ABSTRACT Marshall B. Lamm. FLOATING FORTRESS, FLOATING CITY, FLOATING MONUMENT: a COMPARITIVE STUDY of THREE AMERICAN WARSHIP
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ABSTRACT Marshall B. Lamm. FLOATING FORTRESS, FLOATING CITY, FLOATING MONUMENT: A COMPARITIVE STUDY OF THREE AMERICAN WARSHIP MUSEUMS. (Under the direction of Dr. Lawrence E. Babits) Department of History, November 2011. This thesis presents three warship museums within the United States as case studies to examine the needs and practices of a unique subset of museum organizations. A museum warship is simultaneously an exhibit, artifact, and facility, requiring significant maintenance and preservation efforts. In order to understand these organizations, it is necessary to analyze the scope of these museums. This analysis attempts to create a comprehensive list of warship museums worldwide, and to highlight the dominant presence of American Second World War ships in the field. The case studies have been selected based on the number and types of ships preserved by these museums, and the major preservation, exhibition, curatorial, and collection challenges before these museums. This analysis combines naval history, historic preservation, and museum theory to better understand these organizations and the ships they preserve. Battleship North Carolina oversees its namesake, a ship active only during the Second World War. The North Carolina was saved from potential scrapping in the early 1960s due to public support from the ship’s namesake state. It has been a museum ship since 1962, located in Wilmington, North Carolina. Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum currently maintains the aircraft carrier Yorktown, destroyer Laffey, and submarine Clamagore, and has previously maintained other ships since opening in 1976. All of the museum’s current ships were constructed during the Second World War, but had lengthy post-war careers. The museum is the focal point of a larger commercial development project across the Cooper River from Charleston, South Carolina. USS Lexington Museum On the Bay operates the second aircraft carrier so named. Named in honor of the first carrier, sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942, it served a variety of roles until its decommissioning in 1991. The ship has been exhibited by the museum since 1992 in the City of Corpus Christi, TX, Harbor. The study finds common practices at all three museum sites, a product of information being informally disseminated through individual communications between organizations. Each museum has demonstrated distinctive strengths and weaknesses. Battleship North Carolina’s curatorial practices are the strongest of the three case studies. Patriots Point has struggled to overcome years of poor selection of directors and severe preservation issues, and USS Lexington Museum By the Bay has developed the most comprehensive volunteer program. FLOATING FORTRESS, FLOATING CITY, FLOATING MONUMENT. A COMPARITIVE STUDY OF THREE AMERICAN WARSHIP MUSEUMS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of History East Carolina University In Partial Fulfullment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in History by Marshall B. Lamm November 2011 © (Marshall B. Lamm, 2011) FLOATING FORTRESS, FLOATING CITY, FLOATING MONUMENT. A COMPARITIVE STUDY OF THREE AMERICAN WARSHIP MUSEUMS by Marshall B. Lamm APPROVED BY: DIRECTOR OF THESIS ______________________________________________________ LAWRENCE E. BABITS, PhD COMMITTEE MEMBER ______________________________________________________ WADE G. DUDLEY, PhD COMMITTEE MEMBER ______________________________________________________ JOHN A. TILLEY, PhD COMMITTEE MEMBER ______________________________________________________ ERIC D. RAY, MA CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY ______________________________________________________ GERALD J. PROKOPOWICZ, PhD DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL ______________________________________________________ PAUL J. GEMPERLINE, PhD ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A master’s thesis is never the creation of a single individual. This thesis would not have been possible were it not for the support, encouragement, insight, and resistance to frustration of numerous individuals. First and foremost, allow me to thank the members of my committee. Dr. Lawrence Babits, Dr. Wade Dudley, and Dr. John Tilley were able to help take a broad and nebulous concept and, through their contributions, help me craft a cohesive thesis. I would also like to thank the staff of the case study museums. The roll of museum staff in the appendix should by all rights be its own acknowledgment page. Several museum personnel deserve special recognition, however. Kim Sincox, Mary Ames Sheret, and Roger Miller from Battleship North Carolina were instrumental in providing research and organizational support. Melissa Buchanan, David Clark, Joe Whitlock, Tom Sprowl, and Darin Reed from Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum provided assistance – even on the day Treasurer Converse Chellis arrived to inspect the Laffey. “Rusty” Reustle and “Rocco” Montesano from USS Lexington Museum On the Bay also have my thanks for their assistance. To the fourteen classmates with whom I entered the Maritime Studies Program in the Fall of 2007, you have my gratitude. The phrase “cooperate and graduate” has rung true. I also want to thank Dr. Richard Kohn, Dr. Joe Caddell, and Jackie Gorman from the The Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Without them, I would never have made it this far in my academic career. Samantha Collins, the love of my life, deserves more thanks than all of the people mentioned above. Her love and patience are embedded in every word of this thesis. And most of all, my mother and father deserve more thanks than I can ever express. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... vii LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS ............................................................................................. viii INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE. HISTORY OF MODERN WARSHIP MUSEUMS..............................7 CHAPTER TWO. QUANTITATIVE OVERVIEW OF WARSHIP MUSUEMS ...................................................................................16 CHAPTER THREE. USS NORTH CAROLINA ...............................................................36 CHAPTER FOUR. USS YORKTOWN AND PATRIOTS POINT ..................................67 CHAPTER FIVE. USS LEXINGTON ............................................................................114 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................140 REFERENCES CITED ....................................................................................................148 APPENDIX A. MUSEUM STAFF COMMUNICATIONS ..........................................154 APPENDIX B. WARSHIP MUSEUM DATABASE ....................................................156 LIST OF FIGURES 1. Ship Classification Number System .............................................................................17 2. Ship Representation by VCN ........................................................................................17 3. Special Conditions and Descriptions ............................................................................19 4. Incomplete Data By Variable ........................................................................................20 5. Museum Warships By Country .....................................................................................23 6. “Museum Date” Plot .....................................................................................................23 7. “Museum Date” Plot of Ships Within the United States ..............................................24 8. Line Graph Plot of Figure 6 ..........................................................................................25 9. Line Graph Plot of Figure 7 ..........................................................................................25 10. Cities With Four or More Museum Warships.............................................................26 11. “Country” Versus “Nationality ...................................................................................28 12. The “Interregnum” ......................................................................................................30 13. Date Differences Clustered .........................................................................................31 14. Tier-Country Cross Tabulation ...................................................................................32 15. Tier-VCN Cross Tabulation ........................................................................................32 16. Mean Service Date by VCN .......................................................................................34 17. Timeline of Museum Ships Administered by Patriots Point ......................................84 vii LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS 1. Battleship North Carolina’s archives ...........................................................................42 2. Renovated officer’s wardroom and lounge ...................................................................42 3. Print Shop exhibit .........................................................................................................44 4. Access gangway ............................................................................................................46 5. Hatch to Turret #3 left gun room ..................................................................................46