On Wednesday March 16 the SS JOHN W. BROWN moved from Clinton Street over to the West Wall of the Inner Harbor to get some much needed community attention and to coincide with the annual joint conference in Baltimore of the National Council of Public History and the Society for History in the Federal Government. We also were pleasantly surprised to find out that another convention was taking place that was a natural crowd for a WWII Liberty Ship with a triple expansion steam engine... APS Physics convention. Between tourists, locals and those in town for multiple conventions, we could share the BROWN with lots of people.
Over 1,500 people joined us for tours while we berthed at the West Wall. It would be hard to say who enjoyed the ship more, our older visitors or our younger visitors. And then the historians and scientists all had a blast too!
We were also were excited to have so many people from the various conventions come to check out our ship. Below is a shot of some NCPH convention participants and in the bottom shot you can see Francoise Bonnelle, director of the United States Army Women's Museum along with David Hanselman, Director of the US Army Transportation Museum, who were at the convention and came to tour the ship. Check out both museums in Virginia, if you get a chance (we've added hyperlinks to their websites, and the Women's Museum also has a Facebook page).
As you can see, we packed a lot of activities into our 4 day visit to the Inner Harbor. We also have material for multiple future blogs. :) In the next month or so, we still have lots of cleaning to do, repair work and spring maintnence before out next big trip to Norfolk, Virginia in May. Always looking for volunteers (hey, did we also say that we got two new members/volunteers on this trip? It's very cool for us!) and always working to maintain the ship. Come back and visit the ship (yes, you can come to the ship on Wednesdays and Saturdays, which are our work days and we are open to the public) and come back and read our Wednesday blogs. Thanks for reading, liking and sharing, to help us get the word out! Happy Wednesday everyone!
Project Liberty Ship, Inc is a 501(c)3 non-profit, all volunteer organization engaged in the preservation and operation of the historic ship JOHN W. BROWN as a living memorial museum. Gifts to Project Liberty Ship are tax deductible.