Percy and Small Shipyard

Busy week already. Monday we had a staff meeting, which it seems happens every two or three weeks. It was a bit like the board of directors meeting last week but covered all things museum related, not just curatorial/archival issues. However, the "Heavy Metal" exhibit is kind of the big thing right now so Chris, the exhibit curator, had quite a bit to say about his plans for the exhibit, what needs to happen before hand, help needed, etc etc. Other museum related stuff is covered too. How the museum is doing with guest numbers compared to last month, this time last year, etc, how the gift shop's sales are, upcoming special events, what needs to change, new staff members, etc etc.

This morning, Wednesday, was Nathan's weekly volunteer workshop. This week the title was "Percy and Small Shipyard." P&S was a shipyard located on the grounds that MMM currently is at. Most of the ships they built were 3, 4, or 5 masted schooners, and they did build the Wyoming, which is said to have been the largest wooden boat ever built. We viewed some interesting maps of the shipyard too, which extended down the street. The house I am living in right now was part of the shipyard and was labeled as the "Stinson" lot. Not sure if Stinson was the building name, the person that owned it or just named after. Regardless, pretty cool to be living in a house that was built 150 years ago and was part of the shipyard that was in place.

Maine Island Trail Association

Normally on Wednesdays, Nathan, the senior curator, has some sort of informational workshop for the volunteers to educate them on things associated to maritime life, the shipyard, etc. Well, this week a representative from the Maine Island Trail Association (www.mita.org) came to talk to us. Essentially he was attempting to sell people on a membership to his organization but this truly is a great organization.

Heres what these people do... There are something like over 100 islands in this association. Some are public lands, some are private owners. Members of the organization are allowed to camp, hike, boat and kayak on any of these islands. Kayaking is the best way to get to most of them and some are much busier than others. In addition to access to the islands, the organization reguarly goes to these islands and their shores and cleans them up. Lots of stuff washes up: lobster traps, buoys, pieces of wood, even refrigerators, etc and they remove them. The membership was very affordable (under $75 a year, I think?) and you get discounts at various places, L.L. Bean, etc. So if you spend any money at all at these places, the membership pays for itself. Pretty cool of them and a great organization worth mentioning.

Thursday and Friday I had a little more copying to do with the Diazit machine. The boat shop here at MMM needed some plans done up and I was all for working with the machine again. The "Heavy Metal" exhibit that is going up in July is coming along. Its amazing how much goes into one of these exhibits and the things you never think about. The speaker boxes that are on a rotation of banging and clanking in the background even have to be assembled, painted to match, etc, and that was one of my tasks the last two days. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Making copies is fun!

The last two days have been fairly busy with both the BIW plans and some other things. The BIW project is slowing down because of the exhibit going up in a few weeks and I've been asked to help out here and there.

Something interesting that has taken place though... Ok, so I'm an intern. Interns get coffee and make copies right? Well, I don't get coffee for anyone but myself but I was asked to make copies today. Copies of plans though. BIG plans. And not in a paper material like we are used to and a very different sort of copy machine. Its called a Diazit machine (people call it a "diazo" machine- short or slang, I dunno?) and its pretty neat. This machine is an older model but "new" to the museum compared to their last one apparently.

Hopefully I can explain how it works, as I'm not a scientist or an engineer... It has rollers in it, you slide the plan and it shoots light through the paper. So the plan you are using has to be somewhat transparent. There is ammonia or some sort of chemical that smells the whole basement up something awful that prints on the copy, it is slid through another roller and the light and chemicals do something and it copies it. The ink on the copy is blue, not black. Besides nearly being overtaken by the chemical fumes, it was pretty cool.

Board of Directors

Well, today we had a board of directors meeting. The board appears to be split up into several different committees and I attended the one designated for archival and curatorial departments (of which I work for). Some things that were discussed, I had no idea what they were talking about. Other things were fairly interesting... Bouncing off exhibit ideas, ways to draw the public in and get them more interested more often, the upcoming exhibit and its progress, etc. MMM has consumed another museum out of Portland, ME, the Portland Harbor Museum and with that, has increased the museum's archives. Finding space to house these things or if they are even worth holding on to is obviously an issue and was talked about quite about as well.

