Penobscot Marine Museum: Focus on Tourism, Sea Battles

New Exhibits Focus on Tourism, Sea Battles

Searsport, Maine- Penobscot Marine Museum will open two new exhibits for 2012. Both will open Friday, May 25, and will run through October 21.

Summer Folk: The Tourists of Penobscot Bay will explore the history of the region's tourism, including lodging, transportation and, of course, recreation.

Summer Folk: The Tourists of Penobscot Bay is a campus-wide exhibit exploring the history of tourism from 1890 to 1960. The exhibit will explore changes in lodging, transportation, recreation, demographics and the social milieu of tourism through recreated hotel and guest house environments, vintage photography, old advertising and marketing materials, steamship memorabilia, postcards, antique sporting goods, clothing, boats, and other artifacts.

"USS President and HMS Endymion," by Thomas Buttersworth, Sr., depicts one of the final naval engagements of the War of 1812. See it in The Art of the Sea Battle.

The Art of the Sea Battle will celebrate the 200^th anniversary of the War of 1812 with several of the museum's finest marine paintings. Works from the Age of Fighting Sail by Thomas Buttersworth Sr., Robert Salmon, Fred S. Cozzens and others include "narrative" paintings showing historical battles, impeccably detailed portraits or warships, and a stirring painting depicting the pursuit of a slave ship by a British brig of war. A treat for fans of Jack Aubrey, Horatio Hornblower and the mystique of the Age of Fighting Sail.