Mystic, Conn. (May 16, 2022) – Mystic Seaport Museum is collaborating with Stonington officials and Laz Parking to alleviate traffic and parking issues in downtown Mystic during the peak tourist season. Through this partnership, the south half of the Museum’s South Lot, located along Route 27 will be available to downtown visitors for $10 per day (Museum visitors will continue to enjoy free parking).
This fee includes a free shuttle bus service to downtown Mystic which will run from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. and may be adjusted as demand is established over the course of the season. Downtown Mystic visitors will be prompted through parking lot signage to pay via the Laz Parking App or through Text to Donate. Proof of payment will be required to gain shuttle access.
Parking for Museum visitors and members will remain free in the north half of the south lot as well as the in the North Parking lot, located across from the Thompson Exhibition Building. Guests of Latitude 41 will also continue to benefit from free parking in the North Parking Lot.
Mystic Seaport Museum is excited to be collaborating with the town of Stonington and Laz Parking to provide this service and alleviate traffic concerns during the busy summer season. Service is expected to begin by Memorial Day Weekend.
Mystic Seaport Museum is the nation’s leading maritime Museum. Founded in 1929 to gather and preserve the rapidly disappearing artifacts of America’s seafaring past, the Museum has grown to become a national center for research and education with the mission to “inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.” The Museum’s grounds cover 19 acres on the Mystic River in Mystic, CT, and include a recreated New England coastal village, a working shipyard, formal exhibit halls, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities. The Museum is home to more than 500 historic watercraft, including four National Historic Landmark vessels, most notably the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. For more information, please visit mysticseaport.org and follow the Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Mystic, Conn. (April 28, 2022) – Mystic Seaport announces the appointment of Maggie Dolan as its Vice President of Finance, effective immediately.
Reporting to the President, Maggie will drive the development and implementation of Mystic Seaport Museum’s strategic financial plan as well as annual operating and capital budgets and investments. A strategic thinker and problem solver, she brings 30 years of experience in nonprofit financial management to her new role, with a focus on educational institutions. Her first such position was at Yale University, followed by Director of Finance/CFO roles at a number of independent schools, including The Williams School in New London, The Rectory School in Pomfret, and most recently at The Independent Day School in Middlefield.
Maggie is an avid reader, enjoys hiking with her chocolate Lab, Oliver, watching college basketball, Premier League soccer, and playing in a competitive trivia league. She lives in Old Lyme with her daughter, a college freshman, and has two sons living in New York.
Mystic Seaport Museum is the nation’s leading maritime Museum. Founded in 1929 to gather and preserve the rapidly disappearing artifacts of America’s seafaring past, the Museum has grown to become a national center for research and education with the mission to “inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.” The Museum’s grounds cover 19 acres on the Mystic River in Mystic, CT, and include a recreated New England coastal village, a working shipyard, formal exhibit halls, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities. The Museum is home to more than 500 historic watercraft, including four National Historic Landmark vessels, most notably the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. For more information, please visit mysticseaport.org and follow the Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Mystic, Conn. (April 6, 2022) – The exhibition “Story Boats: The Tales They Tell” gathers a diverse selection of boats, large and small, to offer a fresh and exciting view into the American maritime experience. Drawn from the Museum’s extensive watercraft collection (including some that are being shown to the public for the very first time) the boats in the show bring to life remarkable stories of humanity’s connection to the sea.
“Story Boats: The Tales They Tell” will be on view in the Collins Gallery at Mystic Seaport Museum from May 28 through August 14, 2022. It was curated by Quentin Snediker, the Museum’s Clark Senior Curator for Watercraft and Krystal Rose, Curator of Collections.
“While many visitors and field experts are interested in the technical and material aspects of the collection, what resonates with a broader audience are the diverse personal stories that are inherently tied to those boats and how these stories connect with our visitors’ own journeys,” said Christina Brophy, Senior Vice President of Curatorial Affairs and Senior Director of Museum Galleries at Mystic Seaport Museum. “What ties these boats together thematically, and is the inspiration for the exhibition ‘Story Boats: The Tales They Tell,’ is the remarkable richness of human-interest stories behind them, which include themes of hope, exploration, survival, joy, adventure, sport, immigration, and many others.”
