Mystic Seaport Museum & the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation
In January 2023, the Mystic Seaport Museum received a two-year grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation to catalog and digitize its Long Island collections. Located near Long Island and committed to preserving collections, the museum aims to promote Suffolk County’s heritage through this project. Key priorities include surveying holdings, identifying relevant materials, and digitizing selected objects, images, and archival material. The project will enhance catalog records, improve searchability with metadata tags for Long Island towns, and create a dedicated webpage as a central resource for Long Island history.
Building relationships with external organizations that hold Long Island materials is also a crucial component. The long-term goal is to transform the Long Island Collections website into an aggregator of images and information from various historical collections and institutions. Over the next two years, the museum’s collection of rare books, manuscripts, charts, maps, ship plans, vessels, photographs, audio and visual archives, and other artifacts will be explored to uncover and share the hidden stories of Long Island. This effort will contribute to forming a strong foundation for ongoing and future research into Long Island’s rich history. Following Robert David Lion Gardiner’s vision, scholars, environmentalists, and the public can utilize this project and work together both directly and indirectly to uncover and remember the past in hopes of preserving the future.
The Curatorial Process
We are thrilled to embark on this unique opportunity to explore the extensive collection at Mystic Seaport Museum, focusing on objects that originate or relate to Long Island and uncovering their hidden narratives. Our mission involves a thorough examination of the collection, including the use of a variety of scholarly resources, including the institution’s website, input from curatorial staff, volunteers, and insights from the public. We aim to forge connections with other institutions, inviting them to contribute content from their own collections, thereby enriching the narrative of Long Island’s history and making it accessible to both locals and a global audience.
Our goal is to weave together stories, trades, and individuals through the lens of these objects, much like the Long Island Sound has historically connected two significant land masses. This unique body of water is not only an ecological treasure, rich in biodiversity, but also a tapestry of diverse histories—spanning indigenous cultures, colonization, slavery, industry, and the arts. Documenting our process will require a deep understanding of the grant’s objectives and collaboration across all curatorial departments, staff, and volunteers. Given that each institution has its own operational nuances, mastering various research methods and software tools will be essential. We aim to create a flexible framework that allows for discoveries to unfold, highlighting the interconnectedness of Long Island’s rich heritage.