Who was Marcus Garvey? Learn more about his significance not only to Black history and the world, but specifically to Newport News.

In Frank Vining Smith's ca 1900-40 oil painting, The Wild Gulf Stream,  we explore the artist's muse and his inspirations through his depiction of a singular large wave that fills his grand canvas. His life led him to the waters' edge time and time again, and in this blog we explore what it is about a wave that calls us, too.

Have you ever wondered how the bugle call “Taps” came to be used at memorial services for military personnel? As we prepare to celebrate Memorial Day, I thought it would be fitting to explore how this practice began.

In the catalog I noticed a Japanese pillar clock, called a shaku dokei, up for auction. While updating the value I noticed a name on the clock’s storage box—’C. E. Thorburn, USN’. Whenever I run across a name, especially one this unique, I immediately try to see if I can uncover the history of the original owner.

Photographs of British lighthouses purchased for The Mariners’ Museum Collection in 1936 from Bertram M. Chambers, an admiral in the Royal Navy. Symbolically, lighthouses offer a message of hope and determination when facing adversity.

Having outside experts use our collection to research their own projects is a great thing because even though it’s sometimes inconvenient and frequently time consuming it ALWAYS yields some new information about an object or image in our collection. This was especially the case in November when two researchers, Kevin Foster and Emir Yener, showed up to research Civil War era blockade runners and nineteenth century warships.