From the World War I Centennial News Podcast
Commission News: Living History Crew from the USS Olympia at Fleet Week
In May 17th's edition of the World War I Centennial News Podcast, Episode 123, host Theo Mayer interviewed Kevin Smith and Laura Adie of the Cruiser Olympia Living History Crew. Kevin and Laura both attended Fleet Week in NYC to share World War I Naval History with visitors. Read on to learn more about the work of the Living History Crew, the story of the Olympia, and more. The following is a transcript of the conversation, lightly edited for clarity:
Theo Mayer: One of the very exciting World War I elements that we're sponsoring at Fleet Week is a group of living historians who are going to be located at various key events. These are men and women who have studied and embraced the era and personas of people from that era, literally bringing the past into the present. A notable group of living historians focused on World War I, and the sea services specifically, are from the Philadelphia Independence Seaport Museum, home of the Cruiser Olympia, the ship that carried home many of our doughboys who sadly died over there including the first unknown. With us today are two of these living historians of the more than 20 that'll be joining us in New York. Laura Adie, the head of the female crew, and Kevin Smith, one of the founders of the crew and one of the curators for the Cruiser Olympia. Laura, Kevin welcome to the podcast.
Laura Adie: Thanks for having us.
Kevin Smith: Yeah, thanks for having us.
The Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, PA Theo Mayer: Kevin, let me begin with you. Can you give our listeners a quick overview of the museum, the Cruiser Olympia, and what visitors experience when they go for a visit?
Kevin Smith: Yeah, of course. The Cruiser Olympia is part of the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia. It's a maritime museum that focuses on the history of maritime trade, industry, and actually the ecosystem of the Delaware River and other waterways throughout the United States. A good part of our mission is actually the history of the US Navy. We have a program called the Sail, Steam, and Stealth Program. That focuses on our three ships, we have two historic ships and one replica. The Diligence, a replica cutter from the Quasi War (editors note: undeclared war between the U.S. and France from 1798 to1800) and the submarine Becuna from World War II, and of course the Cruiser Olympia, which served in the Spanish-American War and World War I. Olympia is actually the flagship of our collection, very literally as it is a flagship and sort of embassy for the United States. She served in the US Navy for 27 years and visitors coming aboard can actually see the ship, walk around through it, and experience the ship as it would have been actually mostly in World War I.
Theo Mayer: Laura, tell us a little bit about the Living Historian Crew. How many of you are there? How do find members? Something I think is both appropriate and really brilliant, how did you decide to include a women's crew?
Laura Adie: The Living History Crew was started several years ago, Kevin was one of the founders of that as a way to bring the ship to life. It can really hard in a static museum setting to get a sense of what daily life was like for the crew members. By having a living history crew of about two dozen people that are active members coming aboard once or twice or month usually, it really adds another layer to the museum experience for people. The members come from a little bit of everywhere. We have a very good Facebook presence with the Living History Crew, and a lot of people interact with that. My husband and I actually were friends with some people who were already Living History Crew members and got interested through some other re-enacting that we did. As far as how I came to start the women's section of the Living History Crew, I happened to be scrolling through Pinterest one day -as one does- and found this picture that I couldn't figure what in the world I was looking at. It was a young woman, obviously in the 1910s, saluting. She had a navy jumper on with a long skirt and boots, and I just had to figure what this was. I went down a rabbit hole and found out about the Yeoman F Program. Starting in March 1917, the Naval Reserve started enlisting women as Yeomen, the clerical staff of the Navy to help support the Navy as it ramped up when the US became involved in the war. Over 11,000 young women served in the Navy during World War I in this capacity. I thought it was just something that people needed to know about. It was nothing that I'd ever heard about before or seen before. Then it was also a historically accurate way to incorporate women's history to the story of the Olympia in World War I. The first woman who enlisted in fact was from Philadelphia and worked at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, so it had a local tie as well.
The USS Olympia Theo Mayer: Great story. Back to you, Kevin. The Living Historian Crew is coming to New York for Fleet Week. One of the places that we'll find you a lot of the time is on the USS New York as the expected tens of thousands of visitors come aboard. This is a really modern vessel. How are you guys going to tie into that? How do you envision that?
