Kids enjoy making their own copper embossing of the ship. Courtesy USS Constitution Museum

Vision
The USS Constitution Museum ensures that the stories of USS CONSTITUTION and those who shaped her history are never forgotten, always remain relevant, and inspire as many people as possible.

Mission
The USS Constitution Museum serves as the memory and educational voice of USS CONSTITUTION, by collecting, preserving, and interpreting the stories of "Old Ironsides" and the people associated with her. We seek to create a positive, memorable experience for both children and adults by inspiring within them a love for the freedom that CONSTITUTION symbolizes. We will share CONSTITUTION's contributions with a global audience, and we will strive to be the best museum possible based on scholarship and innovative ways of sharing CONSTITUTION's stories.

Strategy
The Museum will provide a hands-on, minds-on environment where inter-generational groups seeking an enjoyable, educational experience can have fun and learn as they explore history together.

History
The USS Constitution Museum was incorporated in 1972 as an interpretive complement to the active duty naval vessel USS CONSTITUTION. In 1976, the private, non-profit museum opened the doors in the present facility located just across the pier from the still floating USS CONSTITUTION. The Museum houses and displays artifacts related to the Ship’s history in interpretive exhibitions offering the context of USS CONSTITUTION's history. The founding of the Museum enabled the Ship to clear the decks of display cases so that visitors who tour aboard see a frigate ready to sail, rather than a floating museum.

A Marine in 1812 uniform explains the use of small arms in shipboard combat. Courtesy USS Constitution Museum

In 1974 the Charlestown Navy Yard closed as an active naval repair facility and the National Park Service took custody of one-third of the historic naval yard. The Museum secured an historic building to house the exhibitions and collections. The Museum soon established educational programs and a research library named in honor of Samuel Eliot Morison, the naval historian who cut the ribbon to open the Museum to the public in April 1976.

Since its founding, the Museum has continued to welcome the public and offer educational services to school children, families and adults. Visitation for the first twenty years, when the Museum had a nominal admission fee, averaged 60,000–75,000 per year. With the switch to free admission in 1997, the Museum’s visitation is now in the vicinity of 250,000–275,000 per year.

The Museum facility has expanded since 1976, nearly doubling in space as the Museum worked with the National Park Service to expand into two adjacent buildings and build a connector. All public spaces have been renovated within the last ten years, including galleries, reading room and research library, and the Museum also now has a state-of-the-art collections storage facility.

The Museum has also worked diligently to reach beyond its walls with educational outreach in classrooms and facilities across the country. By providing its award-winning curriculum free of charge to 12,000 teachers in all fifty states, plus twelve foreign countries, the Museum has shared the stories of USS CONSTITUTION nationwide. Through an innovative educational outreach program called "'Old Ironsides' Across the Nation," Museum staff and Navy crew take the stories of USS CONSTITUTION to students and citizens across the country, reaching 70,000 people in the first four years of a joint outreach program. This innovative model of reaching a national audience earned the USS Constitution Museum one of only three National Awards for Museum Service presented by First Lady Laura Bush at the White House in January, 2004.

The Museum continues to revolutionize exhibit development and family learning with a ground-breaking new exhibit, All Hands on Deck: A Sailor’s Life in 1812, open in July 2009. The product of over ten years of research, development, and testing, the exhibit features newly-unearthed stories of the Ship’s crew from America’s “Second War for Independence” and presents them in a dynamic, rich format that serves as a model for other history museums to use in years to come. Visitors step into the roles of the actual sailors who served onboard “Old Ironsides” during the War of 1812 and experience the challenges, hardships, fear, monotony and exhilaration of daily life in the confines of this isolated community. In a break from the traditional history museum format that relies primarily upon the display of artifacts and copy, this thematic exhibit teaches through participation.

The stories of the sailors who put the true iron into “Old Ironsides” have lain mostly silent since the early 1800s. According to Burt Logan, President of the USS Constitution Museum, “The Museum dedicated a decade to the humanities research, exploring the personal histories of the more than 1100 men who served -- why they joined, and who they left behind. These stories fill a critical gap in the Ship’s narrative and enable a broad range of people – including minorities, women and children – to make personal and often profound connections to the Ship as a home, a job and a symbol of this country’s early achievements.”

While the stories provide the material, the exhibit design itself provides a unique new medium for participatory learning. Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the USS Constitution Museum initiated the Family Learning Project in 2004 in search of a more engaging exhibit format for history museums. All Hands on Deck: A Sailor’s Life in 1812 is the first exhibit to be based upon the family-centered design principles developed by that research, bringing children and adults together and serving a broad range of learning styles, knowledge and ages. Instead of using walls of text to tell the stories, the exhibit uses interactive adventures combined with images, sound, theatre, artifacts and physical and mental tests. These methods foster discoveries, spark conversations between family members, and provide for more memorable and enjoyable museum experiences.