One of the Museum’s greatest assets is its collection of small watercraft, which is arguably the largest of its type and the best in the country. Mystic Seaport Museum has more than 450 small boats as well as a fleet of larger historic vessels moored on its waterfront along the Mystic River. Four of these vessels are designated National Historic Landmarks. As a whole, they represent an extraordinary array of design, purpose, and materials beginning in the early 19th century to the present, from dugout canoes to duck boats to recreational Boston Whalers and everything in between and beyond.
Senior Curator for Watercraft, Quentin Snediker and Curator of Collections, Krystal Rose, along with the Museum’s exhibits team consulted with a diverse pool of experts and lay people to distill a list of boats from the collection that have these outstanding stories to tell. The exhibition installation in the Thompson Building Collins Gallery and Pilalas Lobby will fully utilize the grand volume of the space to advantage, where some of the lighter vessels will “fly” suspended from the ceiling, while others will be mounted on the gallery floor. Each vessel will be exhibited with an iconic object that alludes to its story.
A few highlights from the exhibit include:
Franklin D Roosevelt’s Vireo
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1914 knockabout sloop Vireo (from our collection) will be displayed alongside his wheelchair (on loan from the Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites). Roosevelt contracted polio in 1921 shortly before a family trip and was aboard the vessel on the last day he walked without assistance.
Steven Callahan’s 76 Days Adrift
Mystic Seaport Museum recently received a collection of material from Steven Callahan, author of “Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea,” the true story of his survival of being lost at sea in a rubber life raft after his solo sailing trip across the Atlantic met with disaster. His sketches and some of the survival tools he created from his scant supplies will be on display with a similar model of the raft from which he found rescue off Guadeloupe. Callahan’s recent oral histories recorded by Mystic Seaport Museum will also be available in the exhibition.
Escape from Cuba Aboard Analuisa
The Analuisa is a 20-foot fishing vessel built by Luciano Cuadras Fernández, launched from Mariel, Cuba, in 1994 with 19 people aboard bound for Florida. Partway across, they were picked up by a passing cruise ship, abadoning the Analuisa. A very fortunate group of four on a totally different, floundering vessel (also out of Cuba) happened upon the abandoned Analuisa and navigated her safely to Key West. The sturdy Analuisa was a success story for two immigrant groups in one voyage. These are just a few of the hundreds of amazing stories that are tied to our Gallery collection.
To complement the main exhibition, other watercraft will be mounted on the deck surrounding the Thompson Exhibition Building and on the surrounding grounds, including Tango, a bright orange foot-pedal powered craft designed by the legendary naval architect Bruce Kirby. In 1992, Dwight Collins pedaled the boat from Newfoundland to England in 41 days, the fastest human-powered crossing in known history. In addition to these displays, visitors can explore our grounds to floating Story Boats vessels that carry their own powerful tales, including the Gerda III, which is on long-term loan from the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. In 1943, a courageous 22-year-old woman named Henny Sinding organized a resistance team to carry more than 300 Jews from Nazi-occupied Denmark to safety in Sweden aboard the Gerda III.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a souvenir book, “Story Boats,” to be published by Mystic Seaport Museum.
Media Contact:
Sophia Matsas
Director of Marketing & Communications
Mystic Seaport Museum
860.572.5317 (o)
sophia.matsas@mysticseaport.org
About Mystic Seaport Museum
Mystic Seaport Museum is the nation’s leading maritime Museum. Founded in 1929 to gather and preserve the rapidly disappearing artifacts of America’s seafaring past, the Museum has grown to become a national center for research and education with the mission to “inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.” The Museum’s grounds cover 19 acres on the Mystic River in Mystic, CT, and include a recreated New England coastal village, a working shipyard, formal exhibit halls, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities. The Museum is home to more than 500 historic watercraft, including four National Historic Landmark vessels, most notably the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. For more information, please visit mysticseaport.org and follow the Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Mystic, Conn. (March 7, 2022) – Researchers, historians, and genealogy enthusiasts now have an expanded resource to explore the history of the whaling industry and the individuals who were part of the global enterprise, with recent additions to the Whaling History website (WhalingHistory.org), a joint project of Mystic Seaport Museum and the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
The data presented combines many sources including logbooks, journals, ship registers, newspapers, business papers, and custom house records. Users can find and trace whaling voyages and ships to specific logbooks, as well as the list of crew members aboard many of the voyages.
A popular feature of the site is a dialog where users can search crew lists to discover if they have a relative who shipped out on a whaling voyage.
