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Penn's Landing, Philadelphia PA
Open Daily 10am-5pm (215)413-8655

The Pennsylvania Schoolship Legacy Project
at Independence Seaport Museum

Started in 2009, the Pennsylvania Schoolship Legacy Project is an ongoing partnership between the Pennsylvania Schoolship Association and Independence Seaport Museum. Our goal is to preserve and promote the important legacy of the cadets of the Pennsylvania Nautical School and Pennsylvania Maritime Academy, including their contributions to the Merchant Marine, the Navy, the Coast Guard and all of the diverse careers and lives that were influenced by their time as Schoolship cadets.

Donate Cadet Material – Help tell the stories!
If you have materials that you'd like to donate to the museum collections, we want to hear from you! We are particularly interested in cadets' letters, diaries and journals, candid snapshots and other photographs, scrapbooks, uniforms, coursework and notebooks, sailing and school gear, postcards, and other memorabilia. These items help tell the story of the cadets of the Pennsylvania Schoolships, their subsequent careers, and their time in the Pennsylvania Schoolship Association. To find out more, please contact Seaport Museum Archivist Matt Herbison via email at library@phillyseaport.org or by phone at 215-413-8640.

Support the Project – Help keep it going!
The Schoolship Legacy Project is an ongoing effort of the Pennsylvania Schoolship Association and Independence Seaport Museum. We continue to seek monetary contributions that will allow us to fund additional phases of the project. Future phases may include digitization of The Lookout and Helm yearbooks, creation of annotated collection guides that will help researchers find resources of interest, and access to comprehensive lists of cadets. To make your tax-deductable contribution to the Pennsylvania Schoolship Association Legacy Fund, please contact Director of Development Michael Lane via email at mlane@phillyseaport.org or by phone at 215-413-8628.

Project Updates – Where we are now

February 2010: The first phase of the Schoolship Legacy Project has been completed. Through the efforts of Project Archivist John Armstrong, several important goals were met: First, the existing collections in the Seaport Museum Archives were identified, organized, and described. These constitute over thirty different groups of material donated over an almost fifty year period. The result is a single Comprehensive Guide to the Collection (link) which is now available online. We encourage researchers of all types to visit the Seaport Museum Archives to utilize the collection. In addition to the Collection Guide, we created an online "mini-exhibit" that provides a short history of the Pennsylvania Schoolships (link). Until later phases of the project allow us to explore more aspects of the Schoolships and their alumni, this mini-exhibit will serve as an online presence, a home-base for information about the Schoolship.

November 2009: Phase One begins! We've hired John Armstrong to be the Archivist for the project, which should take about three months. The primary goal is to get a handle on the many different Schoolship-related collections that have been donated through the years. John will also create a logical plan for dealing with additional donations of archival materials that we expect to start receiving once word starts to spread about the collection and the project.

Project Resources
• View the Guide to the Pennsylvania Nautical School materials housed at Independence Seaport Museum »
• View the online mini-exhibit: Steering a Course: A Short History of the Pennsylvania Nautical School and Pennsylvania Maritime Academy »