The museum is moving to the usage of a archival software called "Past Perfect" sometime in the near future as well. When working at the National Archives, we did have some programs that were utilized for the archives and finding aids but it was more or less excel spreadsheets. I find it interesting that software has been specifically developed for this sort of work.

He's hungry!

You gotta steer clear of the seagulls here in Maine. They are like wolves!

Wait, divers use this stuff?!?!

Well, its been quite a week. My brother came up and is now gone, art packaging, moving massive engine pieces, and gettin’ educated on the trade history of Maine all while cramming BIW records into the mix. I haven’t mentioned much about the BIW project this week so I will attempt to play catch up. First off, we got more shelving units in the storage space I work in. That took up some time to set up but it was really needed. And guess who got to set them up? Well, the intern of course! I’m just playing, it was actually kind of fun. I can’t complain when I mention “the intern doing certain jobs.” I’m certainly not running to starbucks for employees or anything and the folks at MMM have all been more than I’d could ask for as far as coworkers/mentors.

So yeah, we got more shelving to house the ongoing BIW project. This week I’ve made some decent progress considering how many other things I was tasked with. BIW Hull #1-25 are done and I’ve made a dent on the high 20’s/low 30’s Hull numbers. I did come across a box stashed away that had a bunch of records from BIW Hull #2 and #3 (‘Machias’ and ‘Castian’ I believe off the top of my head). I had to go through those, enter them into the finding aid and file them with the plans I had already gone through.

I asked around why these were in their own box, and it is just what I wanted to hear! Apparently a few years back when these records were acquired, the word got out that MMM had possession of them. A guy that was planning on diving on the ‘Machias’ contacted the museum and wanted plans for the ship to help out with the dive. Personally, I think this is really cool and something that didn’t cross my mind when utilizing these records and plans. Obviously exhibits and shipbuilders needing the records but not diving on the actually sunken ship! Very cool.

In other personal news, my fiancé (Charlene) and I have set our wedding date for October 8^th of this year right on Lake Ontario in NY. We are both extremely excited and ready to start our lives together. Just an update; :)

Enjoy your weekend all, I will keep you updated next week. Cheers.

Wheelin' out art.

Today Kelly, the registrar, needed a bit of help packaging up a ship “wheel cover” from the mid 19^th century. It was headed off to another museum on loan and as you can imagine, something this old (are apparently rare) needs quite a bit of care for transport. I suppose I can now add “preparing historic material and artifacts for transport” to my resume now. Its one thing to wrap a cup up in newspaper and put it in a box but this thing was HUGE. I would guesstimate it to be 6 ft by 6 ft, only completely round. Maintenance helped make a crude shipping box but it worked like a dream. Nice and snug in there.

It was headed off to an art gallery I believe and some “art handlers” came to get it in a big box. I love art museums but I hope I can say this without offending anyone… A large majority of the people I have encountered in the past (and in this instance) are relatively smug and arrogant. They act as if they have a certain entitlement to them and it just kind of rubs me the wrong way. Did we have a run in with these individuals? No. They were just people of few words and the words they did mutter got under my skin. That is all, I will no longer rant. Note to self: If museum work is my calling, stick to the historical ones and not those who house large amounts of “art.”

Another realization I had today… If you didn’t already know, I’m in the Air National Guard and am a C-130 Loadmaster, which essentially means I am an enlisted aircrewman on a large cargo airplane. I have been in the military for 10 years and am quite familiar with airplane/airframe terminology, etc. Obviously, nautical terms came well before aviation ones and going through these plans, listening to lectures, or just speaking with individuals that are well educated on things of the sea, I am blown away by how many terms aviators have borrowed from seaman. I suppose it makes sense though. Those who put airplanes in the air and continued to develop them probably worked with mariners and naval engineers to some degree and utilized some of these terms. Simply an observation.

