MIT historian Jeffrey Ravel wins National Park Service grant
for Visualizing Maritime History project
The MIT Visualizing Maritime History project uses technology to digitize roughly four thousand engravings, drawings, paintings, and other items in the MIT Museum collections.
The National Park Service, in partnership with the Maritime Administration, has announced the awarding of a $50,000 grant in support of the Visualizing Maritime History Project, led by Jeffrey Ravel, Professor of History and Head of the History section, with Kurt Hasselbalch, Curator of the Hart Nautical Collections at the Museum.
“We are grateful to the National Park Service for this generous grant,” said Ravel, “which will enable us to make this little-known but rich MIT Museum resource available for teaching and research purposes at the Institute and elsewhere.”
Visualizing Maritime History endeavors to digitize roughly four thousand engravings, drawings, paintings, and other items in the MIT Museum collections that relate to world maritime history from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century.
Ravel and his colleagues in MIT-SHASS History have already begun using selected items from these collections in several subjects, including 21H.009 The World Since 1400; and 21H.343 Making Books in the Renaissance and Today. The work financed by this grant will make the full breadth of the collections available for both residential and online educational purposes.
Suggested Links
Jeffrey Ravel's website
MIT Visualizing Cultures
MIT-SHASS History
MIT News Archive: 3Q with Jeffrey Ravel
Top image courtesy of MIT Museum, Allan Forbes Whaling Collection