'Not So Basic' Cable

Every week at the History of Diving Museum seems to be a treasure hunt of sorts, as I am constantly uncovering new and exciting objects in the collections. This week was no exception, with the booty coming in the form of a small but significant artifact: an original piece of the transatlantic telegraph cable!

The transatlantic telegraph cable was the first cable to allow telegraphic communications across the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and North America. It was a monumental achievement at the time, reducing message delivery time from days or weeks to mere minutes. A lasting connection was not achieved until 1866, but the first official message was sent on August 16, 1858, from Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan:

"To the President of the United States, Washington: The Queen desires to congratulate the President upon the successful completion of this great international work."

Keenly aware of the magnitude of this accomplishment, the President responded:

"May the Atlantic Telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, and an instrument designed by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty and law throughout the world."


The transatlantic cable was also one of the many underwater landmarks spied by Captain Nemo and the crew of the Nautilus in Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Considering that the History of Diving Museum has an entire exhibit dedicated to Verne's classic undersea adventure, the cable fragment's addition to the museum's collections was a "no-brainer," especially given its historical significance. This particular piece is from a "leftover" segment of the cable that was brought back up from the bottom of the ocean after Cyrus W. Field "overshot his mark" while laying it in 1858. Charles Tiffany (Tiffany & Co.) saw it as a money-making opportunity, buying the leftover cable and cutting it into four-inch lengths that he sold for fifty cents each. A "copyrighted facsimile certificate of Cyrus W. Field, Esq." accompanied each piece, guaranteeing its authenticity.

This exciting and historic artifact is an example of one of the many "behind the scenes" treasures at the History of Diving Museum. You'll have the opportunity to explore even more of them firsthand at our 6th anniversary celebration on September 3, 2011, where we will be displaying objects from our collection not normally seen on exhibit. We hope you can make it!

Diving in Style

This week I'm taking the opportunity to air out some of the museum's dirty laundry...literally. As I poked around the collections in search of missing items, I stumbled across two fantastic denim diving outfits that originally belonged to Wesley and Constance Mueller. The Muellers were pioneers in the world of underwater photography, beginning in 1934 when there were no commercially produced underwater cameras or housings. Not to be deterred, they fashioned their own equipment, complete with matching denim diving outfits. They sewed lead into their jackets and pants so that they "wouldn't ride up in the current (McKenney 1981)." They even sewed their initials into the garments, presumably so that they wouldn't mix them up. Of course, the Muellers weren't out to make a fashion statement on the bottom of the ocean. In fact, Wesley and Constance rarely saw anyone besides each other on their adventures. They wore the heavy denim to protect themselves from posionous coral and any underwater creatures with sharp and potentially harmful extremities. Still, they must have known how "cool" they looked.

Wesley and Constance Mueller diving in their denim suits (Bahamas, 1938).

The Muellers' denim suits, now housed in collections at the History of Diving Museum.

That got me thinking about the role of fashion in the history of diving and how it has affected the evolution of divewear. I immediately thought of Art McKee (subject of several previous blog entries) and his preference for a Speedo and Converse sneakers (his original "Chucks" are on display at the History of Diving Museum, see photo). They certainly kept him comfortable during his dives, an important factor in diving safety. But what about those of us who aren't pioneers in the field of diving? What do we like to wear beneath the waves? Well, the answer to that question has changed over the years, as evidenced by these magazine advertisements from old issues of Skin Diver (in the library at HDM).

Advertisements from 1970 Skin Diver magazines.

Advertisements from 1977 Skin Diver magazines.

Advertisements from 1984 Skin Diver magazines.

Of course, the Muellers and Art McKee didn't have the luxury of wearing wetsuits in the early days, as they weren't "officially" invented until 1952 by Hugh Bradner (Taylor 2008). Over the years, as recreational diving became more popular and less expensive, style became an increasingly important component in marketing wetsuits. Let's face it, everyone wants to look good, especially when they are wearing a skin-hugging neoprene suit. The advertisements above clearly illustrate this, with color and designs increasing significantly over time, until ultimately exploding in a blinding flash of color and hair in the 1980's. Not everyone prefers a wetsuit (see Jacqueline Bisset in her famous diving outfit from the 1977 film The Deep), but their functionality remains the most important factor in their success, keeping divers and other watersport enthuisiasts warm, bouyant and scrape-free.

So the question now becomes: what do you like to wear when you dive? Do you have a favorite or funny diving outfit? We want to hear about it! Comment on our blog below or post a picture of your favorite diving outfit to our new Flickr pool! To get the sharing started, here are photos of Erin and I modeling the very latest in wetsuit fashion. Ok, maybe not the very latest...but it certainly beats 1984!

Austin Bell and Erin Wolfe wetsuit modeling at the Marine Mammal Conservancy in Key Largo.

McKenney, Jack (1981). Wes and Connie Mueller: Pioneers in Underwater Cinematography. In Skin Diver, October 1981, Vol. 30, No. 10, pp. 44-46.