"Maine Trades"

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Today was Nathan Lipfert’s (my immediate supervisor and Senior Curator) weekly volunteer workshop/lecture. This week, the subject was on “Maine Trade.” In reality, there are two types of Maine trade: Ocean going (“blue water”) and coastal commerce (“green water”). The workshop was very informative and covered a large time span from the mid 17^th century to about the present time. The state/region sure has seen a huge change over the period but still sticks strong to its roots. The state was built primarily on the export of lumber (used in various vocations/jobs), lime (used in kilns and cement/plaster), ice (believe it or not!), and granite (used all over the world in construction and as a building material). The ice one certainly surprised me but it makes sense in a world before refrigeration.

This workshop got me thinking about a museum’s role. These sorts of things (the workshop) are not only designed to educate the public, but in a large part, the volunteers here at the museum. To be a good museum docent, you really need to have a diverse background on more than just the regurgitated speech you recite while paid guests follow you around. You will, inevitably, receive questions from people not familiar with the city, state, region, or possibly the country (yes, we do have international visitors). It does appear that these workshops are almost entirely on the shoulders of Nathan. I’m surprised that I don’t see individuals from the Library or Education departments here. I can imagine they are fielded with some pretty off the wall questions on occasion as well.

Finally, some Maine Lobster!

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Not a ton went on today. Just finished up a few bags of BIW records, etc. So, I will talk a bit about what went on this weekend. My brother is still here in town. Because I work during the week,

we had primarily the weekend to do some legitimate exploring and stuff we couldn’t fit into an evening after I was off work.

On Saturday, we headed down to Freeport so my brother could see the L.L. Bean complex and do a little shopping. We did the Bean store, the North Face outlet store (my favorite) where Nick made a few purchases (this stuff is cheap compared to ticket price!) and walked around a bit. Then we headed south to Portland to grab some lunch and a pint. We wandered through the Old Port area, which is full of shops, restaurants, and bars. The USA/England soccer game was about to kick off so it being an Irish pub, it was PACKED. No worries, we got a table fairly quick, got a tasty burger and a Guinness and were on our way before it got to rowdy. The picture from yesterday was from the area with a lobster suited man attempting to coax people into a certain lobster joint.

We then headed back to Bath for a pitstop, then to Georgetown, which is the next strip of land that heads south towards the Atlantic and is on the other side of the Kennebec River. Our mission? To find a lighthouse and get some lobsters to eat. We followed our map, which lead us to a (surprising) dead end. We knew the lighthouse was close by so we hiked a bit and found it. It wasn’t as big as we had hoped but still cool! The name of it was Bald Head Lighthouse, I believe.

We then drove south towards the sea passing numerous lobster shacks on the side of the road. Lobster isn’t “cheap” here but its much more affordable than it was in Missouri, for obvious reasons. These little shacks are much like “roach coaches” or “street meat” as they sell variants of lobster sandwiches, soups, etc. We had heard about Five Island Lobsters so we passed by the street meat, found it, ordered some whole lobsters and chowed down. We probably looked like complete idiots tearing into them as we didn’t really know what we were doing but hey, we got out the good stuff and oh was it good!

Sunday was another rainy day (lots of rain lately!) so we hung out primarily indoors and laid low. That was the weekend in a nutshell.

Heavy Lifting!

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Monday proved to be an interesting and dirty day. Chris, the Curator of Exhibits needed a hand moving some things. And by some things, I mean very dated 3-400 pound pieces of rusty cast iron steam engine pieces out of a gravel floor barn. On the MMM campus, there is a large garage that houses ships that are not on exhibit or were donated and need various levels of restoration before they would ever be used for even sitting in during a rainstorm on land. These engine pieces will be used for the upcoming “Heavy Metal” exhibit and needed to come out. I’ll be honest, I felt a bit like those who built the Egyptian pyramids. We used the very dated technique of prying these pieces up, sliding boards under them, then making a path out of the barn, laying a wooden road out of the barn, and placing a series of rollers under them, slowly guiding them out. Whether this method or aliens built the pyramids, it worked for us but took a considerable amount of the day. At one point, a maintenance worker tried to assist us by pulling it out with a winch on a 4-wheeler. This thing was a beast and outweighed the 4 wheeler easily.

