The History and Future of the Nantucket Whaling Museum

How heritage contends with a rising sea

Introduction

With each passing year, sea levels around the world continue to rise.

Many feel they can safely ignore this fact, believing that its impacts are far enough away or too negligible in severity to be of any concern. It seems such an abstract, undetectable phenomenon; why start preparing for something that we can barely see change by the day?

Residents of the island of Nantucket know they don't have this luxury.

As the climate changes, every locale of the world exhibits its own unique effects, vulnerabilities, and even crises. For this island, these take the form of an increasingly vicious onslaught by water. Be it flooding from ever-higher tides, severe rainfall, or even intruding groundwater, Nantucketers have to face inundation head-on from all sides. And with these events becoming more frequent and aggressive, many know it's a race against the clock to find true mitigations and solutions.

The Nantucket Historical Association is no stranger to this issue. Their flagship historical site, the island's Whaling Museum, keeps a precarious foothold on Broad Street alongside the wharf and has been subjected to several major flooding events in its lifespan on top of the wear and tear of 175 years. The building remains carefully preserved, but has begun to show its age as water has found ways to infiltrate the brick-and-mortar walls of its 19 th -century Candle Factory.

Across the world a wealth of heritage lies at risk, and defending it is a challenge that requires foresight and timely preparation. This story map will develop the context needed to begin taking informed steps towards resilience, using the Whaling Museum as a key case study.


History of the Museum

How a cultural haven came to be.

The present-day Nantucket Whaling Museum, including the Candle Factory and Peter Foulger Museum.

The schematic below walks through the progression of the museum and its surroundings from 1869 through 2022. Click any of the red waypoints to see a photo taken from that vantage point that shows what the site might have looked like at that point in time; clicking the photo will take you to its entry in the NHA's archives for a closer look and additional information.

Additionally, clicking the name of any of the sites within the complex below will take you to its history page for further reading.

Over 175 years, the museum has grown and remained contemporary while keeping close ties to its heritage.

This is a difficult balance to maintain, but it's been facilitated by staying true to one key principle: Gradual change is inevitable, even in historic sites, and isn't something to fear.

A building such as the Candle Factory has went through many phases in its lifespan, and will see many more. Measures taken to protect the structure from the impacts of climate change are simply the next stepping stone along this road, and will ensure a safe journey forwards.

Whaling Museum in 1931 / Whaling Museum in 2022.


Looking Forwards

What the continued rise of sea levels could mean for the museum.

Flooding around the area of the Whaling Museum from South Beach Street (left) and Easy Street (right)

Key Terms:

NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

SLR: Sea Level Rise

National Tidal Datum Epoch: The specific 19-year period adopted by the National Ocean Service as the time segment over which tide observations are taken and reduced to obtain mean values (e.g., mean higher high water, etc.) for tidal datums. NOAA currently uses the interval from 1983-2001, because the most recent period of 2002-2020 is set to be finalized in 2025.

Mean Higher High Water (MHHW): The average of the highest water heights observed over the National Tidal Datum Epoch.

Mean Sea Level (MSL): The average of hourly heights observed over the National Tidal Datum Epoch.

Mean Lower Low Water: The average of all the lowest water heights observed over the National Tidal Datum Epoch.

North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD88): A fixed reference for elevations determined by geodetic leveling. ~1.7 ft below MSL for Nantucket.


Hazards to the Complex

Problems facing the museum now and going forwards.

Presented below is a map of confirmed and possible vulnerabilities within the broader museum complex, listed (roughly) in order of decreasing priority. High-priority vulnerabilities are those which are already experiencing flooding or otherwise require imminent action; lower-priority hazards are those which are likely to pose a problem sometime in the future and warrant attention before they grow into significant problems.

Notably, a majority of these fall within and around the Candle Factory. This is to be expected: as the oldest component of the complex, weaknesses have naturally begun to manifest over time through exposure to the elements. The factory's floor is also notably low, leaving it close to the museum's base flood elevation and the water table, and, as pointed out in a 2018 survey of the property by McGrath Architecture, its entryway is the portion of the complex easily most jeopardized by storm surge and wave action flooding.

For convenience, these numbered sites in red can be clicked to automatically move between them, or they can be scrolled through in sequence.

Current Prevention Strategies

The museum has already begun implementing a few floodproofing strategies in response to these hazards. In addition to sandbags around key doorways, the NHA makes use of flood sacks, wet vacs, and flood response kits to rapidly begin removing water when it enters the building. Not to be overlooked as part of these measures is the matter of employee training, as ensuring that staff know how to respond to emergencies in a calm, informed manner is just as important as providing them with physical tools.

The 2018 survey of the museum by McGrath Architecture pointed the Association towards some additional strategies which they have since been working to implement. Examples of these include constructing a new shed roof over the Discovery Center connecting hallway for runoff, dry floodproofing the slab floor of the Candle Factory as thoroughly as possible, and properly reconnecting downspouts along the front of the building to subterranean storm water drains.

From left to right: sandbags around the north elevation door, an absorbent flood sack, a drop-in flood barrier, and wet vacs in use to remove water.


Protecting the Museum

Short, medium, and long-term solutions and mitigations.

These potential mitigation strategies are separated into time-framed categories of short- (by 2030), medium- (2050-2070), and long-term (2100+) solutions and adaptation strategies. While these intervals are not contiguous, they are based on the time frames used by the Coastal Resilience Plan which we continued to use to maintain uniformity with the shared primary source data. While these suggestions are offered for the NHA’s consideration, they are in no way a comprehensive list of available options. This team drew upon our research and the standards discussed within the NPS Guidelines for Flood Adaptation which included resiliency, adaptations, and treatments ranging from temporary protective measures, landscape adaptations, dry floodproofing, wet floodproofing, filling the basement, and elevation. We attempted to identify appropriate treatment options for the NHA to investigate and consider. Be advised that the choice, timing, and details of these strategies will require extensive engineering and architectural research that is beyond the scope of this project.


Conclusion

Sea level rise is uncertain by its very nature, with projections being refined constantly as communities study its impacts and learn how to adapt to it. No two places are alike: every affected area comes with it unique circumstances and challenges, and for the Nantucket Whaling Museum the main trial remains upholding the NHA's steadfast goal of preservation.

To prepare a building for a future of flood events while maintaining its historic authenticity is anything but simple, but we hope some of the explanations and recommendations presented herein help preservationists on Nantucket and worldwide balance these two objectives. We've reached an era where history and resilience cannot afford to exclude one another: only by assuring a future for heritage sites in jeopardy may we preserve the breadth of history they embody.

Below are a set of resources providing additional detail on the topics discussed in this story map and the research paper prepared for the NHA alongside this map. We encourage interested parties to use these as a springboard for future research on sea level rise and safeguarding history.


Resources

The present-day Nantucket Whaling Museum, including the Candle Factory and Peter Foulger Museum.

Whaling Museum in 1931 / Whaling Museum in 2022.