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15 April 2025
Welcome back to our National Maritime Historical Society members and friends who share a love for naval history!
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Happy Income Tax Day! Our featured story below covers an important naval heritage initiative tied to the Navy’s 250th anniversary that just lost your taxpayer support! We also have some meeting announcements from overseas and a Huzzah for an outstanding article recently published in the Journal for Military History.
For this week’s Naval History Book Reviews, we thank Michael Lowrey for his review of Steam Yachts at War: The Naval Deployment of British & American Armed Yachts 1898–1918. Enjoy! Reminder, if you have recently authored a naval history book, please have your publisher send us a review copy!
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Tuesday Tidings is compiled by Dr. David F. Winkler and Jessie Henderson as a benefit for members of the National Maritime Historical Society and friends of naval history.
As always, comments and naval history news items are welcome at nmhs@seahistory.org.
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ITEMS OF IMMEDIATE INTEREST | |
Thursday, 17 April – Continental Commandery monthly program
The USS Indianapolis - A Story of Human Resilience
With Barry Levine
7 pm (EDT) (ZOOM)
Friday, 18 April – Operation Praying Mantis
With Capt. Jim McTigue, USN (Ret.)
Noon (EDT) (Virtual on NHHC YouTube channel)
Tuesday, 22 April – World War II Discussion Forum Intrepid’s Fighting Squadron 18
With Mike Fink
8 PM (EDT) (Zoom)
Thursday, 24 April – Submarine History Seminar: 125 Years of Defending America at Sea
David Alan Rosenberg, PhD, moderator
Navy Memorial Auditorium, Washington DC
3–5 PM (EDT)
Saturday, 26 April – Midnight in Ironbottom Sound
The story of Black mess Attendant Charles French, for whom a new destroyer shall be named.
With Carole Avriett
1–2 PM (EDT) Author Talk (In Person)
| | Naval Documents of the American Revolution Grant Among Those Cancelled by the National Endowment for the Humanities | | |
Last week the Washington Post reported that over 1,400 grants that had been awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) had been terminated. Upon reviewing the list we noted the planning grant that had been awarded to the University of Virginia’s Center for Digital Editing to support the digitizing and posting of Naval Documents of the American Revolution (NDAR) was among those that were axed. Grant recipients were informed in letters signed by acting NEH chairman Michael McDonald that their “grant no longer effectuates the agency’s needs and priorities and conditions of the Grant Agreement.” The letters further stated that the “NEH has reasonable cause to terminate” the grant “in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda,” adding that terminating the grant “is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities.” Tuesday Tidings reached out to project editors at the University of Virginia (UVA), who reported that the grant’s termination is disheartening, especially with so many anniversaries on the horizon. NEH Award RQ-292766-23, University of Virginia
With the celebrating of the Navy’s 250th birthday this year, the mission that the University of Virginia has taken on to collect, edit, and post historic correspondence, reports, directives, and other papers dealing with the founding of the United States Navy is nothing short of extraordinary. In doing so, the university is following through on a vision communicated by President Franklin Roosevelt to Capt. Dudley Knox to collect papers related to the early years of the United States Navy. The project met with early success with the Navy’s publication of volumes covering the Barbary Wars and the Quasi-War with France. Follow-on efforts began in the early 1960s to cover the American Revolution and in the late 1970s for the War of 1812. In 2023, the Naval History and Heritage Command published the fourth and final volume of the War of 1812 set. In contrast, the scope of the American Revolution has required a more extensive effort. As President John F. Kennedy keenly observed in his introduction for the first volume: “Primary sources constitute the backbone of written history.” In explaining the need for the series Kennedy added: “These volumes make amply clear the critical role played by sea power in the achievement of American independence,” noting, “they tell the story of courage and valor which established the high traditions of the American Navy—and which, ever since, has inspired and fortified the American people in times of crisis.”
With the 13th bound volume of the series covering the months leading up until August 1778 published in 2019 by the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC), the realization arrived that bound documentary series was going the way of the phone book. Digitization and posting online now enabled great public access to the materials. Online publication would allow for expediting to publishing of papers that had been collected through 1783 but also allow the backfilling of earlier bound volumes with additional documents that have been unearthed in recent decades.
Thanks to the Naval Historical Foundation, a grant was secured from the Department of the Interior National Maritime Heritage Grant program to digitize the first 13 NDAR volumes. With this grant, a relationship was established with the University of Virginia’s Center for Digital Editing and with the decision made by the NHHC to cease the pursuit of further printed volumes, the path was set for UVA to forge ahead and post new materials as the Navy celebrates its founding and role played during the American Revolution.
