NEH Summer Institute Colleague Letter

Dear Colleague,

The Frank C. Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies at Mystic Seaport, The Museum of America and the Sea, invites your participation in its five-week National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute entitled “The American Maritime People,” June 23 through July 25, 2014.

“The American Maritime People” are the vast number of seafarers and citizens of shoreside communities who have shaped this country culturally, economically, and diplomatically throughout its history. Working on the sea and on the inland rivers and lakes, these people transformed the United States through developments in transportation, technology, the national economy, naval forces, and international diplomacy. Their history offers a naturally dramatic and compelling way to understand the national identity. With an economy based on container shipping and a foreign policy that continues to make use of a Navy deployed around the world, the United States citizenry continues to be deeply dependent on these maritime activities. In a series of seminars, “The American Maritime People” NEH Summer Institute will employ interdisciplinary perspectives on American maritime studies, with an emphasis on the most recent social, cultural, and ecological approaches.

The institute will sample four hundred years of American maritime history. Emphasis will be placed on the most influential recent work in maritime studies, much of it by scholars who have agreed to contribute personally to “The American Maritime People.” Their studies have examined a wide range of topics: Daniel Vickers on the inter-woven lives of coastal farmers and fishermen in Massachusetts; Lisa Norling on the independent lives of whaling wives in New England; Jeffrey Bolster on the large population of “Black Jack” sailors of color in the ante-bellum cities of the East Coast, and the historic impact of fisheries on the natural stocks; Marcus Rediker on the collectively organized workers of sailing ships in the Anglo-American Atlantic world, piracy, and the slave trade; John Hattendorf on the development of navies; James Carlton on introduced species; Mary K Bercaw Edwards on Herman Melville’s career at sea; and Helen Rozwadowski on the development of marine science and coastal recreation, among other scholars. The co-directors will offer perspectives on their respective areas of research: Glenn S. Gordinier on smuggling collusion during Jefferson’s Embargo and asymmetrical naval warfare during the War of 1812, and Eric Paul Roorda on Caribbean maritime history and the contemporary cruise industry.

In addition to sessions led by the faculty and guest speakers of the institute, the curriculum will involve field seminars in nearby port communities. Trips to Stonington, Connecticut and Newport, Rhode Island will be part of the curriculum, and optional trips to Groton and New London, Connecticut and New Bedford, Massachusetts may be arranged. The field seminars will feature maritime tours of these diverse coastal settings, each to be guided by scholars who study the respective ports’ development over time.

During the summer of 2014, the world’s only surviving wooden whaling vessel, the Charles W. Morgan, first launched in 1841, will return to the sea. Her historic 38th Voyage will take the unique ship to numerous seaports in New England. The NEH Summer Institute participants will visit the vessel at one of these ports of call during her unprecedented journey.

Most of “The American Maritime People “ Institute will take place at beautiful Mystic Seaport, one of the largest and most comprehensive maritime museums of its kind in the world, in coastal Connecticut. The Museum covers seventeen acres, with sixty historic buildings, and more than five hundred historic vessels. The NEH institute will take special advantage of primary source materials from the vast manuscript collections of the G. W. Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport; the facilities of the Collections Research Center at the Museum, where artifacts and photographs are preserved for research; and the public exhibits of Mystic Seaport itself. All together, these facilities will make an inspiring campus for program participants.

The institute will emphasize and integrate the participants’ individual interests, ongoing research, and teaching projects. There will be time provided each week for members of the group to make full use of the resources of Mystic Seaport, including extended opening hours at the library manuscript collection for the NEH participants. Ongoing discussion of everyone’s developing work will be encouraged through weekly research forums. These sessions will also allow us the time and opportunity to reflect on the progress of the institute and the material covered up to that point each week. The interaction among Institute participants, faculty, and guest speakers will continue under informal circumstances during late afternoon and evening get-togethers.

In addition to cultivating the participants’ research interests, the institute will help them to explore and innovate ways to use maritime subjects in their teaching, and to bring their research into the classroom. In addition to soliciting feedback from the participants about the presentations offered by Institute faculty, we will facilitate collective pedagogical brainstorming about approaching the history of the American people by sea, rather than by land.

