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Penn's Landing, Philadelphia PA
Open Daily 10am-5pm (215)413-8655
Current News
Skin & Bones
Tattoos in the Life of the American Sailor
Provocative Exhibit Premieres April 24
(PHILADELPHIA, April 2, 2009) - Skin & Bones – Tattoos in the Life of the American Sailor, a provocative exhibit that delves into the beliefs, mysteries, traditions, and power of the tattoo in American maritime culture, premieres at Independence Seaport Museum April 24, 2009.
This original exhibit, researched and created by Seaport Curator Craig Bruns and staff, will feature traditional and modern tattooing tools, flash (tattoo design samples) and other tattoo-related art, historic photographs and artifacts, a recreation of an old-time “tattoo parlor,” and a mini-documentary of the recorded personal stories of tattooed sailors.
The History of Tattoos
The reputation of tattoos has evolved through the psyche of American culture from the sinister symbols of convicts, gang members, and bikers, looked upon by many with fear and disdain, into a generally accepted societal convention. Today tattoos are sported by everyone from sports and movie celebrities to teens and suburban moms and have spread beyond the body to fashion, décor, and art.
While tattooing is an ancient custom practiced by most cultures – famed naturalist Charles Darwin stated there was no nation on earth in which the people did not tattoo themselves – it is not well known that this custom of indelible body marking was introduced to this country in the late 18th century by seafarers.
So, if you have a tattoo today, thank a sailor.
The Exhibit
Skin & Bones traces the origins, functions, and significance of tattoos in American sailors’ lives from the late 18th century onward and how merchant and naval seamen have kept this tradition unbroken and alive. It also connects current trends with historic tradition to enlighten tattooed and un-tattooed visitors alike about this often still misunderstood art form.
In early America, tattoos were synonymous with sailors, who learned the practice from their British seagoing brethren. While the tale of tattoos as souvenirs of wild shore leaves is a well-known chapter of nautical history, it is but one small facet of the story.
The true essence of the story, revealed in Skin & Bones, is that sailors have long held a deeply ingrained belief in the power of tattoos. They use their skin as a canvas for inked tattoos to permanently display their values and identifications, protect them against dangers at sea, pay homage to sailing traditions and the fraternity of seafarers, memorialize loved ones, and showcase mementos of significant experiences and exotic locales.
Skin & Bones features the “Who’s Who” of the tattoo world – people like Samuel O’Reilly, who invented the electric tattoo machine in 1891; C.H. Fellowes, whose hand-drawn tattoo design books are among the earliest known American tattoo design books; Macy’s founder Rowland Macy, whose star tattoo on his arm likely inspired his department store’s famed logo; and colorful characters such as tattoo artists Sailor Jerry, Sailor Eddie, and Madame Chinchilla.
A highlight will be a specially created interactive featuring a life-size “tattoo artist” who will “talk” to customers as he “inks” one of four tattoos on their forearms. The “tattooing” will be done through a video projection system.
Skin & Bones Events
Skin & Bones will be complemented by a series of public and educational programs, and the Museum Shop will be stocked with an array of tattoo-related items, including books, posters, temporary tattoos, clothing, and fun trinkets for children. Youngsters will also enjoy posing in the life-size cut-out of a classic tattooed merchant seaman stationed just outside the exhibit.
The Seaport will host two screenings of the film Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry, which chronicles the life of Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins, the father of modern American tattooing and himself a sailor. The film, which had a sold-out screening at the 2008 Philadelphia Film Festival, explores the impact and meaning of tattoos in the lives of American sailors. The May 12 screening will begin at 7 pm with a pre-film discussion by director and native Philadelphian Erich Weiss. Admission is $10 and seating is limited. A second screening will take place October 2 at 8 pm.
On October 22 at 7 pm, the Seaport will present Tattoo Scuttlebutt, a panel discussion with Hori Smoku director Weiss; local tattoo historian Nick Schonberger; C.W. Eldridge, director of the Tattoo Archive in Winston-Salem, NC, and U.S. Coast Guard Chief Warrant Office Richard Sambenedetto Jr., whose tattooed feet are the iconic image of Skin & Bones. Additionally, the Seaport Starlight Cinema outdoor summer movie series and an October 10 Family Fun Day will feature tattoo themes.
Independence Seaport Museum gratefully acknowledges the support of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission for its support of Skin & Bones.
