GI-50615-13 NEH Application Cover Sheet America's Historical and Cultural Organizations PROJECT DIRECTOR Ms. Susan Funk E-mail:[email protected] Executive Vice President Phone(W): (860) 572-5333 75 Greenmanville Avenue Phone(H): P.O. Box 6000 Fax: (860) 572-5327 Mystic, CT 06355-0990 UNITED STATES Field of Expertise: History - American INSTITUTION Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc. Mystic, CT UNITED STATES APPLICATION INFORMATION Title: Voyaging In the Wake of the Whalers: The 38th Voyage of the Charles W. Morgan Grant Period: From 9/2013 to 2/2016 Field of Project: History - American Description of Project: Mystic Seaport requests a Chairman’s Level implementation grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund a suite of online, onsite, offsite, and onboard public programs and exhibits that will provide new national insight into universal and important humanities themes, through an interdisciplinary exploration of historic and contemporary American whaling. The Museum and its partners will explore through this project how, when, and why dominant American perceptions of whales and whaling took their dramatic turns. The project will raise public awareness in New England and nationwide about the role the whaling industry played in the development of our nation’s multi-ethnic make-up, our domestic economy, our global impact and encounters, and our long-standing fascination with whales. And it will promote thought about the nation’s whaling heritage, and how it continues to shape our communities and culture. BUDGET Outright Request $986,553.00 Cost Sharing $1,404,796.00 Matching Request Total Budget $2,391,349.00 Total NEH $986,553.00 GRANT ADMINISTRATOR Ms. Caroleen Frey E-mail:[email protected] Controller Phone(W): (860) 572-0711 ext. 5068 75 Greenmanville Avenue Fax: (860) 572-5316 P.O. Box 6000 Mystic, CT 06355-0990 UNITED STATES Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc. Voyaging In the Wake of the Whalers: The 38th Voyage of the Charles W. Morgan National Endowment for the Humanities Public Program Implementation Proposal Table of Contents Narrative Nature of Request………………………………….……………………………………………………….1 Humanities Content………………………………………………………………………………………...2 Project Formats……………………………………………………………………………………………..8 Project Resources……………………………………………………………………………………….....11 Project History…………………………………………………………………………………………….12 Chairman’s Special Award………………………………...……………………………………………...14 Audience, Marketing, and Promotion……………………………………..……………………………....15 Project Evaluation………………………………………………………………………………………....17 Organizational Profile…………………………………..…………………………………………………18 Project Team…………………………….………………………………………………………………...19 Work Plan…………………………...………………………………………………………………….…19 Fundraising Plans……………………………...…………………………………………………………..19 Attachments 3) Exhibit Walkthrough 4) Stillman Exhibit Conceptual Design 5) Object List 6) Sample Interpretive Texts for “Voyaging In the Wake of the Whalers” 7) Work Samples for Digital Components 8) Selected Bibliography 9) Resumes and Letters of Commitment 10) Project Budget and Budget Justification 11) Additional Information 12) Supplemental Information GRANT11298703 -- Attachments-ATT1-1234-TableofContents.pdf NATURE OF THE REQUEST Mystic Seaport requests a $986,553 Chairman’s Level implementation grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund a suite of online, onsite, offsite, and onboard public programs and exhibits that will provide new national insight into universal and important humanities themes, through an interdisciplinary exploration of historic and contemporary American whaling. This project will neither overly celebrate nor outright condemn the hunting of whales by indigenous peoples, 19th and 20th-century Americans, or other cultures either past or present. Instead, it will explore how, when, and why dominant American perceptions of whales and whaling took their dramatic turns. It will raise public awareness in New England and nationwide about the role the whaling industry played in the development of our nation’s multi-ethnic make-up, our domestic economy, our global impact and encounters, and our long-standing fascination with whales. And it will further promote thought about the nation’s whaling heritage, and how it continues to shape our communities and culture. As a nation of strong independent individuals, Americans tend to agree on little from baseball teams to religion, from economic philosophies to politics. However, a recent telephone poll of 800 American adults suggests that there is one thing that 76% of us do agree on – opposition to commercial whaling.1 The dominant American perception of whales today, as promoted by documentary videos, reality TV shows such as “Whale Wars,” aquaria, and ocean conservation efforts, casts these “charismatic