06/06/2022
The synergy of a symbol!
STAR POWER ON MEMORIAL DAY
Mayflower II is a perfect Memorial Day tribute because it was built by a British non-profit organization in the 1950s to honor American veterans who died defending freedom and democracy.
When it arrived in the USA, it also did something very unusual, it transformed a museum. That is a rare achievement which others have tried to emulate. In recent years the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Dallas Museum of Art and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts have all acquired properties they believed could transform or revitalize their public personas. There are others, but perhaps the two best examples of this paradigm can be found in New York City and the Massachusetts coastal community of Plymouth.
The Egyptian Temple of Dendur transformed the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue when it arrived in 1967 with global fanfare, greetings from President Lyndon Johnson and a new wing built specifically to display it. Half a century later, its 50th Anniversary was widely celebrated in 2017.
This June, the Plimoth Patuxet Museums in Massachusetts will celebrate their own “Temple of Dendur” moment when the 65th Anniversary of their star attraction, Mayflower II, is honored. Ten years before LBJ’s greeting to New Yorkers, President Dwight Eisenhower sent his own welcoming message to the ship’s captain and crew, writing, “The name of the good ship Mayflower is dear to the hearts of all Americans. It brings to mind our heritage of freedom and our historic ties to lands across the sea.”
The Colonial America history center was founded in 1947 by Henry (Harry) Hornblower II, the son of a dynastic Wall Street family. It was his teenage dream come true, but after a decade the institution featured only three small Pilgrim houses for tourists to explore. The directors knew something more was needed, so a decision was made to offer guests a replica of the ship that carried the 1620 Pilgrims to America, the Mayflower.
Unfortunately, the cost of building such a wooden galleon was more than they were willing to pay, so a decision was made to build a “water-line” model of the ship that would sit on a concrete slab, never sail, but offer patrons a new history-themed attraction. Then “fate intervened in the form of Project Mayflower Limited of England,” according to Plimoth’s own history written in its 1993 book “Mayflower II Plimoth Plantation.”
That British non-profit organization, led by English Army Veteran Warwick Charlton, was also interested in recreating the Pilgrims’ ship, except they were actually building one, a full-size replica they planned to sail across the Atlantic to honor America’s World War II Veterans and the “Special Relationship” between the countries. No amusement-park-style boat for them!
When this other Mayflower arrived in June 1957, the museum had no place to put it, because like New York’s Temple of Dendur, new specifically build facilities were required. In their case, Plymouth Harbor needed to be dredged and the work would not be completed until the following year. As a result, the replica went on tour to New York City, Miami and Washington, DC, before being officially anchored in the Bay State in 1958.
Its arrival sixty-five years ago quickly transformed both the museum and the Town of Plymouth by placing them firmly on America’s national history map. In 2020, the US Department of the Interior honored Mayflower II by naming her a National Historic Site and confirmed that a single acquisition can indeed transform a museum.
Well done, little ship!
