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Howard I Chapelle

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Name
  
Howard Chapelle

Role
  
Author


Occupation
  
Naval architect, historian, author

Died
  
June 30, 1975, Lewes, Delaware, United States

Awards
  
Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities, US & Canada

Books
  
American Small Sailing Cr, Boatbuilding: A Complete, The History of the American, Yacht Designing and Plan, The Balti Clipper: It

Organization
  
Smithsonian Institution

Howard I. Chapelle Dies at 74; Marine Historian and a Writer - The New York  Times

Howard Irving Chapelle (February 1, 1901 – June 30, 1975) was an American naval architect, and curator of maritime history at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. In addition, he authored many books and articles on maritime history and marine architecture.

Contents

Biography

Chapelle was born on February 1, 1901. From 1919, he worked as a marine apprentice and designer for a number of shipbuilders. After 1936, he went into business for himself, and later served as head of the New England section of the Historic American Merchant Marine Survey, a New Deal project designed to research American naval history and staffed by unemployed marine architects.

During World War II, Chapelle served in the United States Army Transportation Corps ship and boatbuilding program, rising to lieutenant colonel. In 1950, he ventured to England, where he researched colonial ship design on a Guggenheim fellowship. In 1956/57, he served the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization as a consultant on fishing boat construction to the government of Turkey. Upon returning to America, he was appointed Division of Transportation curator of the National Museum of History and Technology. Ten years later, in 1967, he stepped down as curator to assume the role of senior historian. He retired in 1971, accepting the title of historian emeritus.

Chapelle died in Lewes, Delaware, on June 30, 1975.

Works

Chapelle was a small-boat enthusiast and sailor. He felt that inexpensive yachts based on traditional workboats were the most practical way to go sailing and designed a number of small boats. His article on a 14-foot (4.3 m) Chesapeake sharpie skiff is typical of many of his articles.

His book American Small Sailing Craft (1951) is considered a classic among small-boat builders and historians. In it he documented many fast-vanishing American working boats.

His other books include:

  • American Sailing Craft (1936)
  • Yacht Designing and Planning (1936) W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 0-393-03756-8
  • Boatbuilding: A Complete Handbook of Wooden Boat Construction (1941) W.W. Norton & Company Inc.
  • The History of American Sailing Ships
  • The History of the American Sailing Navy: The Ships and Their Development, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. (1949), ISBN 1-56852-222-3.
  • American Small Sailing Craft (1951) W. W. Norton & Company
  • The Search for Speed Under Sail: 1700-1855 (1967) W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
  • The Baltimore Clipper
  • The American Fishing Schooners 1825-1935 (1973) W. W. Norton & Company Inc., ISBN 0-393-03123-3
  • References

    Howard I. Chapelle Wikipedia


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