and that has placed a tremendous strain on their overall budget. 40
"We are unable to properly conserve our own 35,000 artifacts, develop new exhibitions, and maintain our faci lity as well as pay for the conservation of federally owned and managed resources." The Mariners' Museum includes 90,000-plus square feet of exhibition space and a 550-acre park. In 1987, Congress designated the Mariners' Museum as the official repository for artifacts excavated from the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. The federa l government owns the approximately 1,500 artifacts housed in the museum's USS Monitor Center, a $31 million, 64,000-square-foot museum expans ion that opened in 2007. The artifacts were recovered from the USS Monitor wreck site beginning shortly after its discovery in 1973, and culminating in the 2002 recovery of Monitor's iconic, 120-ton revolving gun turret. In all, more than 200 tons of materials have been recovered from the site and brought to the museum for conse rvation and display. To date, nearly 60% of all Monitor artifacts have been conserved in the 15,000-square-foot Batten Conservation Laboratory Complex. The Wet Lab houses Monitor's turret in a 90,000-gallon custom-made tank, as well as its steam engine, Dahlgren guns and carriages, and condenser. Artifacts that have been removed from underwater
sites are submerged in tanks contain ing treated water to draw out the salts that would, left untrea ted , corrode the metal artifacts until they fell apart. It is a very slow process and can take years, depend ing on the size of the artifact and the materials from which it is made. The museum's conservators are keeping the artifacts stable but the conservat ion will not progress for the time being, nor will the lab be open to visitatio n from the public. The museum has posted a petition on its website that links to www. change.org, where people can sign and send it to their members of Congress. (100 Museum Drive, Newport News, VA 23606; Ph . 757 596-2222; http: // www.marinersmuseum.org/) ... In November, the Royal Museums Greenwich (RMG) acquired one of the most celebrated collections of shipwreck images in the world at auction at Sotheby's in London. The Gibson Archive was assem bled between 1872 and 1997 by four generations of the Gibson family and records more than 200 shipwrecks ships, heroic rescues, survivors , burials, and sa lvage scenes-off the treacherous coastline of Cornwa ll a nd the Isles of Scilly. The collection, comprising more than 1,360 glass and film negatives , complements the museum's existing extensive historic photography collection.
The Mildred , 1912The Gibson Archive
SEA HISTORY 146, SPRING 2014