Museum Welcomes New President
PHILADELPHIA, PA (August 7, 2007) – Independence Seaport Museum's Board of Port Wardens announced today that Lori Dillard Rech, Executive Director of the Betsy Ross House, has been selected as President of the Seaport Museum. Effective September 5th, Ms. Dillard Rech will succeed Theodore (Ted) Newbold, who has served as Acting President of the Museum since February.
Ms. Dillard Rech brings sixteen years of experience as an administrator and educator in history museums. Prior to her tenure at the Betsy Ross House, she was Director of Education and Public Programs for the National Museum of American Jewish History. Earlier roles include Education Director at Fort Mifflin on the Delaware, and Education Coordinator at Brandywine Battlefield. Ms. Dillard Rech is an avid competitive sailor and currently serves as Vice Commodore (2002-2007) of Liberty Sailing Club. She has a B.A. degree in art history from the University of Florida and an M.A. in museum studies from Syracuse University, with a specialization in education.
In making their unanimous recommendation to the Board, which voted Friday to approve the recommendation, the Board's Selection Committee said, "Lori is an outstanding museum professional who has demonstrated her strong leadership skills through the revitalization of the Betsy Ross House over the past seven years. Her background in history museums—with particular strength in education programming and enhancing the visitor experience—is an excellent fit for our needs. Lori brings passion and energy to everything she does, and with her love for all things maritime, is particularly drawn to this opportunity. We are excited about the prospect of Lori's leadership of the Museum and look forward to working with her."
The Selection Committee received 122 applications for the position. Five candidates were invited to visit the Museum to meet the staff and Board. As one staff member summed up in feedback to the Committee, "I think she has the capability to re-energize the staff, the Board, the Museum, and the public about what a wonderful place this is, and the intelligence and experience to…make the Museum one of Philadelphia's premier destinations."
The members of the Search Committee were Gordon L. Keen, Jr., Esq., Chairman of the Committee and Secretary of the Board of Port Wardens; Cynthia Day, a former member of the Board; three current Board members, Judge Stephen J. McEwen, Jr., attorney John F. Meigs, and educator Suzanne Baird Perot, Ph.D.; and ex-officio member Peter McCausland, Chairman of the Board of Port Wardens.
The appointment of a new President caps a turn-around for the Museum—which will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2010. Since May 2006, the Museum's invested funds have grown from about $7 million to $14 million, made possible by prudent management of the investments, the sale of assets that were unrelated to its core educational mission, and an anonymous $1 million gift. Since December 2006, nine new members joined the Board. The philanthropic community returned to the Museum in 2006, moreover, when total public and private funding increased by 188 percent, from $1.2 million in 2005 to $3.5 million.
TopThe Art of the Boat
Exhibit of Vintage Yachting Photographs from Renowned Rosenfeld Collection
(PHILADELPHIA, PA) – The Art of the Boat – Photographs by Morris Rosenfeld & Sons, an exhibit of nautical photographs that powerfully captures the enigmatic fusion of man, boat, and the sea, will be on display through April 27 at Independence Seaport Museum.
Seaport Museum is the first venue to exhibit The Art of the Boat outside of Mystic Seaport, where the Rosenfeld Collection is housed. At nearly one million photographs, it is the largest single collection of maritime photography in the world.
“We are delighted to be the first museum to host this traveling exhibit of photographs from the Rosenfeld collection,” says Seaport Museum Curator Craig Bruns. “The works of art in this exhibit are not only classic maritime images, they are classic American images.”
The Art of the Boat includes 40 yachting, powerboat, racing, and leisure boating images, all luminous platinum palladium prints. They are visually stunning and tantalizingly titled –“On a River of Silk,” three hydroplanes floating on glistening water with fluffy ribbons of cotton candy wakes; “Magic Carpet,” an image of Zen simplicity featuring a lone boat on a glassine sea; and, perhaps the most famous Rosenfeld photograph, “Flying Spinnakers,” a dramatic confluence of white billowing sails and white-tipped waves.
A peer of photographers Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, and Margaret Bourke-White, Morris Rosenfeld (1885-1968) won a photography contest at age 13 for a picture he snapped of a three-masted ship near the Brooklyn Bridge. He used the $5 prize to buy his first camera and a career was launched.
Rosenfeld eventually opened his own studio, and he and his staff specialized in industrial, advertising, architectural, research, and news photography. However, his first love always remained marine photography and, whenever possible, Rosenfeld hopped in his chase boat, Foto, to cover speedboat and sailing races, particularly the America’s Cup.