For those of you that visit museums regularly and see the “done-up” exhibits, just know that more than likely a curator and some lowly intern probably had to dig those things out from museum storage! This is the side of museum work I did not see at Plimoth Plantation and rarely encountered at the National Archives. Seeing the visitor’s enjoyment through the current exhibits make this sort of work worthwhile, however. This is just a small piece of the pie for the upcoming exhibit but will surely pay off as well.

My brother and I did some exploring, so I will post a weekend re-cap tomorrow.

TGIF!

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Thank God It’s Friday! Just kidding, its been a great week. This morning, Kelly, one of the few paid staff employees showed me a bit more around the library and the collections, which took most of the morning. The museum has a fantastic collection of books, primary and secondary sources, manuscripts, photos and ship plans. One of the reasons I am here is that I hope to really nail down a topic for my Masters thesis as well. I dug through some of their 18^th century primary sources and have a few leads. Most of their collections begin in the 19^th century as much of the colonial records were burned during various wars. I did come across several ship log books, captain’s correspondence, etc that I will have to dig up later when I have some more time.

In other news, my brother, Nick Wagner, is on his long drive from Kansas City, MO to Bath for a weeklong visit before he heads to Boston. He recently graduated from Rockhurst University in Kansas City with a Bachelors degree in Theology and will be attending graduate school at Boston College. It will be great to see a familiar face and a co-pilot for this coming week’s shenagins.

The Debate of Jamestown vs. Popham Colony

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Thursday, back into the basement to continue work on the BIW plans project. I did complete Hulls #17 and #18 (“Dahlgren” and “Craven”), found even more records for Hull #21 (“Mayflower”) and updated it, and completed Hull #22 (Light Vessel #71). Two of my favorite volunteers, Stu and John were helping today as well, which is nice. These gentlemen are not historians by trade or education, but their experience as volunteers have made them just that.

We had some interesting conversation about early American history… Roughly at the same time as the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia was attempted, a settlement at Fort Saint George, called the Popham Colony, was in place, which I knew virtually nothing about. This settlement was unsuccessful and I believe lasted less than two years. Regardless, I find it interesting that Jamestown is held so highly but Popham Colony is virtually removed from history except for locals in the region. It may be due to the popularity of the Jamestown story and Captain John Smith. I will have to do some personal research on the subject and John let me borrow a book on the colony.

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Well, I thought I was done with the “Dahlgren” and “Craven” but found more records, so I continued to work on these throughout the day. There appears to be over 300 plans in this collection and is really the first set of plans that appear to be mostly there.

Every Wednesday during the summer, Nathan, my boss and Senior Curator, does a workshop for volunteers with a specific theme. I did attend this workshop as I thought it would be educational and a chance to get out of the basement for a bit. I took several pages of notes, but I won’t bore you with them.

Here is a few things I pulled from it and will mention… Bath, Maine was (and is still today) a HUGE part of national shipbuilding. In 1856, Bath was the 4th largest ship producing “port” (even though it is located 10 miles up a river from the ocean) in the United States. New York, Boston, and Philadelphia were the top three and honestly, I’m surprised to see Bath on this list. Probably not many of you have even heard of this small community. Why 1856? Well, the west was now open and expanding quickly, gold was found in California, and U.S. commerce was through the roof. Ships were the greyhounds of the world and shipyards responded to these commercial needs.

Why Maine? What makes it so important and why did shipbuilding take off in this region? Resources. During this period, wooden sailing ships were still being produced and Maine was the “Norway of the States.” Its jagged coastline is over 3,000 miles long if you follow it from north to south and its huge deposits of timber assisted in production. Not only was the timber important but the geography of the state was as well. It could easily be floated down rivers to shipyards and like Bath, did not have to be directly on the ocean.

The four biggest reasons Maine flourished in shipbuilding production: 1. Geography (as mentioned), 2. Availabilty of resources (as mentioned), 3. Skill- towns like Bath, Maine are full of individuals who have been brought up in generations of mariners. Small yards are up and down the coast. The people that work these yards are multitaskers and quick learners. 4) These individuals commanded the ability to take advantage of the previous 3.

