Alfred Brownell Collection on Maritime History - Books

The Alfred S. Brownell Collection on Maritime History consists of over 320 printed books, 550 blueprints and technical drawings, several prints and photographs and most notably, the 11 ship models of Atlantic Coast fishing vessels largely made by Mr. Brownell, which are displayed in the library’s Ship Room. Mr. Brownell gave his collection of ship models during the 1950s and the remainder of the Maritime history collection was presented to Providence Public Library in 1963. The collection is strong in books on ship model building and naval architecture, and there are also a number of scarce, early books on rigging and artillery as well as dictionaries of nautical terms. A typescript guide to the collection was produced in 1980.