Collections

The collection of the Hudson River Maritime Museum is composed of donations from hundreds of donors since our founding in 1980. The collection includes archival material and items related to Hudson River steamboats, tugboats, ferries, iceboats, and industries. Much of the collection dates from the 1870s through the 1950s with some older and newer materials.

Specific named collections include:
  • the Donald C. Ringwald Hudson River Steamboat Collection
  • the Hudson River Day Line Collection
  • the Cornell Steamboat Company Collection
  • the Dwyer Brothers Boatbuilding and Related Industries Collection
  • the Feeney Reliance Marine Boatbuilding Collection
  • the Ray Ruge Iceboating Collection
  • the Staples Brick Company Collection
  • the C.W. Spangenberger Collection
  • a 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration Collection
  • the Hudson River Commercial Fishermen's Oral History Collection

Types of items in the museum’s collection include boat models, photos, paper ephemera of many types, hardware from boats including steam gauges, lanterns, and bells, boat nameboards, boat building tools, ice-cutting tools, and many framed prints and original paintings.

Also included in the collection are pieces of historic steamboats and tugs, including pilot wheels, and a number of small boats including shad boats, iceboats, rowing shells, a birchbark canoe, and a lifeboat from the famous steamboat Mary Powell. The number of items in the collection is at least 20,000.
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Digital Collections

The Hudson River Maritime Museum strives to makes its collections accessible to the general public. We are proud to partner with Hudson River Valley Heritage, an online digital repository for collections from all over the Hudson River Valley. 

You can visit the Hudson River Maritime Museum's own portal to HRVH.org to view our collections, or do a search of all collections. 

Currently, our digital collections are comprised of a partially-completed oral history digitization project and photos which were digitized in 2006-2008. We are working to make these more accessible, but this requires skilled staff time and special equipment.

Please consider making a donation to the museum to help us expand our digital collections and access. If you would like to volunteer to assist with digitization efforts, please fill out an application or email volunteer@hrmm.org.