James P. Delgado

James Preston Delgado FRGS, FRCGS (born January 11, 1958) is an American maritime archaeologist, historian, maritime preservation expert, author, television host, and explorer. Delgado is a maritime archaeologist with over four decades of experience in underwater exploration. He has participated in over 100 shipwreck investigations worldwide, including notable sites such as the RMS Titanic, USS Independence (CVL-22), USS Conestoga (AT-54), USS Monitor, USS Arizona (BB-39), USS Nevada (BB-36), Sub Marine Explorer, the buried Gold Rush ships of San Francisco, the atomic bomb test fleet at Bikini Atoll, the slave ship Clotilda, and Kublai Khan's lost fleet from the Mongol invasions of Japan.

James Preston Delgado FRGS, FRCGS
Delgado delivering a lecture in 2015
Born	James Preston Delgado (1958-01-11) January 11, 1958 San Jose, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Maritime archaeologist, explorer, author, TV host, historian
Spouse	Ann Goodhart
Awards	Officer of the Order of Civil Merit (Spain) Stefansson Medal (Explorers Club) John Lyman Book Awards James L. Deetz Award NOAA Administrator's Awards Department of Commerce Bronze Medal
Known for	His work on underwater exploration and shipwreck investigations
Academic background
Education	B.A. in American History M.A. in Maritime History and Underwater Research Ph.D. in Archeology
Alma mater	Simon Fraser University
Influences	Theodore "Ted" C. Hinckley, Constance B. "Connie" Perham, Edwin C. Bearss
Academic work
Discipline	Archaeology, history, journalism
Sub-discipline	Maritime archaeology, maritime history, underwater research
Main interests	Maritime archaeology, shipwreck investigations, and the preservation and documentation of maritime heritage
Website	jamesdelgado.com

Delgado has held significant positions in maritime museums, the U.S. National Park Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) maritime heritage programs. He has also been involved in academic and public presentations, university teaching, and has appeared in numerous television documentaries. He has developed standards and guidelines for the U.S. National Park Service's National Historic Landmark Studies to preserve maritime shipwrecks and maritime cultural sites.

Delgado has authored over 200 academic articles and more than 35 books, and he edited the first encyclopedia of underwater and maritime archaeology. He was named a Fellow of the Explorers Club in 1997 and is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and an Officer in Spain's Order of Civil Merit.

Early life and education

Delgado was born on January 11, 1958, in San Jose, California. He grew up in Blossom Valley and at the age of ten, Delgado was influenced by lessons on ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome from his teachers. During high school, Delgado worked alongside Bay Area archaeologists Chester King, Linda King, and Rob Edwards. He also interacted with graduate students from an archaeology class at San Jose State University. As an undergraduate at San Jose State, and influenced by Theodore "Ted" C. Hinckley, he studied history and later transferred to San Francisco State University as a cooperative education student with the National Park Service. He graduated with a B.A. in American history in 1981.

Career

Early days

By fourteen, Delgado's curiosity led him to a construction site near his home in the Santa Teresa Hills, where the remains of the Ohlone people were discovered. This site, which later became the Rancho de Santa Teresa, was being destroyed despite the presence of archaeologists. Delgado, initially volunteering alone, began mapping, photographing, and recovering artifacts from the site, continuing his efforts through high school. He later assisted in an excavation in 1980. The experience had a significant impact on Delgado, leading him to prepare the nomination papers for the site, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 as site #75002184. His research notes and materials are archived in the San Jose Public Library, documenting his early explorations of the nearby foothills.

In 1972, Delgado met with San Jose Mayor Norman Y. Mineta to advocate for changes in laws to protect archaeological sites. Mineta appointed him the San Jose Youth Commission's Liaison to the city's Historical Landmarks Commission. After serving for three years, Mayor Janet Gray Hayes appointed Delgado as a commissioner in 1976. He also served on the San Jose Bicentennial Commission and participated in the first inventory of historical and architectural heritage in 1977 and the Santa Clara County Heritage Inventory. He began working at the New Almaden Museum in 1972 and was mentored by museum founder Constance B. "Connie" Perham.