Taylor, Michael (2008). Hugh Bradner, UC's inventor of wetsuit, dies. In San Francisco Chronicle (May 11, 2008). Accessed July 8, 2011. Web link.

Five Hobos in a Museum

If you’ve been to the History of Diving Museum before, on your next visit be sure to keep a sharp eye out for something new in the exhibit galleries: hobos! No, not that kind of hobo. We still have enough mannequins to display all our diving suits and helmets, so there's no need to worry about the exhibits “coming to life.” I’m talking about HOBO data loggers, small electronic boxes that look like thermostats and monitor fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity.

Before you lose interest completely, I should emphasize just how important this acquisition is in the development of our young institution. Museums are charged with the task of preserving collections ‘in perpetuity,’ so that future generations may enjoy and study their contents. Unfortunately, time can be just as cruel to objects as it is to people, as everything “turns to dirt” across a long enough continuum. While museums will never be able to keep everything in their collections from disintegrating, there are certainly ways of extending the “lives” of objects. One of the biggest threats to an object’s longevity is its surrounding climate, so monitoring, stabilizing and maintaining that environment is crucial. The new data loggers will aid us in this task, as life in the tropical climate of the Keys can be especially harsh on certain materials.

You might being saying to yourself "Why are these objects so high maintenance? A small change in temperature or relative humidity doesn't affect me...and I'm a living thing!" Well, this may be true, but it has actually been determined that some objects are 100 times more sensitive to fluctuations in relative humidity than human beings (Cassar 1995)! Acidic paper, which is basically all paper ever produced until acid-free paper became an option in the 1950's, is a great example of this. For paper, the colder and drier it is, the better. In fact, if the storage temperature where reduced from 70°F to 40°F and the relative humidity from 50% to 5%, the potential lifespan of a piece of acidic paper would multiply by one thousand (Applebaum 1991)! That's the difference between preserving something for 50 years and 50,000 years!

Standard practice for general museum collections dictates a constant "ideal" temperature of 65 to 70° F and a constant relative humidity somewhere between 47 and 55% (Bachmann and Rushfield 1992; Simmons 2006). It can be a difficult task to achieve these conditions in the Keys, but we are trying to get as close to them as possible without completely blowing up our electricity bill. So next time you visit the museum and it seems a little chillier, just remember, it's all in the name of conservation! In the meantime, keep an eye out for those hobos!

References

Applebaum, Barbara (1991). Guide to environmental protection of collections. Madison, Connecticut: Sound View Press. Print.

Bachmann, K. and Rushfield, R.A. (1992). Principles of Storage. In K. Bachmann (Ed.), Conservation Concerns: A Guide for Collectors and Curators, pp. 5-10. Washington; London: Smithsonian Institute Press. Print.

Cassar, May (1995). Environmental Management: Guidelines for Museums and Galleries. London; New York: Routledge. Print.

Simmons, J.E. (2006). Things Great and Small: Collections Management Policies. Washington: American Association of Museums. Print.

Getting A Handle on Things

Well, it's my second week here at the History of Diving Museum and I feel like I'm finally starting to get the hang of things. Erin and I have been photographing, cataloging and labeling objects in the museum's collections and I've learned more about diving in the last week than I had in the previous 26 years! One particularly interesting object that needed "collections attention" was a dagger handle salvaged from a Spanish shipwreck by Arthur McKee, known to many as the "father of modern treasure hunting."

Art "Silver Bar" McKee (1910-1979) made a name for himself in the Florida Keys before scuba diving became a popular recreational activity. One of the few "celebrity divers," Art appeared both in LIFE Magazine and on the Dave Garroway Show in the 1950's. He is credited, along with Ed Link and Mendel Peterson, for the invention of the underwater metal detector, jet propulsion vehicle and sift cage. Art was also no stranger to museum collections, starting the world's first "Museum of Sunken Treasure" in 1949, just north of here on Plantation Key (now the Montessori School). In its time, Art's Museum of Sunken Treasure was the premier tourist attraction in the Upper Keys, composed of many local artifacts. Treasures from the shipwrecks of the 1733 Spanish Plate Fleet really built up Art's collection in the early days, as he salvaged them for years after receiving information regarding their fate from the Archive of the Indies in Spain in the late 1930's.
The ill-fated Spanish Fleet left port from Havana, Cuba on July 13, 1733 (Friday the 13th), bound for Spain and loaded with precious cargo. Little did they know of the approaching hurricane that two days later would ground most of the twenty-two ships in the shallow waters of the Keys. Luckily for the Spanish, the hurricane was not a severe one, resulting in many survivors and the opportunity to recover many of the treasures themselves. Still, they couldn't salvage everything, leaving plenty behind for Art McKee to uncover more than 200 years later.