Despite this setback, editors at UVA remain committed to the project and are exploring opportunities for additional support. Tuesday Tiding readers having an interest in supporting the project can visit the Center for Digital Editing donation page (enter NDAR in the “In Honor of” box). Tuesday Tidings will continue to report on this laudable initiative in the coming months.
| | “Early Impressions are Lasting”: Mess Attendants and Their Midshipmen at the US Naval Academy, 1845–1942 | | |
A Huzzah to Dr. Samuel Limneos of Chicago State University for his recent publication in the April 2025 edition of the Journal for Military History
The abstract for the 31-page article reads:
From its founding in 1845, the United States Naval Academy employed African Americans as attendants in the midshipmen’s mess. While midshipmen misused rank to lampoon and exploit their mess attendants, some messmen suffered brutal treatment. In response, Naval Academy leadership used the midshipmen’s interactions with their mess attendants to inculcate the navy’s principle of hierarchy, the cornerstone of the discipline, restraint, and decorum that Annapolis training was designed to imprint upon the fierce concept of traditional honor desired in its graduates. Despite the shame attached to breaking the principle, naval hierarchy, exacerbated by prejudice and regulatory limitations, gave rise to a stark subculture of exploitation and abuse between midshipmen and messmen. That subculture, and the impressions midshipmen formed about their mess attendants at Annapolis, contextualizes the service’s history of racialized retention and the occupational roles available to African Americans, especially as the academy’s white officer-graduates rose to senior leadership in the interwar and World War II navy.
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Invitations from Across the Pond!
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Society for Nautical Research Annual General Meeting, Annual Dinner and Events
Over the weekend of 6th to 8th June 2025 a number of attractive maritime history events, all open to SNR members, will be taking place in Exeter.
Upgrade your membership today!
On Friday 6th and Saturday 7th the Bowlines maritime literary festival, tying together fact and fiction in maritime literature, will take place in the historic harbour area (the location for the BBC drama series The Onedin Line). This is organised and sponsored by Exeter Canal and Quay Trust, Lloyds’ Register Foundation and ourselves. There will be keynotes from Sam Willis and Hannah Cunliffe, director of National Historic Ships, together with sessions featuring Roy and Lesley Adkins, Kate Jamieson, Jo Stanley and a number of authors of nautical fiction including Katie Daysh and SNR chairman David Davies. Tickets for this should be booked through https://exetercustomhouse.co.uk/event/bow-lines/.
The AGM will take place at the Guildhall at 1700 on Saturday 7th June, preceded by tea and coffee available from 1630. This will be followed by the annual dinner which will start with the final lecture in this year's CMHS series by Nicholas A.M. Rodger to mark the 30 years since he created CMHS. This will start at 1830 in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum which is a 5 minute walk from the Guildhall and will have a display of some of the nautical research Exeter University is doing, in particular regarding sailors' bones as well as some stalls with books written by SNR members.
This will be followed by the presentation of the Victory medal and then a welcome drink before returning to the exhibition hall for a buffet dinner including wine at £65 each; members may bring a guest with them. Following the dinner there will be a bar available in the museum so that members have the opportunity to chat for the remainder of the evening in a convivial environment with a projection of Exeter City’s maritime art including items not on display taking place throughout. That will mean you have an evening’s entertainment before heading either home or to your hotel before being able to enjoy the Exeter Harbour Festival, which includes two historic ships the Britannia 1915, an East Coast sailing smack, and the Lynher River Barge, on the Sunday before returning home.
Full details of the Harbour Heritage Day are here: https://exetercustomhouse.co.uk/event/heritage-harbour-festival-2025/ but the event is free to attend. During this day there will be four free private tours for SNR members to the Lynher for up to 8 members per tour, they will take place at 1030, 1100, 1130 and noon.
To attend the AGM and/or the Annual Dinner with the associated talk and/or have a place on the SNR Tour of the Lynher River Barge then please upgrade your membership today and then contact the SNR Honorary Secretary.
Dr. Mark Barton,
Hon Sec.
| | Photo courtesy the National Museum of Bermuda | | |
The Naval Dockyards Society Special Conference in partnership with the National Museum of Bermuda
The 75th Anniversary Commemoration of the Closure of the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda
Registrations close April 25th
In this email we invite you attend our conference. Please register here for online or in-person attendance. We also complete our introduction to each of our distinguished speakers with a synopsis of their presentation and we conclude with the outline of the programme on May 31st.
On May 31st 2025, the Naval Dockyards Society and the National Museum of Bermuda will hold a conference in Bermuda commemorating the 75th anniversary of the closure of the Royal Naval Dockyard.
Registration for the Conference closes soon. The conference is available for in person or online participation. Bermuda residents and visitors are invited to select online or in person attendance and to register here for this special conference at the National Museum of Bermuda.
Conference themes will encompass:
- Bermuda Naval Dockyard—Early Bermuda history & North Atlantic conflict
- The North Atlantic—Second World War & Second World War Personal stories Dockyard Closure &
- Bermuda Dockyard today—Bermuda's economic loss and recovery
| | And there’s a movie out about this? Really? | | NAVAL HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS | | |
Steam Yachts at War: The Naval Deployment of British & American Armed Yachts 1898–1918 By Steve R. Dunn, Seaforth Publishing, (2024).
