Mystic Seaport Museum Inc

Programs: Visitor experience - each year more than 275,000 people visit mystic seaport, the museum of america and the sea. The departments and divisions that have primary responsibility for the visitor experience include: visitor reception, exhibitions, interpretation programs, and museum stores. They welcome visitors; provide for their physical needs; offer educational and illustrative products to underscore the theme of america and the sea; research, design, produce and care for exhibits; research, plan, and conduct a varied seasonal schedule of programs, activities and special events for visitors of all ages.

educational programs - mystic seaport offers a variety of formal and informal educational opportunities for diverse audiences. The story of america and the sea is multidisciplinary, and our educational programs incorporate history, art, music, literature, science, social history, anthropology, technology, and skills. The museum serves nearly 20,000 young people in school groups every year. Study programs are arranged for teachers and elementary, middle, secondary school and college students, and are supplemented by original source documents and curriculum materials available over the web. Through the williams college/mystic seaport program, under-graduate students attend a semester-long program of classes in maritime studies, and the summer munson institute offers graduate level maritime history courses. Other learning opportunities include: sail education programs; classes in astronomy, celestial navigation, piloting and dead reckoning; boat building and boat handling, fireplace cooking, smithing and wood carving. There are museum internships, elderhostel programs, and special programs for the very young in our children's museum.

collections & research - the museum's collections hold over 2 million items, including vessels, historic buildings, photographs, film and video footage, imprints, art, tools, and artifacts dating from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The watercraft collection, the largest collection of its genre in the world with over 480 vessels, includes 4 national historic landmarks: the 1841 whaling bark charles w. Morgan, the 1921 fishing schooner l. A. Dunton, the 1908 steam ferry sabino, and the noank well-smack emma c. Berry. Curatorial work includes acquisition, registration, research and documentation, restoration and conservation. The henry b. Dupont preservation shipyard was established to enable mystic seaport to care for its historic watercraft. The shipyard is also an exhibit where visitors can watch the staff perform the work necessary to maintain and restore our watercraft collection, emphasizing the use of traditional materials and skills. The museum's extensive collections of maritime art and artifacts, photographs and moving images, and ships plans are housed alongside the g. W. Blunt white library's books and periodicals, charts and maps, oral histories, microfilm, log books, ships registers and manuscripts in a state of the art facility, the collections research center. Staff and collections are brought together here in a coordinated and effective configuration under one roof. The collections research center is the museum's center for advanced research in american maritime history, culture and science, serving students, members, staff and outside scholars. The museum also contributes to knowledge of maritime studies and scholarship through book publication, and symposia.