Kevin Smith: We will be on the USS New York and also the USS Hué City at Staten Island. We're going to represent the Navy as it was exactly 100 years ago in 1919 and that's very relevant to our crew. Serving on Olympia so to speak, with the Living History Crew, this ship was in the war still or at the aftermath of the war from 1919 to 1921 up until she brought home the Unknown Soldier. We're going to be representing that as a whole, the mission of the ship, which was also the mission of the Navy doing the humanitarian aid, providing experience in the medical field for people suffering from the flu epidemic that was rampaging through the whole world really. Getting that general history out that a lot of people don't know about: what happened right after the war and what was the US Navy doing about it ? The other side of that story, which our Living History Crew is very good at and we do all the time on the ship itself, is we're also going to bring sea bags, ditty boxes, semaphore gear, all this equipment with us to show how the Navy lived back then.
Theo Mayer: You're not just people in costumes and you're not exactly actors. This is a special type of educator who is teaching by channeling the past. First, how did you get into this? Second, few gigs are equally immersive. What's been the most challenging thing about this for you personally?
Kevin Smith: For me, I started as an employee for the Independence Seaport Museum as a restoration worker, ship keeper. Eventually, the curators and the librarians introduced me to the library and I saw all the diaries, stories, and photos that we have in our collection. Looking through the diaries and looking the photos and seeing these guys standing around on the same ship that I worked on, it got me kind of a personal connection, which again, I feel like a lot of our Living History Crew shares. Our biggest challenge is to represent those veterans and tell their stories to the people that come by every day. The challenge to that is being able to provide a very accurate story because what we have is of course, photographs and diaries. There's not a whole lot of things that are more detailed, like how to trice up a hammock? How do you set up a mess table? How do you oil an ash hoist, clean the dishes? All the kind of crew stuff that a lot of visitors are looking for. It took us years. To me, that's one of the biggest challenges for any Living History Crew, but especially here where the ship itself is so unique, even for the time period.
The Olympia's Living History CrewTheo Mayer: A similar question for you Laura, being a living historian and interacting with the public has certainly got to be filled with special moments. Can you pick a particularly memorable moment for you in having done this work?
Laura Adie: We were at Fort Mott in New Jersey. We had been there a few months prior at another event and I had a visitor who had come before, talked to me and the other women who were portraying the yeomen and came back again with his grandmother's service records and gave me copies of them. She had been in the Navy in World War I and it really had a personal connection, and he wanted to bring that and share that information, photographed all of the information about where she was recruited, where she served, and all of that and shared that with us. That really made it all worthwhile, doing all of the preparation and research to really connect to somebody even though, as Kevin was saying, it's out of living memory- but the descendants of these people are still around.
Kevin Smith: I have a story that's connected. One time this little old lady came up and she was asking me about the ship and all that. She eventually came out and said her father served on board. Her father was the medical officer of Olympia. I said, "We know where the medical officer's quarters were, would you like to see them?" Of course, she was like, "Oh yes, I want to see where my father was on the ship." When I brought her into that state room, I unlocked the door, slid it open, let her stand in there. As soon as she walked in, she just came to tears. I almost teared up myself. It was a very touching moment.
Theo Mayer: Great stories from both of you. Thank you both for joining us today and for coming to Fleet Week in New York 2019. You're going to be bringing a very special experience to the event. Thank you both.
Laura Adie: Thank you.
Kevin Smith: Thank you for having us.
Theo Mayer: Kevin Smith and Laura Adie are members of the Living Historian Crew from Philadelphia's Independence Seaport Museum, home of the Cruiser Olympia. They and their other crew members are going to be joining us at Fleet Week in New York where the commission will be hosting various World War I themed events between May 22 through Memorial Day May 27. Of course, we have a bunch of links for you in the podcast notes.
Links:
http://www.phillyseaport.org/olympia
https://www.facebook.com/CruiserOlympia/posts/otd-on-march-11-2003-harold-d-gunnes-the-last-known-living-veteran-who-served-ab/2235927023133353/