Reviewed by Michael Lowrey
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Some things just are a product of their time and are difficult for a more modern audience to fully appreciate. That certainly is the case with steam yachts, playthings of the late 19th century and early 20th century hyper-rich.
Steve R. Dunn in his latest book, Steam Yachts at War: The Naval Deployment of British & American Armed Yachts 1898–1918, examines the development of these vessels and, as the title suggests, describes their involvement in two wars. Dunn has written more than ten previous books and specializes in the Royal Navy in the early 20th Century and World War I.
A modern comparison to a steam-powered yacht would be a business jet, a luxury means of traveling quickly from place-to-place. The steam yachts of a century ago were a much different animal though, an exercise in mobile luxury accommodations that also served as a place to entertain in style other members of the privileged elite. The crews were large, the running costs high.
No navy has enough ships when a major conflict erupts; the US Navy and the Royal Navy both looked to mercantile and private craft to supplement their rosters during the Spanish-American War and the First World War. This very much included taking yachts into naval service. The plush fittings were removed while deck guns were fitted and, eventually, depth charges carried.
Unsurprisingly for vessels very much built for comfort, a percentage proved ill-suited for naval service, especially service on the open ocean. That didn’t necessarily mean they were not used in such roles; the U-boat threat from 1915 to 1918 was very real and more suitable vessels were not available.
Read full review>>
| | NAVAL HISTORY BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW | | |
Check out the Charles J. French story on the History Unplugged Podcast!
Listen here>>
| | Call for Papers: International Journal of Naval History | | |
Maritime Communities Celebrating Milestones
SAVE THE DATES!
24–27 September 2025 • Buffalo, NY
We are delighted to be holding the 12th Maritime Heritage Conference in Buffalo in September 2025.
The conference brings together organizations and participants that engage in all aspects of maritime heritage. This includes maritime museums, historic lighthouses, tall ships for sail training and youth, small craft, marine art, sailing, naval and maritime scholars, advocacy, and more. It is also a gathering of the leadership of the maritime heritage community. Buffalo will host the first Maritime Heritage Conference to be held in the Great Lakes region.
The 12th Maritime Heritage Conference (MHC) will bring together nautical heritage organizations and individuals for an information-packed conference encompassing a broad array of topics on the banks of Lake Erie at historic Buffalo, New York. Following in the wake of the World Canal Conference, which concludes with a bicentennial celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal, the 12th MHC will use that historic milestone to open a three-day program that invites attendees to consider other historic nautical milestones worthy of broader public attention.
The MHC has earned a reputation for its high take-away value, networking opportunities, and camaraderie. The conference steering committee invites you to become involved as a presenter; both session and individual proposals are encouraged. Don’t miss this opportunity to gather with individuals from all segments of the maritime community.
Call for Papers & Session Proposals Papers and session topics include, but are not limited to:
- Inland Water Commerce and Seaport Operations (Erie Canal bicentennial!)
- Maritime and Naval History (2025 marks USN/USMC 250th Birthday)
- Maritime Art, Literature, and Music
- Education and Preservation
- Underwater Archaeology
- Trade and Communications
- Maritime Libraries, Archives, and Museums
- Marine Science and Ocean Conservation
- Historic Vessel Restoration
- Maritime Heritage Grant Program
- Maritime Landscapes
- National Marine Sanctuaries
- Small Craft
- Shipbuilding
- Marine Protected Areas
Focus sessions include, but are not limited to:
- Non-Profit administration
- Event Management
- Fundraising
- Media and Publications
- Media and Social Media
Submissions
Individual paper and session proposals should include a 250–400 word abstract and a one-paragraph biography about each presenter.
Please e-mail proposals and other queries to Dr. David Winkler at: MHC@seahistory.org
Deadline for proposals for papers and sessions is 31 May 2025.
| | UPCOMING NAVAL & MARITIME HISTORY GATHERINGS | | PREBLE HALL NAVAL HISTORY PODCAST | |
A naval history podcast from Preble Hall – the United States Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland. Preble Hall interviews historians, practitioners, military personnel, and other experts on a variety of naval history topics from ancient history to more current events.
Click here for the latest episode: 245 - Brian Dickinson: Calm in the Chaos>>
Click here for all Preble Hall Podcasts >>
| DRACHINIFEL YOUTUBE CHANNEL | |
NAVY HISTORY MATTERS
Welcome to Navy History Matters, the Naval History and Heritage Command’s biweekly compilation of articles, commentaries, and blogs related to history and heritage. Every other week, they gather the top-interest items from a variety of media and social media sources that link to related content at NHHC’s website, your authoritative source for Navy history.
Click here for most recent article>>
| SUPPORTING US NAVAL HISTORY & HERITAGE | |
With the 250th anniversary of the US Navy on the horizon, NMHS seeks your support as we plan to honor those who have provided for our maritime security.
Click here to donate today >>
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