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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Oral History Collection

Hudson River Commercial Fishermen's Oral History Collection
The Hudson River Maritime Museum’s oral history collection consists of approximately 30 interviews with Hudson River commercial fishermen and NYS Department of Environmental Conservation officers conducted by Marjorie Holloway between 1989 and 1999. Approximately half of these oral histories have been digitized. You can listen to them on Hudson River Valley Heritage. 

Conducted between 1989 and 2000 by interviewer Marguerite Holloway for the Hudson Valley Greenway, these interviews cover a range of topics, but focusing on the commercial fishing of shad, sturgeon, striped bass, and other fish like herring, as well as the changing water quality of the river, changes in fishing gear and techniques, and personal anecdotes. 

This collection was digitized in part through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, in cooperation with the Sound and Story Project of the Hudson Valley. 

Other Collections
The Hudson River Maritime Museum also has an undigitized oral history collection from a project called "Rondout Remembers," as well as video interviews with area boat captains. We are also actively collecting new oral histories in straight-to-digital format with area people connected to the history of the Hudson River. If you would like to nominate yourself or someone you know to be interviewed for an oral history, please contact curator@hrmm.org. 

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. We do also have a number of collections, including 

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. 

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.