The dagger handle, now on display at the History of Diving Museum, was one of the objects left behind by the Spanish and recovered by Art McKee. It is a wonderful piece of craftmanship, with a design resembling the head of a lion. When I first handled it in my cotton gloves, I couldn't help but imagine whose hands had gripped it in the past, and for what purpose? Art McKee liked it so much that he posed for a portrait with it (also seen in the exhibit)! Perhaps its original owner thought it so commonplace that they discarded it on purpose. Or perhaps it was lost in the mad scramble to shore after the ships ran aground! No one will ever know its exact history for sure, but it will fuel imaginations for years to come. That's part of what's so great about museums! Art certainly recognized that and his imaginative and adventuresome spirit lives on in the "Art McKee and the Treasure Hunters" gallery at the History of Diving Museum. If you are interested in seeing the dagger handle, be sure to visit the museum soon, as it is currently on loan from the collection of Carl Fismer!

Black and white photos of Art McKee courtesy of the State Archives of Florida.

Getting My Feet Wet

Greetings everyone!

My name is Austin and I'm interning this summer at your favorite place for all things sub-aquatic, The History of Diving Museum! I'm a Museum Studies graduate student at the University of Florida in Gainesville (Go Gators!) and this is my first true excursion to the Florida Keys. So far, my experience has been everything I could have hoped for (and more). The people have been wonderful, warm and welcoming, as have the beautiful blue waters of Islamorada. I feel very "at home" here in the Keys thanks in large part to the generous hospitality of the History of Diving Museum staff, who have gone out of their way to ensure my comfort. Although, I imagine it's difficult to ever be that uncomfortable in a place like this!

Over the next eight weeks I will be updating you on my adventures in the museum's collections, where Erin is graciously instructing me on proper organization, storage and conservation techniques. My background is in archaeology (and we don't have much diveable water in Gainesville), so this is all relatively new to me. Nevertheless, the items in the History of Diving's collection are fantastically interesting and I really look forward to learning more about them and diving in general! There's no better place to do it than in the Florida Keys! I'll be taking the museum's "Eat. Sleep. Immerse Yourself." slogan to heart this summer and hope to meet all of you in the process!

Part II, the U.S. Navy Mark V

Hello HDM blog-followers! Good to have you back with us for Part II of the U.S. Navy Mark V saga! This blog entry will provide an overview of the components of the Mark V. For those of you who missed Part I, (the history of the Mark V) I urge you to reference back here before reading this blog.

"The U.S. Navy Mark V is the most coveted and recognized diving helmet in the world. It embodies helmeted diving with its bold look, functional design and long-standing history in American diving."

Stream-lining of the Mark Helmets

An earlier age of diving pioneers held the belief that the more extravagant and involved a diving apparatus, the more sophisticated it was, and therefore, the better it would be to convey a diver to depth. By the turn of the twentieth century, helmet manufacturers came to this realization that the more extravagant the design, the better chance something would fail, and there began a shift toward simplicity.

The U.S. Navy Mark V was created during the diving craze of the early twentieth century, when many different helmets were produced and knowledge about diving was becoming increasingly common. By 1917, G. L. Stillson completed the design of the Mark V, but at the time, no one could have foreseen the impact it would have on the history of diving.

This, of course, begs the question, what was different about this helmet that separated it from helmets of the same generation? Well, when Stillson called for the standardization of the Navy dive program, they needed not only good equipment, but it had to be the best. Main considerations were that it had to be easily fixable, comprehensible by the average enlisted-man, and sufficient for deep-dives. The combination of these requirements produced a well-built unit that would be used by the U.S. Navy for more than fifty years!

The design of the helmet, the placement of the components, and the size and weight considerations were completed by a process of trial and error. Four helmets were constructed and tried: the Marks I, II, III, and IV, and the best aspects from these four designs were used to build the Mark V helmet.

Early Mark Helmets: I-IV

Two companies manufactured the early Mark helmets. The Morse Company of Boston was first commissioned to build helmets to the navy standard. The identifying feature of the Morse helmets is the oval shaped side ports. The Shrader Company of New York was commissioned to build early Mark helmets as well but with their design instead, has circular side ports. Below are the Mark I-IV helmets made by Morse and Shrader:

The protagonist, the Mark V...

The Navy used the Marks I-IV, as shown above, with great success for many years, but with four designs in circulation, there still wasn't a standard helmet for the diving program (which was the original purpose of improving the diving program). Incorporating various design features of the earlier Mark helmets, allowed for the Mark V helmet to take on a common shape and features.

The Navy commissioned four companies to produce the Mark V diving helmets. They continued the already existing tradition with the Shrader and Morse Companies, but added the Diving Equipment and Supply Company (DESCO) of Milwaukee and the Miller-Dunn Company of Miami.


Morse Mark V

Schrader Mark V

DESCO Mark V

Miller-Dunn Mark V

Mark V Expanded

The strategic placement of the components separated the Mark V from all other helmets. The Mark V remained the U.S. navy standard from 1915 to 1979 while it remained largely unchanged.

Front View

Side View

Top View

Symbolism of the Mark V

The longevity of the helmet's application both militarily and commercially are are symbolic of the United States military at large. It stands as an identity of the ingenuity and design associated with the military similarly to the M16 rifle and the M113 tank.

If you ever get a chance to dive a Mark V you will understand why they are among the best ever made.