The Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation (HRPE) was the third largest US Army Transportation Corps port of embarkation during WWII. It served as a hub for the movements of millions of troops between 1942-1946. 

Analysis is an important part of conservation because identifying specific materials in an artifact helps us better understand how an artifact degrades, its history, and much more. For La Isabel, we were interested in learning more about two specific materials: wood and fibers.

Today, The Mariners’ Museum and Park’s exhibition space is roughly 90,000 square feet; but when the Museum opened to the public in November 1933, there was only a little over 12,000 square feet of gallery space.

The tins that contained the early toffees were very unique, showing stylized alphabets, fairy tales, royal families, astronauts, and numerous other fanciful scenes. The tin in our collection features two ships at sea. 

A short history of model ships made of bone, built by prisoners of war.

The Museum holds a wonderful collection of materials once used by the world famous Norfolk tattooist August Bernard Coleman, known as Cap Coleman. What was the motivation for acquiring this collection?

Early European explorers and settlers to Virginia found that the Indigenous population had a successful watercraft of their own: the dugout canoe. Canoes were laboriously crafted from a single log.

Transition into the next steps of this conservation project which involve looking more closely at La Isabel’s history, structure, and condition.

William Henry Bartlett was a prolific artist who traveled the world to produce images for illustrated travel books from the late 1830s through the early 1850s. Learn more about the printed engravings of his artwork in the collection.

Welcome to the second installment of our miniseries on Nishimura 3746, a Japanese midget submarine. We’re deep diving into an on-going project to resupport this one-of-a-kind vessel.