The remainder of workshop was spent advancing through the 19^th and eventual 20^th century, the evolution of the wooden ship to steel and how it changed the Bath region and customs district.

Wednesday evening was spent at the museum after hours for the annual volunteer “welcome back” picnic. I had a chance to meet some volunteers I haven’t yet and chat with some new friends. I will say this again, museums would not survive without volunteers and they are to be held dearly by the museum staff. I was by far the youngest person at this event by at least twenty years. Regardless, it was a great event, the food was great, and the “beverages” were cold and free.

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Tuesday was spent doing more records… BIW Hull #24 (Cargo Hauler “Winifred”), and Hulls #17 and #18 (U.S. Navy Torpedo Boats “Dahlgren” and “Craven”) were entered and organized. One interesting aspect of the “Dahlgren” and “Craven” was that the engine and boiler plans were used for Hulls #28, #29, and #30 which were built in the early 20th century and all three were scrapped in 1919. I have not gone through these ships yet, but they called the “Bagley”, the “Barney”, and the “Biddle”. I did find their plans though and it is a MASSIVE collection. Those should prove interesting when I get to them.

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Well, I started week two here at Maine Maritime Museum after a wet and chilly weekend. Let me start with a weekend recap of things outside of the Museum. I knew that L.L. Bean’s flagship store was located in Maine, so I did a little research. It is located in Freeport, Maine, which is roughly 20-25 minutes south of Bath. Once I entered Freeport, I was very surprised to not only see L.L. Bean’s 4 or 5 stores but a massive complex of outlet stores. Just about anything you could imagine was located there, including retailers that I didn’t even know had outlets. I spent most of the day there and was planning on stopping in Bath and going to Popham Beach, which is just down the Kennebec River at the mouth and check that out. The weather turned for the worst and the weather man was predicting tornadoes and high winds, which is very abnormal for the area. No tornadoes were seen but I did feel a bit at home in Kansas City with such weather. The rain and nasty weather continued into Sunday so most of the day was spent inside with some reading and relaxing.

On a side note, Bath Iron Works completed one of the ships they were working on and it was pulled out of the dry bay and into the river, ready to take on the U.S. Navy crew and hit the high seas. This took place at 0300, which I did not attend. It will encounter several months of “sea trials” with both the Navy and BIW employees working on the kinks.

While at the museum today, I continued work on BIW Hulls #15 and 16 (U.S. Navy Gunboats #11 and #12 (Engines 54/55) from the late 1890s and they were finished. These were commissioned as the Vicksburg and Newport. BIW Hull #14 (the Yacht “Illawara” was done, which were only 3 plans; primarily engine and machinery arrangements. BIW Hull #37 was completed (the Tug “Cuba”) which also only had 3 plans, but we did break into the 20^th century as it was delivered in 1901. I had previously finished Hull #21 (the Light House Tender “Mayflower”) but found more records. These were terribly out of order, so they were organized and entered into my finding aid.

Last day of the first week.

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Ok, I’ll be honest, it was a long first week. After spending 4 full days in the basement of the museum for the most part alone, my feet were beginning to ache a bit from standing all day. Something else I forgot to mention about these plans. Some are paper but most are made of linen. The records I am going through right now are from the 1890s, so they are over a hundred years old and very dirty. Every break I take, I need to wash my hands because they are black. While I was employed with the National Archives, I often did records requests or records holding/maintenance of this sort but this is by far the filthiest records I have dealt with. No worries though.

When my feet begin to ache a bit more than normal, I take my attention off them and really take a look at the records I’m going through. To think I am looking through a document that was made just 25 years after the end of the American Civil War is pretty amazing. I worked on some new ships today and at this time, Bath Iron Works was receiving primarily defense contracts: building ships for the United States Navy. Although these ships are no longer commissioned, some were active during the first World War!

I also hit some problems today with the records. The engineers and architects at BIW probably never imagined these records would have any historically importance a hundred and thirty years after they were drawn up. Some of these plans have different engine numbers. In addition, there are BIW Hull #s but also Naval Hull #s, some are unmarked and with Naval ships, I am seeing HUNDREDS of plans rather than a few dozen. Things are beginning to get both complicated and interesting.

