I'm working on a script on the U.S.S. Constitution with DH, and I was wondering if there were any especially good sources on Old Ironsides. I've Googled, and hit the actual library, but nothing's really gotten beyond the dry stats and facts. Thanks in advance.

Sources for what type of information about her? A particular time frame, voyage, Commanding officer, construction?

A start would be Six Frigates. Theres a lot of info about the birth of the Navy there and how they, frigates, came into being.

Some info on construction might be good. I don't want to get too detailed about current crew- loose lips sink ships and all- but any particularly interesting past CO's might be good.

Start by typeing in History of the USS Constitution in google. Among others you'll see this one which is from the Navy history site.

http://www.ussconstitution.navy.mil/historyupdate.htm

You'll be busy for a while.

I said in a previous post that I'd already Googled the ship, and I've already visited the site you listed, thank you. What I'm looking for is something that goes beyond bare-bones facts. I'm hoping to find, e.g.:
1. Letters from sailors who served on the ship
2. Bio info of past commanding officers
3. Info on the company that won the contract for the U.S.S Constitution
One complaint about history lessons is that they do too much of the timeline type stuff- I want to be able to discuss what life was like on the ship, not just the names and dates of battles she was involved in. Thank you!

Sweetsuds
Try the Library of Congress. or the Smithsonian net pages. THese folks carry Logs of Ops, Bios of COs, and other material not common to the net.
You will be assigned a Specialist to assist in the searches. I used them for a Photo repair problem and got excellent results.
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quote:

Originally posted by sweetsuds:
I'm working on a script on the U.S.S. Constitution with DH, and I was wondering if there were any especially good sources on Old Ironsides. I've Googled, and hit the actual library, but nothing's really gotten beyond the dry stats and facts. Thanks in advance.

Here are some books listed on wikipedia.

Also go to Amazon.com and do a book search on USS Constitution. Many hits.

Thomas P. Horgan, Old Ironsides (Burdette & Co., 1963)
Tyrone G. Martin, A Most Fortunate Ship 2nd edition (Naval Institute Press, 1997)
Undefeated (Tryon Publishing Company, 1996)
"The Great Ships — Frigates" (The History Channel, 1997)
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/* A Signal Honor (Tryon Publishing Company, 2003)
"A Call to the Sea: Captain Charles Stewart of the USS Constitution"