AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

The Mariners’ Museum and Park was founded in 1930 as a nature reserve and a museum for any and all topics relating to humanity’s interaction with the waters. At the time of the museum’s founder, Archer Huntington was the owner of Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, and the institution was built by Huntington and Homer Ferguson, the shipyard’s president. Ever since, the museum has retained a relationship with local shipbuilding, Navy, Coast Guard, and other organizations relevant to the museum’s mission. The collecting mission of the museum is vast – any and all objects, art, books, and archival records associated with human interaction with the water. This is inclusive of maritime trade, exploration, naval conflict, lifesaving services, fishing, recreation, and many more areas. Materiality within the collection is equally varied as a result, with objects ranging from watercolor art on paper, to bronze and iron artillery, to modern racing catamarans with composite carbon fiber, titanium, and aluminum. While this breadth of collecting captures as complete a history of maritime activity as possible, it can also have some unexpected consequences, as not all of the materials which are collected are benign.

As part of an ongoing survey of storage conditions, conservators identified a subset of objects with the potential for high risk to personnel and infrastructure, consisting of artillery, ordnance, ammunition, and incendiary devices. In this aspect, the museum’s collection extended beyond the limits of in-house experience to safely analyze and mitigate hazards, with objects such as 19th and early 20th century lifesaving and distress flares, whaling bomb lances, and military ordnance. In dealing with these objects, Mariners’ Museum sought advice from Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC). NHHC collections carry similar themes and materials to Mariners’ Museum, and their recent experience verifying that the inert status and documentation of their ordnance is in alignment with modern military standards could be adapted to fit the civilian materials at Mariners’ as well. Following NHHC’s recommendations and working with regional Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams, Mariners’ Museum established procedures and policy to retain as much material as possible while mitigating any active dangers to people and collections facilities. This presentation will detail the ordnance survey results, the decision-making process for retention of materials, and the results and consequences of the process, following the collection of incendiary flares as examples. By detailing this information, this provides an example of some of the unexpected dangers that can be found in collections, a system for flagging and mitigating those dangers, and resources and information for other institutions to help facilitate non-destructive and less-destructive inerting of active incendiary and explosive devices.