Salvage in the Maritime Visual and Material Culture of 19th-Century America

by Sybil F. Joslyn   

With funding from a Decorative Arts Trust Research Grant, I traveled to Washington, D.C., to undertake research for my dissertation on maritime salvage in American visual and material culture. At the National Gallery of Art (NGA), I spent a day in the Prints and Drawings Study Room where I was able to analyze over 15 renderings of ship figureheads commissioned for the Index of American Design (figures 1 and 2). Created as a Federal Art Project to ease artist unemployment during the Great Depression, the Index of American Design is a visual collection of decorative arts and material culture created to define and preserve what was then considered an American aesthetic heritage. By viewing renderings of ship figureheads in the Index, I hoped to ascertain why certain examples were chosen to represent this American aesthetic, how artists constructed and prioritized certain aspects of their renderings, and where these objects were held at the time of their recording.

In examining these works in person, I discovered watercolors and drawings that were rich with texture and attentive to details of both condition and materials (figure 3). Further, their compositions often prioritized the sculptural and technically proficient aspects of the objects, suggesting an impulse to showcase American artistic prowess in addition to the documentation of an American aesthetic vocabulary. Perhaps most illuminating, many of these renderings still include Depression-era data sheets on their reverse, which document the original location of the object, its owner, and ship with which it was originally associated. This information is crucial to ascertaining why ship figureheads held value for collectors as salvage objects in the waning years of the Age of Sail.

I supplemented my research at the Prints and Drawings Study Room with a visit to the NGA Archives, which hold an extensive collection of records pertaining to the Index of American Design (figure 4). Among the records relevant to my research were files related to: context, including materials concerning 19th-century woodcarvers and ship carvers, boat construction, and specific figureheads in the Index; communications between managers of the Index and maritime museums; and letters to and from the artists of the ship figurehead renderings. These files contain important foundational information for reconstructing the lives of these objects from their original ship context to their eventual inclusion in the Index.

This Research Grant also allowed me to visit the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Museum, where I was able to study the objects and collection files pertaining to the 1910s Relic Room (figures 5 and 6), sponsored by members from New Jersey. Although one of many period rooms at the DAR Museum, the 1910s Relic Room is unique in that it contains furniture, wall dressings, and ceremonial objects made almost entirely from wood salvaged from the Revolutionary-era British warship HMS Augusta, which ran aground in the Delaware River during the Battle of Red Bank in 1777. Studying the creation of this room, the commission of its objects, and the motivation behind the refabrication of shipwreck materials has yielded a valuable case study for understanding the important role maritime salvage played in the preservation of an American cultural legacy at the close of the long 19th century.

I am truly grateful to the Decorative Arts Trust for supporting this trip, which has been so important to the development of my dissertation research.

Sybil F. Joslyn is a PhD Candidate in the History of Art & Architecture department at Boston University. She spoke at the Decorative Arts Trust’s Fall 2021 Symposium, and you can watch a recording of her lecture on YouTube.