The foundational fabric of Whaling History features three databases that have been stitched together – the American Offshore Whaling Voyage (AOWV) database, the American Offshore Whaling Log database, and an extensive whaling crew list database. All data is open to the public and is downloadable for any researcher to use with other tools and systems.
The site has been expanded recently with the addition of 370 new whaling voyages to the AOWV database, most from the 18th century, and the integration of the Dennis Wood Abstracts of Whaling Voyages. The latter are brief handwritten summaries of whaling voyages compiled over more than forty years (1830–1874) by Dennis Wood, a merchant and whaling agent in New Bedford. The abstracts were drawn from news reported in the Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchants’ Transcript, and from letters, telegrams, and reports brought back by vessels. The New Bedford Free Public Library scanned the four volumes from its collection, containing more than 2,300 pages, and placed them on the Internet Archive.
“These new additions to the world’s most comprehensive whaling history database enhance the site’s scope and, most important, make it available for all to use,” said Paul O’Pecko, Vice President of Research Collections at Mystic Seaport Museum. “Researchers, genealogists, students, teachers, and history buffs alike will find it to be the most robust and useful repository of whaling history documentation and scholarship.”
Media Contact
Dan McFadden
Director of Communications
Mystic Seaport Museum
860.572.5317 (o)
860.333.7155 (m) dan.mcfadden@mysticseaport.org
About Mystic Seaport Museum
Mystic Seaport Museum is the nation’s leading maritime Museum. Founded in 1929 to gather and preserve the rapidly disappearing artifacts of America’s seafaring past, the Museum has grown to become a national center for research and education with the mission to “inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.” The Museum’s grounds cover 19 acres on the Mystic River in Mystic, CT, and include a recreated New England coastal village, a working shipyard, formal exhibit halls, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities. The Museum is home to more than 500 historic watercraft, including four National Historic Landmark vessels, most notably the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. At Mystic Seaport Museum, we strive to create an environment where visitors not only learn from us, but we learn from them. The concept is called Public History and it allows our visitors to experience history in ways they have not before. For more information, please visit mysticseaport.org and follow the Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Mystic, Conn. (February 22, 2022) — Mystic Seaport Museum will present its 2022 America and the Sea Award to Captain William “Bill” Pinkney, former Mystic Seaport Museum trustee, U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman, sailor, educator, author, and adventurer. The prestigious award recognizes those individuals and organizations whose extraordinary achievements in the world of maritime exploration, competition, scholarship, and design best exemplify the American character. As a former trustee of Mystic Seaport Museum, Pinkney and his work to open the maritime world to inner-city youth and others around the United States embody the Museum’s mission to inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.
William “Bill” Pinkney (Photo from William Pinkney)
Museum President Peter Armstrong said, “Captain Pinkney expertly and professionally unwraps the stories of the sea, from circumnavigation to the history of the triangle trade, for a wide and diverse audience. An ambassador to those who believe the maritime world is not their world, he has proven adept in showing everyone that the sea connects us all.”
Pinkney has been drawn to the sea from a very young age and has worked to sustain a personal connection as well as provide opportunities for others to learn the important history of people and the sea and the resulting influence on American culture. His work as the first captain of the freedom schooner Amistad – the first vessel constructed from the keel up at Mystic Seaport Museum – and his journey through the Middle Passage on The Sortilege, shared with educators and classrooms across the country, brought to life personal connections to the history of slavery and the crucial role that seafaring played. His solo circumnavigation on his 47-foot cutter, aptly named The Commitment, from Boston around the five southern capes and back to Boston, spanning 27,000 miles and 22 months, grew into an educational opportunity for so many children via video diaries, phone conversations, opportunities to track his progress through satellite technology and lesson plans that included nautical calculations and the influence of faraway cultures. All of this incredible work, born from a desire to leave a legacy for his grandchildren, speaks to the mission of Mystic Seaport Museum.
The Museum will recognize Pinkney’s exceptional life by awarding him the America and the Sea Award on Wednesday, October 26, 2022. The award presentation will take place at the Metropolitan Club in New York City.