Today I completed Hull# 12 (“U.S. Navy Light Vessel #66), Hull #19 and 20 (U.S. Navy Light Vessels 68 and 69), Hull #15 (U.S. Navy Gunboat “Vicksburg”) and Hull #16 (U.S. Navy Gunboat “Newport”). The Vicksburg and Newport seemed very complete with only a few plans missing. Full hull/deck/bow/stern blueprints were present and will make a great exhibit or a model ship builder very happy eventually.

Besides the museum work, I’ve made some observations about Maine and those who live here that I’d like to share with you. In advance, don’t take any of this like I don’t like Maine. It’s an absolutely beautiful place. I have traveled extensively all over the world and it’s beauty rivals that of Newfoundland, the timber of Germany, and the vast mountains of Afghanistan. Here they are:

1. I'm from the Midwest. I say “ya’ll”. They don’t say “ya’ll” up here and when you do say it, they give you an odd confused look. The same applies to the words “gal” and when ordering a sandwich asking for “the fixins.”

2. The people here are easily offended when mispronouncing their town/city/river names, etc. It’s “BanGOR” and not “BanGER”

3. The locals are not all that fond of those who only spend the summers here. There are plenty of people that live south of here most of the year and spend the summers here because it’s gorgeous and the weather is very mild.

4. “You’re from Missouri? How on earth are you interested in maritime history?” I get asked that at least once a day. I explain to them that I am interested in early American history and because I grew up in the Midwest, the sea sure is romantic, gorgeous and much more powerful than any lake or river where I come from. It is impossible to look at early American history without bringing into context the importance of maritime trade and commerce. As I have already seen here in this town right on the ocean, there is a special charm and sub-culture to those who lives revolve around the sea and I’m sure in the 17^th and 18^th century, it was not any different.

5. Everyone here rides a motorcycle. This surprised me, knowing they probably only get a few good riding months a year.

6. Following that thought, people here ski in the winter and kayak in the summer. They stay pretty active and its tough to just sit around when you’ve got Maine out the window.

7. The chowder is tasty and the Irish pub is lovely here in Bath, Maine.

8. The people here are much more environmentally minded than most places I have lived.

9.Bath, Maine, like many coastal towns, is only 4 blocks wide but 3 miles long, along the river that feeds into the ocean.

10. Even if you think you know something about nautical living and aren’t from a coastal city, you really don’t know much. Going to the ocean on the weekends doesn’t count. These people know ships/boats/vessels like we know cars.

11. You can learn a lot about a place by just going to Walmart. There’s not a lot going on here in Bath, and there’s some interesting people there. When kids are just wondering around in groups looking at deodorant and having nerf-gun wars in the store, there’s obviously nothing else for them to do in town. At least they aren’t doing crack in the alley?

12. The ocean here doesn’t smell like dirty fish, which is definitely a plus.

13. It rains a lot in June.

14. People are fairly friendly and wonder why on earth I’m here. They ask a lot of questions and genuinely seem interested. I’m not some rich schmuck with a house on the ocean from Boston up for the weekend/week/month/summer and they don’t mind talking to me.

15. BIW employs 6,000 people currently and at one time, employed 10,000+. There’s a lot of blue collar workers in the area.

Well, I’m sure I’ll come up with more as it comes. These are just some things I thought of within my first week here. I’m sure I will do some exploring this weekend as its my first chance. More to come soon.

Spending time in the basement!

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Work continues on the project. Today I finished Hull #5 (U.S.S. Katahdin) which was Harbor Defense Ram, the only of its kind ever built. It was designed simply for harbor defense and had the ability to both fire and physically “ram” another ship.

Ok, about these plans… What are they you ask? Ship plans are the big picture but it goes much deeper than that. Yes, there are some plans that are what you can imagine the ship blueprints are but an engineer, at some point, designs every nut and bolt. These plans show the insides of the engines, boilers, decks, bridge, hull, bow, etc. There are even blueprints of wrenches that had to be produced to produce certain bolts on certain pieces of equipment, etc. Because cars are much more familiar territory for most of us, imagine every working piece of your car. Some engineer had to figure out how every piece of that car would go together and there is a blueprint out there!

