The Society is delighted to announce that the National Park Service (NPS) and the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) has awarded a maritime heritage grant of $48,600 to support the Society’s Archives Catalog Project.
A large part of the U.S. Lighthouse Society’s mission is to support lighthouse preservation, history, education, and research. Toward this goal, the Society has created “The Tom and Phyllis Tag Lighthouse Historical Archives.” This grant will make this archival material publicly accessible, in a searchable online catalog, to all who study and preserve lighthouse heritage.
For the past several years the Society has been digitizing photos, plans, publications, and other textual records relating to light stations, minor aids to navigation, lighthouse keepers and other personnel, lightships, lighthouse tenders, lighthouse depots, and lighthouse technology such as lens, lamps, and fog signals for inclusion in this online catalog. We began the design phase of the online catalog in the summer of 2017 and have since created the core records for the PLACES, OBJECTS, and VESSELS categories. We recently started the upload of documents related to these resources.
Lighthouse experts Kraig Anderson and Thomas Tag have generously donated their time and talents toward the compilation of the initial databases. We cannot thank them enough!
The Society is also grateful for recent donations of research material that will ultimately become part of the Catalog. The Society is pleased to provide a means for making these collections all available in one place.
If you wish to support the required match for this grant, please visit our web’s donate page and specify that the donation is in support of the “Archives Catalog.” Questions can be directed to Candace Clifford.
Other lighthouse projects supported in this year’s maritime heritage funding include Burnt Coat Harbor Lighthouse, Maine; Baker Island, Massachusetts; and New York’s Seaway Lighthouses (Saint Lawrence Valley Educational Television Council). Goto the NPS website for a full list of funded projects.
Submitted by Candace Clifford, May 11, 2018
* * * * * *
U.S. Lighthouse Society News is produced by the U.S. Lighthouse Society to support lighthouse preservation, history, education and research. You can receive these posts via email if you click on the “SUBSCRIBE” button in the right-hand column. Please support this electronic newsletter by joining the U.S. Lighthouse Society if you are not already a member.
If you have items of interest to the lighthouse community and its supporters, please email them to candace@uslhs.org.
Candace was the US Lighthouse Society historian from 2016 until she passed away in August 2018. For 30 years, her work involved lighthouse history. She worked with the National Park Service and the Council of American Maritime Museums. She was a noted author and was considered the most knowledgable person on lighthouse information at the National Archives. Books by Candace Clifford include: Women who Kept the Lights: a History of Thirty-eight Female Lighthouse Keepers , Mind the Light Katie, and Maine Lighthouses, Documentation of their Past.