This affair is the premier fundraising event for Mystic Seaport Museum. Past recipients of the America and the Sea Awardinclude outstanding yachtsman Terry Hutchinson; America’s Cup Hall of Famer Tom Whidden, one of the most acclaimed sailors of all time; American businesswoman and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, whose ocean explorations have advanced our understanding of the ocean’s biodiversity and vulnerability; groundbreaking Whitbread and America’s Cup sailor Dawn Riley and Oakcliff Sailing; philanthropist and environmentalist David Rockefeller, Jr., and his Sailors for the Sea; boat designers Rod and Bob Johnstone and their company J/Boats; author and historian Nathaniel Philbrick; maritime industrialist Charles A. Robertson; America’s Cup Hall of Famer and author Gary Jobson; WoodenBoat Publications founder Jon Wilson; former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman; oceanographer and explorer Sylvia Earle; America’s Cup sailor William Koch; President and CEO of Crowley Maritime Corporation, Thomas Crowley; historian David McCullough; and the first honoree, legendary yacht designer Olin J. Stephens, II.
Dan McFadden
Director of Communications
Mystic Seaport Museum
860.572.5317 (o)
860.333.7155 (m) dan.mcfadden@mysticseaport.org
About Mystic Seaport Museum
Mystic Seaport Museum, founded in 1929, is the nation’s leading maritime museum. In addition to providing a multitude of immersive experiences, the Museum also houses a collection of more than two million artifacts that include more than 500 historic vessels and one of the largest collections of maritime photography. Mystic Seaport Museum is located one mile south of Exit 90 off I-95 in Mystic, CT. For more information, please visit www.mysticseaport.org and follow Mystic Seaport Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Schooner AMISTAD at Mystic Seaport Museum, June 2020.
Mystic, Conn. (January 27, 2022) – In honor of Black History Month, Mystic Seaport Museum will introduce several programs celebrating important and often under-recognized figures that have changed the course of history. The programs are part of an ongoing initiative at the Museum to incorporate a more diverse range of voices in its programming and exhibits about American maritime history.
All month, visitors to the Museum can hear a talk aboard the whaleship Charles W. Morgan about Lewis Temple. Temple was an African American blacksmith, abolitionist, and inventor born in Virginia around 1800, who found his way to the whaling port of New Bedford. He is best known for the development of the Temple Toggle Iron, an iron harpoon design that featured a pivoting head that would not slip out of the whale. The invention, similar to harpoons used by Native Americans and Inuit to catch fish and seals, revolutionized the whaling industry.
Visitors are further invited to explore an outdoor exhibit, The Sea Connects Us, a series of panels highlighting the achievements of African American and Indigenous people who made significant contributions to U.S. maritime history.
Collaboration with Discovering Amistad
In addition, Mystic Seaport Museum and Discovering Amistad are embarking on a new collaboration with the shared mission of furthering racial justice. The ongoing initiative will promote learning and exposure to contributions made by African Americans in U.S. maritime history.
Schooner AMISTAD at Mystic Seaport Museum, June 2020.
The two organizations are partnering to offer a new joint program for schools that tells the story of the ship Amistad and how it serves as an example of how citizens and communities, working together, can bring about meaningful change. Students will be able to board the Amistad at the Museum and learn about the vessel, the story of the 1839 Amistad Uprising, and the landmark Supreme Court case that freed the Mende captives who were facing slavery or execution. The program also includes a segment in the Museum’s planetarium that highlights the role celestial navigation played in the story. Using the legacy of the uprising, the program bridges history and the challenges of that time to present-day issues of inequity. This program is a permanent offering by the two organizations.
The Museum is also supporting a Discovering Amistad program to engage middle school students in Connecticut to research and become involved in Black maritime history. Ten schools will be invited to participate in the program, in which students will create an art project on figures from Black maritime history. The top submission from each school will receive a prize including the opportunity to participate in a Discovering Amistad art exhibit and free admission to Mystic Seaport Museum with a special behind-the-scenes tour. Awards will made by April 1.
African Americans in Astronomy
On Wednesday, February 23, the Museum will present a program as part of its AARP Webinar Wednesday: African Americans in Astronomy. Brian Koehler, the supervisor of the Museum’s Treworgy Planetarium, will discuss the groundbreaking achievements by African Americans in the fields of Astronomy and space exploration. Despite hundreds of years of discrimination and prejudicial treatment, these pioneers achieved remarkable accomplishments that changed and shaped the present understanding of the cosmos. This virtual program is from 7 to 8 p.m. EST and is free for AARP and Mystic Seaport Museum members (non-members may attend for a $15 admission fee). AARP CT is the sponsor of this program. People should visit www.mysticseaport.org/calendar/ to register for this event.