In addition to plan #, name, date, condition and notes, we are now including size of the document. This is helpful if the museum gets a request by someone for copies of the records. Who would request these?!?! People who had ancestors that helped build the ship, sailed/served on the ship, authors writing about the ship, its voyages, etc or even ship builders.

Because I am working full time on this project (40 hours a week) and volunteers come in here and there for a few hours at a time, this is now my baby. Nathan has essentially placed me in charge of the project and those volunteers working on it. Continuity is terribly important and without it, the finding aid is useless if the records can’t be located when needed.

The summer project is on!

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Today my supervisor, Nathan, explained to me just what I would be working on all summer. As mentioned, Bath Iron Works (BIW) is one of the largest ship manufacturers in the country. Their history dates back to the 1890s when they produced their first vessel or "hull". Each hull has a designator following it. Example Hull #4 (Manhattan) is the fourth vessel BIW produced, etc.

Some work had been started prior to my arrival, but not much. A few volunteers had began to sort the records and finished Hulls #1, 2, and 3. These were not very extensive, however, and were much like Hull #4, which I accomplished very quickly.

My task, with these records, is to sort through them, put them in order, and make a finding aid. The previous volunteers that had started the project had only hand written what they had found/sorted. After speaking with Nathan, MMM has provided a computer to ensure the maximum organization of the finding aid.

After speaking with Nathan, the large categories to be organized are Hull #, name, vessel type, delivery date, and engine number. After the plans have been sorted according to this criteria, the plan number, name of plan, date, condition and any notes are to be annotated on the finding aid.

After the first day, Hull #4 (“Manhattan”), Hull #6, Hull #8 (“City of Lowell”) have been sorted, organized, logged and until the arrival of museum conservation boxes are in, are being stored in bags.

I will say more about these plans specifically in my next post.

My first day at Maine Maritime Museum

Hello all and welcome to my blog that will follow my work this summer at the Maine Maritime Museum (www.mainemaritimemuseum.org) as I work as an Intern in the Curatorial Department.

For future reference, I will probably refer to the Museum as MMM. In addition, many of my observations and comparisons will be done with my previous coursework at both Park University where I earned my Undergraduate degree in History and that of SUNY: College at Buffalo where I am a current Graduate student studying History with a U.S. Concentration on track to graduate in December of 2010. In addition, I served as an Intern at Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts (www.plimoth.org) in the Media Department and as an Archivist Aid at the National Archives and Records Administration- Central Plains Region (www.archives.gov) facility in Kansas City, MO during 2008 and will probably draw from these experiences as well.

06/01/2010: 0900-1700

Well, the first day at MMM was spent doing a variety of things. When I arrived, I met my supervisor for the summer, Nathan Lipfert. Nathan is a soft spoken, very intelligent, fella that has been working for the museum since 1971 and is the person everyone at MMM goes to with any questions. When it comes to Maine and all things Maritime, he seems to be the authority, hands down. After the initial paperwork, Nathan took me around to the various offices in administration to meet the employees of the museum. From what I have been told, around 25 people are employed at MMM, primarily in administrative and maintenance roles and have roughly 200 volunteers.

Nathan and I spent the remainder of the morning touring the facility, the exhibit space inside and out and acclimating myself to the campus. The museum is situated right on the water that feeds directly into the ocean and makes for a gorgeous view. In addition, Bath Iron Works, one of the largest ship producing manufacturers is located within eyesight of the museum as well. Coming from the Midwest, it is quite a sight to see the massive ships in and out of its dry-bay and its warehouses when the doors are open.

Before leaving, Nathan briefly described what I would be working on this summer. It’s a massive project and as this week goes on, I will get a bit deeper into it. I do know that it has to do primarily with Bath Iron Works’ (BIW) plans and records that have been given to the museum.

The photo is of my lunchtime view (notice the museum on the right).