Participants in “The American Maritime People” will share cooperative living facilities in one of four residential houses adjacent to and owned by Mystic Seaport. Most of the rooms are doubles, with only a few singles, so participants in the Institute should be willing to have one roommate and several housemates for five weeks. These houses have limited air conditioning and no television, they are not set up to accommodate families or pets, and are not handicapped accessible (special accommodations can be secured to accommodate disabilities if given advance notice). The houses have equipped kitchens and nearby parking space. Computers and bed linens are the responsibility of the participants. All of the houses are a few minutes walk from scenic downtown Mystic. Shared rooms will be available for $900 for the six-week session, singles for $1,300. Most of the seminars and forums of the institute will take place in the Munson Room within Mystic Seaport. Occasionally, the group will convene at particular exhibits around Mystic Seaport.

The institute will have two co-directors, who are also the co-directors of the Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies, a graduate-level summer program at Mystic Seaport. Glenn S. Gordinier is the Robert G. Albion Historian at Mystic Seaport. He also teaches maritime history at the University of Connecticut-Avery Point. His specialty is the early national period, and maritime America. He authored The Rockets’ Red Glare: The War of 1812 and Connecticut (2012) and edited Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Power in Maritime America (2008). Both books are currently available from Mystic Seaport Press. Dr. Gordinier also presents dramatic performances in the role of “Josiah Gardner,” a 19th- century sea captain, recently seen at the nation’s Capitol Building Visitor Center.

Eric Paul Roorda is professor of History at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. His specialty is U.S. foreign relations toward the Caribbean. He is author of Cuba, America and the Sea (Mystic Seaport Press, 2005), and The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic (Duke University Press, 1998). His edited volume The Dominican Republic Reader will be published by Duke University Press in May, 2014.

The selection of candidates for participation in “The American Maritime People” will be the task of a committee of the co-directors and a faculty member. The criteria for selection will be the opportunity and ability to make use of the summer institute experience in their work; a demonstrated commitment to teaching; pertinent research interests; and evidence of personal energy, affability, and intellectual curiosity, which are qualities conducive to an active and encouraging group dynamic for the exchange of ideas. Applicants chosen for the program must commit to participate for the full five weeks of the institute. They will receive a stipend of $3,900 to cover expenses for travel to and from Mystic, books and research materials, and food and housing for the duration of the period spent in residence.

After a week of orientation to the resources available at the site of the institute, each participant will be encouraged to outline their priorities and make a plan for what they would like to accomplish during the subsequent four weeks. Objectives might include conducting research for an article, book chapter, or longer work; pursuing experiential learning in any number of Mystic Seaport venues, from Museum exhibits to sailing craft on the Mystic River; writing essays on themes suggested by the institute’s proceedings or its physical, historical or cultural environment; compiling and reading a list of works on a subject, or by an author, of particular interest; developing new courses or lesson plans to interpret maritime topics or employ maritime approaches; and any number of other goals identified by the individual professors taking part in the institute. Guided by this chart of scholarly activities, the participants will contribute to a portfolio of work of their own design, to document their experience in Mystic and provide the basis for integrating what they learn into what they teach and write. The tentative syllabus and reading list for the institute are available upon request.

Mystic itself is located a few hours from both New York City and Boston, and is very convenient to airports in Providence, Rhode Island and Hartford, Connecticut. There is also an Amtrak train station, and the town has an interchange of Interstate 95. Mystic is convenient to many historical and cultural sites in the immediate region of Southeast New England.

Based on the long experience of the Munson Institute, which celebrates its 59th anniversary in 2014, and Mystic Seaport, founded in 1929, the seaside venue for the NEH Summer Institute “The American Maritime People” promises to be inspiring and constructive for everyone involved.

Sincerely,

Glenn S. Gordinier, Robert G. Albion Historian
Mystic Seaport, The Museum of America and the Sea
Mystic, CT 06355

Eric Paul Roorda, Bellarmine University
Louisville, KY 40205