Media Contact
Dan McFaddenDirector of Communications
Mystic Seaport Museum
860.572.5317 (o)
860.333.7155 (m) dan.mcfadden@mysticseaport.org
About Mystic Seaport Museum
Mystic Seaport Museum is the nation’s leading maritime Museum. Founded in 1929 to gather and preserve the rapidly disappearing artifacts of America’s seafaring past, the Museum has grown to become a national center for research and education with the mission to “inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.” The Museum’s grounds cover 19 acres on the Mystic River in Mystic, CT, and include a recreated New England coastal village, a working shipyard, formal exhibit halls, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities. The Museum is home to more than 500 historic watercraft, including four National Historic Landmark vessels, most notably the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. For more information, please visit mysticseaport.org and follow the Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Mystic, Conn. (January 19, 2022) – Mystic Seaport announces the appointment of Kevin O’Leary as its Vice President of Business Development & Marketing, effective immediately.
This newly created position reports to the Senior Vice President of Curatorial Affairs and provides direction and oversight to the Museum’s Business Development, Sales, Marketing, Communications, and Digital Content teams in support of the institution’s combined revenue goals. He will lead the identification, development, and implementation of strategic growth initiatives across the Museum and explore, identify, and execute opportunities consistent with those initiatives with a particular emphasis on intellectual property and brand partnerships.
“With his extensive experience in brand management and the development of regional and national marketing campaigns, Kevin O’Leary brings the high degree of insight, leadership, and comprehensive knowledge of building successful brands and business lines that are an important part of the future for our Museum,” said Peter Armstrong, President of Mystic Seaport Museum. “He is the right person to take on the task of maximizing the value of our vast collections and the intellectual property that lies within.”
“I am delighted to join Mystic Seaport Museum, an institution I know from my youth in Southern New England and a storied brand with a long history and deep equity, said Kevin O’Leary. “I look forward to unlocking the potential I see all around the Museum and working with our incredible curatorial and operations teams to broaden our audience and expand commercial opportunities.”
Prior to joining the Museum, O’Leary was the Director of Business Development for Guru Media Solutions, a Certified B-Corp, full-service marketing agency in California and Vermont specializing in purpose-driven, conscious and sustainable brands and NGOs. He was responsible for prospecting, closing, and onboarding new business opportunities consistent with some or all of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. He has held numerous leadership roles in agencies focused on brand marketing, design, and digital strategy and content development. O’Leary also brings extensive experience in hospitality and real estate sales and marketing, and the music industry. He is the past director of marketing for the Vermont Mozart Festival, a volunteer position, and began his professional career many years ago in Seattle, WA, working for Sub Pop Records.
Media Contact
Dan McFadden
Director of Communications
Mystic Seaport Museum
860.572.5317 (o)
860.333.7155 (m) dan.mcfadden@mysticseaport.org
About Mystic Seaport Museum
Mystic Seaport Museum is the nation’s leading maritime Museum. Founded in 1929 to gather and preserve the rapidly disappearing artifacts of America’s seafaring past, the Museum has grown to become a national center for research and education with the mission to “inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.” The Museum’s grounds cover 19 acres on the Mystic River in Mystic, CT, and include a recreated New England coastal village, a working shipyard, formal exhibit halls, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities. The Museum is home to more than 500 historic watercraft, including four National Historic Landmark vessels, most notably the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. For more information, please visit mysticseaport.org and follow the Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Mystic, Conn. (January 13, 2022) – Connecticut Humanities, the statewide, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), has awarded Mystic Seaport Museum $519,999 in three separate grants.
The first is an award of $500,000 for a CT Cultural Fund Operating Support Grant. Administered in partnership with the Connecticut State Department of Economic Development/Connecticut Office of the Arts, with funds from the Connecticut State Legislature, the operating grants assist organizations as they recover from the pandemic and maintain and grow their ability to serve their community and the public. The Museum will use the funds in part to improve accessibility and wayfinding on the grounds, enhance online content and access for remote learning, and support the expansion and merging of its educational offerings under the umbrella of the soon-to-launch Center for Experiential Education (CEE). The CEE represents a commitment by the Museum to serve youth in a more holistic and comprehensive manner by engaging young people at critical junctures of their lives through experiential maritime education.
