My wife and I just got back from a really enjoyable trip to New England. It was great to get re-acquainted with some of the maritime sites I hadn't seen in quite a few years. The Constitution herself is, whatever one may think about the historical accuracy of her current configuration, in terrific condition - the best she's been in during my lifetime. And the people at Mystic Seaport are, as always, doing a fine job of preserving and maintaining the beautiful vessels entrusted to their care. (The Charles W. Morgan is going to be hauled out of the water soon for a major restoration - at least the fifth she's undergone in the forty-plus years I've been visiting her.)
One place I was particularly interested in seeing was the Peabody/Essex Museum in Salem. I first visited it, under its old name "Peabody Museum," in 1966, when I was in high school. At that time it perceived itself almost entirely as a museum of maritime art and history, with a smattering of natural history and anthropology. In recent years it's been renamed and vastly expanded; it feels like it's at least three times as big as it used to be. And the emphasis has expanded to include a great deal more anthropology (with galleries devoted to Native Americans, Japan, China, Korea, and India), non-maritime art, and special exhibitions on a wide variety of themes.
One of my students handed in a term paper about the new Peabody/Essex Museum a few years ago, and I confess it made me worry a little. I was afraid the new collecting emphasis had displaced the maritime part of the museum. One exhibit that particularly concerned me was the famous model of the Constitution that was presented to the old museum by Isaac Hull during or shortly after the War of 1812. As many Forum participants know, that model is a priceless artifact - arguably our best guide to what the ship looked like during her most famous period. This is just the sort of artifact that needs a particularly large dose of tender loving care from curators and conservators who (a) appreciate its importance, and (b) know what they're doing. I was afraid the grand old model would get neglected, or even damaged, by the new generation of museum staff.
I was pleased to see that some, at least of my concerns were groundless. The model sits in a huge, attractive glass case in the East India Marine Hall, one of the few rooms in the museum that have been maintained more-or-less as they were in the old days. The model has a quite prominent place, and obviously is getting a great deal of respect from the staff. At first I was irritated that there was no label on it, but eventually I found a computerized "touch screen" that devoted a couple of paragraphs to the model. (I have my doubts about the history that's set forth on that machine, but it's certainly no more sketchy or unreliable than the label that was on the model in the old days.) Quite a few visitors seemed to be at least somewhat interested in the model.
I'm a bit concerned about the lighting arrangements. The room has a set of huge windows overlooking the lovely square outside; it looks to me like direct sunlight must fall on the model on a regular basis. In conservation circles, that's an absolute no-no. I took a careful look at the windows, hoping they'd been treated with UV-blocking film. I couldn't find any such substance; the slightly rippled glass appeared to have been there for a good long time. Maybe the glass in the model's case has been treated, but it sure doesn't look like it.
About four other galleries in the museum are devoted to maritime subjects. Most of the models I remembered from the old days are still there, exhibited in nice, well-lighted cases with pretty good labels. (It's a rather arbitrary collection, but the curators quite obviously have tried hard to arrange the exhibits so they make some sense to the uninitiated visitor.) And there are several excellent models that weren't there some years back - including one by Donald McNarry, one by his wife, Iris, and a beautiful Continental privateer Rattlesnake by Philip Reid, another master of small-scale sailing ships. I wasn't able to find a few of my old favorites: the primitive watercolor of the frigate Essex by Joseph Howard, the beautiful modern model of that ship that used to stand near the painting, and the four paintings by Francis Holman depicting the capture of the frigates Hancock and Boston. We were only able to spend about three hours in the museum; it's entirely possible that I missed those particular exhibits, or that they were off display for conservation or some other good reason.
The Peabody/Essex Museum is a great institution. It doesn't look like the old Peabody Museum - but change is often healthy. I continue to hope that, one of these days, somebody will publish a thorough, well-illustrated study of that old Constitution model (which is surely one of the most historically important ship models in the U.S.), and I hope the curators and conservators will do something about how it's lit. But I can enthusiastically recommend the museum as a place that every ship modeler and maritime history enthusiast ought to visit.