“My father had a deep-rooted appreciation of the sea, an innate artistic eye, and a comprehensive knowledge of photography,” Stanley Rosenfeld (1913-2002) wrote in the introduction to the book, A Century Under Sail. “The yachts in his photographs always looked their best, as it was against his nature to take an unflattering photograph of a boat.”
All three Rosenfeld sons – Stanley, David, and William – were involved in the nautical photography business at one time or another, sometimes driving the chase boat, sometimes taking the photographs, sometimes working in the darkroom. However, only Stanley followed in his father’s footsteps to become a celebrated maritime photographer in his own right.
The Rosenfelds defined maritime photography in the first half of the 1900s and they, zipping about the water in Foto to achieve impossibly precarious shooting positions, were a fixture at boat races up and down the East Coast.
The Rosenfeld exhibit is free with general admission or membership.
Seaport Museum's Founder, Chairman and Benefactor, J. Welles Henderson, Dies
PHILADELPHIA, PA (May 12, 2007) -- The founder and former Chairman of the Board of Independence Seaport Museum, J. Welles Henderson, died Saturday, May 5th, at age 86.
"It is a sad day for the Museum," noted Board Chairman Peter McCausland, "but it is a day made less sad because Welles Henderson lived long enough to witness the Museum that he founded and loved emerge from a troubled period. Curious about our recent progress and enthusiastic about our renewed sense of purpose, as an emeritus trustee he rejoined the Board of Port Wardens that he once chaired and attended our most recent meetings. We will certainly miss him."
While a student at Princeton University, a young Welles Henderson spent a summer working as a longshoreman on Philadelphia's waterfront. Bit by the maritime bug, the young man's maritime interests became a life's passion. Mr. Henderson appreciated in particular that Philadelphia's maritime history was central to the founding of the city and the nation. After graduating Harvard Law School and establishing himself as an admiralty attorney in Philadelphia, Mr. Henderson set about collecting maritime artifacts, amassing an extraordinary collection of maritime books, paintings, and assorted artifacts.
Yet Mr. Henderson willingly shared his collections with others, most notably with President John F. Kennedy, who hung a Henderson-owned painting behind his desk in the Oval Office. It depicts the US Frigate United States defeating HMS Macedonian in the War of 1812. Today, a majority of the Seaport Museum's collection was either donated to the Museum by Mr. Henderson or given by donors he cultivated.
He also shared his deep knowledge of the maritime world through other venues. In 1999, for instance, Mr. Henderson co-authored with Rodney P. Carlisle a book about sailors, Jack Tar: A Sailor's Life, 1750-1910 (Woodbridge, UK: Antique Collector's Club).
The former Philadelphia Maritime Museum sprang from the success of an exhibition Mr. Henderson assembled at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia in 1955. He generated further public interest with two exhibits of his personal collection in 1957, one at the Peabody Museum of Salem, Massachusetts, and the other at the Free Library of Philadelphia.
In 1960, Mr. Henderson drafted the charitable trust document that founded the Museum. In 1961, the U.S. Treasury Department accredited the Museum's tax-exempt status. That same year, the Museum opened its doors for the first time with 2,000 square feet of rented exhibit space at the Athenaeum, 219 South Sixth Street. In 1964, the Museum moved into 10,000 square feet of rented space at 427 Chestnut Street. The same year, the Museum was incorporated as a Pennsylvania non-profit with a Board of Port Wardens whose members included John T. Dorrance Jr., Pierre S. duPont, Robert L. McNeil Jr., William Wikoff Smith, and John R. Wanamaker.
Recognizing that 427 Chestnut Street was only a temporary space, the Board of Port Wardens began the search for a more permanent home during the late 1960s. A number of sites were examined, including Penn's Landing along the waterfront. Finally, in 1971, the Museum purchased 321 Chestnut Street for $100,000 as its new home. By 1979, the American Association of Museums (AAM) accredited the Museum.
Under Welles' leadership, the Museum revisited the feasibility of moving to the Port of History Building at Penn's Landing, and a lease was negotiated with the City of Philadelphia in 1993. The Museum raised $15 million for renovations, and the new building opened in July of 1995. Also in 1995, the Board voted to change the name of the Philadelphia Maritime Museum to Independence Seaport Museum, reflecting the broad scope of the interpretative program at the institution.