The second award is a $10,000 grant from the Sustaining Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) Capacity Grants, funded by the NEH and the federal American Rescue Plan (ARP). The Museum will use the funds to support diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) training across all departments. The firm Lord Cultural Resources — a global practice leader in bringing DEAI principles to the museum field — has been engaged to guide this work.
The final award of $9,999 is a Capacity Building Grant to cover Lord’s external information gathering and reporting in order to help the Museum better understand and engage with a more diverse public.
“As we continue to recover from the economic impact of the pandemic we are working hard towards positioning the Museum as a more sustainable and culturally relevant institution to as broad an audience as possible,” said Peter Armstrong, president of Mystic Seaport Museum. “This generous support from Connecticut Humanities will help the Museum, working in partnership with other community organizations, to emphasize the diversity of the maritime story to a much wider public.”
The Museum was one of 624 organizations in Connecticut that received CT Cultural Fund support totaling $16M from CT Humanities. The operating grants are part of $30.7M of support allocated to arts, humanities, and cultural nonprofits through CTH over the next two years by the CT General Assembly and approved by Governor Ned Lamont. Funds were provided through the Connecticut State Department of Economic and Community Development and its Connecticut Office of the Arts.
Mystic Seaport Museum was one of 69 organizations in Connecticut that was awarded ARP funding totaling $640,192 from CT Humanities. CTH SHARP Capacity Grants provide organizations funding for projects including building their information technology infrastructure, making their collections more accessible, conducting strategic planning, and undertaking inclusivity, diversity, equity, and access work.
Media Contact
Dan McFadden
Director of Communications
Mystic Seaport Museum
860.572.5317 (o)
860.333.7155 (m) dan.mcfadden@mysticseaport.org
About Mystic Seaport Museum
Mystic Seaport Museum is the nation’s leading maritime Museum. Founded in 1929 to gather and preserve the rapidly disappearing artifacts of America’s seafaring past, the Museum has grown to become a national center for research and education with the mission to “inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.” The Museum’s grounds cover 19 acres on the Mystic River in Mystic, CT, and include a recreated New England coastal village, a working shipyard, formal exhibit halls, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities. The Museum is home to more than 500 historic watercraft, including four National Historic Landmark vessels, most notably the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. For more information, please visit mysticseaport.org and follow the Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
About Connecticut Humanities
CT Humanities (CTH) is an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. CTH connects people to the humanities through grants, partnerships, and collaborative programs. CTH projects, administration, and program development are supported by state and federal matching funds, community foundations, and gifts from private sources. Learn more by visiting cthumanities.org.
About Connecticut Office of the Arts
The Connecticut Office of the Arts (COA) is the state agency charged with fostering the health of Connecticut’s creative economy. Part of the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development, the COA is funded by the State of Connecticut as well as the National Endowment for the Arts.
Mystic, Conn. (December 22, 2021) – NASA has selected Mystic Seaport Museum as one of a diverse group of Museums, science centers, libraries, and other informal education organizations from around the country designated as a NASA Informal Education Community Anchor.
The designation recognizes the Museum and its Treworgy Planetarium as a community resource and provides a $24,266 grant to bring space exploration to traditionally underserved areas and broaden student participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The Museum will address the local needs of middle school students in Eastern and Southern Connecticut by using and sharing NASA STEM engagement learning resources and opportunities.
“We are grateful to NASA for selecting our Museum to participate in this program, which will enable us to further our institutional goal of increasing outreach to underserved communities and diverse audiences,” said Brian Koehler, supervisor of the Treworgy Planetarium at Mystic Seaport Museum. “We are excited to create new opportunities where students can experience the feelings of discovery and confidence that space exploration and STEM engagement is all about.”
The grant will enable Planetarium educators:
To develop new hands-on STEM programs for middle school students in three formats: virtual, in-school, and on-site
To purchase the equipment and supplies needed to deliver these programs to students
To provide a series of these programs at no cost to select underserved community partners
Mystic Seaport Museum is one of only 21 recipients selected from across the United States. It is one of only two Community Anchors in New England.
The new programs will be rolled out in fall 2022.