mega- fauna” as gentle ocean giants, distinct from humans in their size and underwater habitat, yet vulnerable to human actions and almost anthropomorphic in their family and social life, songs, and wanderlust. Today the thought of hunting, killing, and butchering a whale is repugnant and wrong to most Americans. A look back in time reveals how far public perception has shifted. Many 19th-century Americans relied heavily on products harvested from whales: baleen-cored buggy whips, corsets and skirt hoops, ambergris-fixed perfumes, Soapine whale oil laundry soap, and clean-burning oil lamps. Lighthouse keepers along the Great Lakes and coasts used whale oil to keep their beacons lit for mariners, factories lubricated their heavy hard-working machinery with whale oil, and cities lit their streets with it. Also, capital earned from whaling financed many of the later aspects of the Industrial Revolution. Whale oil greased our economy, strengthened our diplomatic and foreign exchange position, and influenced our culture from the middlebrow (Currier & Ives whaling scene prints) to the experimental (Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick). Mystic Seaport and its program partners will explore the changing perceptions of whales and other humanities themes with a broad range of public audiences through an unprecedented sailing voyage, groundbreaking exhibits at the Museum and host sites around the country, and far-reaching online programs and resources. Programming will be implemented over three-years beginning in fall 2013: • offsite–national reach will be extended through concurrent satellite exhibits in 10 other museums nationwide to open before the voyage and run through its completion; • onboard–with the historic 38th Voyage of the 170+-year-old wooden whaleship Charles W. Morgan to selected ports-of-call along the New England coast and through the whale feeding grounds of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary; • dockside–with live exhibits and learning experiences at each port call; • online–via live streaming from the ship and ports during the 38th Voyage, a series of digital maps charting whaling ships, whalemen, and whales as they circulated around the globe, and an Online Learning Community (OLC) website with extensive digital elements, activities, and analysis in conjunction with the State of Connecticut’s 2013-2014 “Year of the Morgan”; and 1A telephone poll of 800 registered voters. Survey results available as “Research on Attitudes toward Commercial Whaling,” conducted by the Benenson Strategy Group for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, April 2012. Mystic Seaport, Inc. “Voyaging in the Wake of the Whalers” Proposal Page 1 GRANT11298703 -- Attachments-ATT2-1235-narrative.pdf • onsite–through a new 4,000 sq.-ft. exhibit in the Stillman building at Mystic Seaport (hereafter referred to as the Stillman exhibit), to open after the 38th Voyage to continue presenting the project themes through artifacts, graphics, interactives, and multimedia elements into the future. An NEH implementation grant would support vital work as follows: 1) Presentation of dynamic and thought-provoking public programming during the ship’s port visits in summer 2014; 2) Online educational and public components (before, during, and after the voyage and targeted toward a national audience); 3) Exhibit final development and implementation work (final design, fabrication, and installation of a major, long-term gallery exhibit to follow the voyage, and creation of a dozen or more concurrent satellite exhibits based on the vessel, voyage, and America’s whaling heritage to run before, during, and after the 38th Voyage); 4) Scholarly input, research, and documentation (continued scholarly consultation on the two new whaling-related exhibits, and documentation and research compiled during the voyage to archive and share with the public online and through exhibits); 5) Staff research and training to prepare for the major re-interpretation of the Museum’s central artifact for its visitors during and after the voyage; and 6) Audience evaluation work to gather audience input for program improvements during the project period and to assess the project’s effectiveness in conveying humanities content and stimulating public thought and discussion around the central themes and topics. At the project’s center will be the 11-week, summer 2014 voyage of the Charles W. Morgan. Following a major restoration to be completed in July 2013, this large unique artifact, a National Historic Landmark, will operate under her own sail power for the first time in 80 years. The restoration offers a historically significant opportunity to sail the Morgan to New England ports that have specific strategic humanities- based connections: New London, CT, once