Maritime History Archive

05/11/2026

Happy Monday everyone! Another busy morning at the archive! Will we be seeing some more of you soon?

04/30/2026

And that wraps up the Day 2 presentations! Thank you to Alexandre Yingst, PhD student at the University of Iceland; Dr. Eliška Bujoková, Universities of Glasgow and of New Brunswick; Dr. Seth Stein LeJacq, City University of New York College; and Dr. Darlene Abreu-Ferraira of the University of Winnepeg.

04/29/2026

What a successful first day of the SWAAN conference! Thank you to all presenters and attendees. Day 2 starts tomorrow at 9AM!

04/28/2026

All ready for Day 1 of the SWAAN conference tomorrow!

04/24/2026

Please consider joining us for the SWAAN (Seafaring Women Aboard and Ashore Network Workshop) event on April 29-May 1.

Register and see program here to attend in-person (space is limited) or online: https://www.swaan.org/registration
This workshop will convene scholars focused on women and other marginalized identities in maritime spaces to consider what has been the impact and what is the future of the expansion of maritime studies, particularly those driven by gender, on both scholarly and popular conceptions of maritime life. As part of the Lloyd’s Heritage Foundation-funded SWAAN Project (Seafaring Women Aboard and Ashore Network), this discussion will be folded into a wider consideration of women’s work in modern maritime industries to produce resources for promoting recruitment, bettering retention, and encouraging training of women in careers in these spaces.

Presented by Maritime History Archive (Henrietta Harvey Building, HH-1013)

Join us in St. John at the Maritime History Archive in-person or online via Webex.

02/12/2026

Dr. Michael Kirkpatrick is at the MHA this morning with his History 3840 (Historical Methods) class. This is their third class at the MHA in preparation for a research paper the students will write using the archive's collection of crew agreements for British registered vessels. Maritime historian, Dr. Julia Stryker joined the class today to share insights from her research in the crew agreements.

11/25/2025

It was a pleasure hosting Dr. Julia Stryker, and student researchers Alexa Bailey, Kai Barron and Heather Christie, for MUN's session "ISER Inventories of Life - Material Culture and Life, Death, and Medicine at Sea".

11/24/2025

It's at Memorial University and we invite you to join us at the Archive on Tuesday, November 25th, 10am - 11am, for the session "ISER Inventories of Life - Material Culture and Life, Death, and Medicine at Sea."

This session is presented in collaboration with the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), which is housed within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Please visit https://www.mun.ca/research/research-week/ for more information on other events taking place this week!

11/07/2025

“Survivor" - MHA style.

Students from the College of the North Atlantic's Records and Information Management Program were at the Maritime History Archive yesterday to learn about its holdings. They endured a crash course on how we manage 50,000 boxes of crew agreements for British Empire vessels, the largest collection of shipping labour records in the world. We then appointed the students "Archivists for the day" and set them free in the maze of archival stacks to retrieve specific documents from that collection. On returning to the reading room, they perused the documents and discussed their contents before very carefully putting them back in the proper locations.

NOTE: No documents or students were lost during this exercise! And no one was voted out of the MHA. Thanks to Lisa Gambin of CNA for bringing her engaged and enthusiastic class to the MHA.

10/21/2025

Time to put the boxes back. Students of History 3840 (Historical Methods with Dr. Jeff Webb) have completed their term papers using the MHA's vast Crew Agreement collection for British Empire vessels. We enjoyed having them here. 😊

All ready for the arrival of Dr. Bavington's Geography 4600 class this afternoon.

Busy times at the Archive!