The Hill Collection and Age of Sail: Exploring Maritime History at UC San Diego

Special Collections & Archives (SC&A) at UC San Diego Library holds a wealth of primary source materials, including the Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages, the largest and most comprehensive collection of manuscripts, logbooks, and documents of seafarers dating back to the 15th century. UC San Diego Library Director of Special Collections & Archives, Lynda Claassen has co-curated the Hill Collection with UC San Diego Professor of History, Mark Hanna. The Hill Collection remains the most extensive gathering of publications to document early voyages of exploration, discovery, commercial expansion, and cultural contact to the Pacific.

Enriching Educational Landscape at UC San Diego

The Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages reinforces UC San Diego’s educational landscape by providing valuable insights into the history of maritime exploration. At UC San Diego, Professor Hanna teaches HITO 178: A History of Seafaring in the Age of Sail leveraging the Hill Collection. The course investigates life at sea from the age of oceanic crossings to the advent of the steamship, exploring the impact of discovery, cartography, technology, piracy, fisheries, commerce, naval conflict, seaboard life, and seaport activity. The Hill Collection is a premier resource for scholars and students interested in studying the history of maritime exploration.

Art of Navigation Exhibition

Thanks to the decade-long partnership between the Library, the Institute of Arts and Humanities (a program led by the UC San Diego School of Arts and Humanities), and the Maritime Museum of San Diego, Professor Hanna is working closely with Lynda Claassen and Ray Ashley ’77, president and CEO of the Maritime Museum of San Diego for a new exhibition – Art of Navigation – which draws upon the finest and most beautiful examples of period instruments, charts, and voyage accounts. The exhibition features items from the Library’s Special Collections & Archives in a thematic and engaging manner and will be illuminated by the work of maritime artist Gordon Miller. Visitors can also see models of the storied ships from the museum’s collections, and majestic full-scale operational versions such as the galleon San Salvador, man-of-war HMS Surprise, schooner Californian, and the museum’s flagship Star of India, veteran of 21 navigations around the earth. The museum’s Art of Navigation exhibition is set to open in summer.

Setting Sail Exhibition

The UC San Diego Library will host the Setting Sail exhibit this fall at Geisel Library, featuring the logbooks and diaries created by sailors and officers on board wooden ships. Each volume is a unique manuscript, compiling multiple aspects of life at sea reflecting locations at sea, weather conditions, and encounters with native peoples or the death of a comrade in black. Some reflect whaling voyages, and others record maritime activities from seaboard life to seaport activity. All manuscripts are from the Library’s Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages.

Importance of Age of Sail Course

The Age of Sail is still relevant to modern society. The course focuses on topics such as “What made people take to the sea and how did they manage the dangers and difficulties of shipboard life?” and “What kind of social world is born out of close confinement in trying conditions?” It enables students to imagine and understand existence on a whole other plane of being, drastically different from what we are accustomed to today. The learnings from the course anchor the Age of Sail’s relevance to modern society, emphasizing that a significant portion of the world’s trade still relies on transport by sea, life at sea is challenging, individuals still take up sailing as a hobby (or professionally for sport), and international law regarding seafaring is complex and nuanced.

Archival Research Process

The Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages enriches the educational landscape at UC San Diego. It offers students unique and special insights into how life was lived during different periods, and also how life at sea is complex and remains relevant today. The Age of Sail course allows students to conduct primary research on the topic, empowering students to analyze the incredible primary sources firsthand, gain experience conducting research in an archive setting, and understand how previous generations dealt with sailing and life at sea.

The Age of Sail course also allows students to self-select a printed text from SC&A (dated before 1860) about life at sea, shipbuilding, nautical science, or sail handling. Each student also works with manuscript logbooks produced by sailors during their voyages analyzing scrawling handwriting and sometimes poems and watercolors produced by bored seafarers. Students write papers about these texts and present their findings to each other in the library. The Age of Sail course teaches students the complexities of life at sea and highlights the difficulties in embarking on a journey.

Conclusion

UC San Diego Library plays a critical role in supporting the university’s research, teaching, patient care, and public service missions. The Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages, in particular, provides invaluable insights into the history of maritime exploration, and the partnership with the Maritime Museum of San Diego has made the Age of Sail course even richer than before. The primary sources available in SC&A enrich the educational landscape at UC San Diego and afford students the opportunity to conduct primary research, understand archival research, and investigate life at sea from different historical perspectives.

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Originally Post From https://today.ucsd.edu/story/setting-sail-on-experiential-learning

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Maritime history
Maritime Heritage – NOAA’s National Ocean Service