Media Contact
Dan McFadden
Director of Communications
Mystic Seaport Museum
860.572.5317 (o)
860.333.7155 (m)| dan.mcfadden@mysticseaport.org
About Mystic Seaport Museum
Mystic Seaport Museum is the nation’s leading maritime Museum. Founded in 1929 to gather and preserve the rapidly disappearing artifacts of America’s seafaring past, the Museum has grown to become a national center for research and education with the mission to “inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.” The Museum’s grounds cover 19 acres on the Mystic River in Mystic, CT, and include a recreated New England coastal village, a working shipyard, exhibit galleries, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities. The Museum is home to more than 500 historic watercraft, including four National Historic Landmark vessels, most notably the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. The Museum strives to create an environment where visitors experience history in ways they have not before. For more information, please visit mysticseaport.org and follow the Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Mystic, Conn. — (November 15, 2021) — Beginning January 17, 2022, Lancer Hospitality will be the primary food and beverage operator of the Mystic Seaport Museum grounds, a 19-acre destination which is comprised of multiple on-site eateries and food outlets, as well as a robust offering of private dining and event spaces. Founded in 1929, Mystic Seaport Museum is the nation’s leading maritime museum, which was created to gather and preserve the rapidly disappearing artifacts of America’s seafaring past. The museum includes a recreated New England coastal village, a working shipyard, formal exhibit halls, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities.
“Lancer is excited to infuse our signature brand of imagination and hospitality into the campus and create a distinct culinary offering for this beloved destination”, said Matt King, President of Elior North America Dining & Events and Lancer Hospitality. “Mystic Seaport Museum is one of Mystic’s most visited attractions, and we look forward to bringing the experience to life for all of the senses.”
Lancer will be catering events for the Museum’s internal purposes, as well as its external corporate, group, and private events. The company will also manage weddings taking place on-site at the Museum, at various locations including the Boat Shed at Lighthouse Point, the steamboat Sabino, and the Meeting House. Lancer will be debuting new catering packages on January 1, 2022 that will celebrate the unique space that is Mystic Seaport Museum.
For guest-facing eateries, Lancer will reopen the espresso bar in the Thompson Exhibition Building on January 17, 2022, with a new coffee program, as well as a new grab-and-go artisan menu featuring local makers and bakers. In The Galley- the quick service café on campus- Lancer will be partnering with the Museum to rebrand and reimagine an entirely new and modernized food and beverage experience with expanded evening hours to join the other restaurants in town that have made Mystic a regional hub for food lovers.
“Our Museum is a one-of-a-kind destination that’s beloved by locals and travelers alike. We’re delighted to be partnering with Lancer Hospitality to continue to evolve our guest offerings, and to provide a distinct food experience that matches the breadth of experiential offerings at the institution,” said Peter Armstrong, President of Mystic Seaport Museum.
For more information about the museum’s special event capabilities and information about current exhibitions, visit mysticseaport.org.
Contact
Dan McFadden
Director of Communications
Mystic Seaport Museum
860.572.5317 (o)
860.333.7155 (m) dan.mcfadden@mysticseaport.org
About Mystic Seaport Museum
Mystic Seaport Museum, founded in 1929, is the nation’s leading maritime museum. In addition to providing a multitude of immersive experiences, the Museum also houses a collection of more than two million artifacts that include more than 500 historic vessels and one of the largest collections of maritime photography in the world. Mystic Seaport Museum is located one mile south of Exit 90 off I-95 in Mystic, CT. For more information, please visit mysticseaport.org and follow Mystic Seaport Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
About Lancer Hospitality Group
For over 30 years, Lancer Hospitality has been the trusted culinary partner for a rising portfolio of family-friendly attractions and destinations throughout the United States. Growing from a single ice cream truck to a team of more than 1,000 employees, Lancer has built a proud reputation for providing innovative, made-to-order restaurant-quality food made fast — with experiences that are defined by high quality ingredients and creative takes on beloved favorites. As a chef-driven organization, Lancer proudly collaborates with local farmers, artisans, bakers, and more to create truly memorable food experiences. Lancer’s signature service, penchant for perfection, and progressive menus have helped the company become a rising star in the world of weddings, corporate experiences, and large-scale private events. Lancer is defined by the company’s pride and commitment to taking great care of people, with no exceptions.
Maggie is an avid reader, enjoys hiking with her chocolate Lab, Oliver, watching college basketball, Premier League soccer, and playing in a competitive trivia league. She lives in Old Lyme with her daughter, a college freshman, and has two sons living in New York.