While at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, Delgado returned to university to obtain his Ph.D. in archaeology, receiving the degree in 2006 from Simon Fraser University.

Delgado's early work notably included documenting shipwreck remains and the surrounding environmental conditions exposed by beach erosion. He was a pioneer in this area of archaeology in the United States, starting with the wrecks of the schooner Neptune and those within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Delgado also examined the steamer Pomo at Point Reyes National Seashore and, in 1985, conducted an extensive survey of shipwreck remains at Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout National Seashores in North Carolina.

NPS

Delgado first served for a year as the assistant to NPS Western Regional Historian Gordon S. Chappell, where he completed a series of National Register of Historic Places nominations for sites as diverse as U.S. Highway 1 on the Northern California coast and the historic ships at San Francisco's Hyde Street Pier. Delgado worked with archaeologist Allen Pastron on several excavations beginning in 1979. Among the buried ships from 1849 to 1851 that he would help excavate or analyze are the storeships Niantic and General Harrison, the ships William Gray and Candace, and others.

Delgado remained with the NPS as the first Park Historian for Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) serving from 1979 to 1986. He co-directed the archaeological excavation of Civil War Black Point battery at Fort Mason with Martin T. Mayer. He also led the park's early efforts to survey, characterize, and restore elements of the Adolph Sutro Historic District, which included Sutro Heights, the grounds of the estate of Adolph Joseph Heinrich Sutro, developer of much of San Francisco's "Outside Lands," and onetime Mayor, as well as Sutro's Cliff House, San Francisco and the ruins of the Sutro Baths. It was part of the relatively new park's initial assessment of cultural resources within its boundaries and determining what was significant. As the first historian for the park, he, along with the park's first archaeologist, Martin T. Mayer, and its first historic architect, J. Patrick Christopher, completed the initial inventory and the first cultural resources management plan for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area and NPS

He was also interested and learned to scuba dive during his NPS tenure. Delgado worked closely with the Park Service's Submerged Cultural Resources Unit after the NPS sent him to the Presidio of San Francisco to attend an Army dive class. He was involved in wreck surveys both inside and outside NPS jurisdiction, including the first NPS surveys off Point Reyes National Seashore, Channel Islands National Park, and Cape Cod National Seashore, Pearl Harbor, where he studied the USS Arizona and USS Utah, and at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, where he worked with the team on the atomic-bombed ships of Operation Crossroads, the world's first nuclear tests (1946). He was the principal author of the final National Park Service study on the Bikini Atoll wrecks. Those shipwrecks include the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, Japanese battleship Nagato, the battleship USS Arkansas, the destroyer USS Lamson, the attack transport USS Gilliam, the attack transport USS Carlisle, and the submarines USS Pilotfish and USS Apogon.

Maritime preservation

In 1987, Delgado became the first Maritime Historian of the National Park Service and the founding chief of the NPS maritime preservation program, the National Maritime Initiative (NMI). The NMI at that time functioned as the maritime preservation program for the entire federal government. The Initiative later became known as the NPS Maritime Heritage Program In this role, Delgado oversaw the creation of classification standards and guidelines for preservation and documentation. Delgado was the principal author of the National Register of Historic Places' guidelines for nominating historic ships and shipwrecks and co-authored the National Register Bulletin for nominating historic aids to navigation.

As a guiding principle of the National Maritime Initiative, Delgado, based on his experience at Golden Gate National Recreation Area, insisted on a physical inspection of the nation's large historic vessels as part of the creation of a comprehensive national inventory of those vessels. That meant extensive travel throughout the United States, visiting ships, sailing, steaming, and motoring on them, inspecting them during shipyard haulouts and repairs, climbing masts, crawling through engine rooms, and not just conducting a desk-top survey from afar. The first inventory of the large historic ships in the United States, led by Delgado, was completed and published in 1990 in conjunction with J. Candace Clifford. It remains the basis for the National Park Service's ongoing, now digital inventory.

Working from the inventory, Delgado applied the criterion of the National Register of Historic Places and the National Historic Landmarks Program to determine which of some 330 large historic vessels were of national significance. He led the resulting effort, which studied study 142 ships for designation as national landmarks. He prepared the studies for 54 properties, including several lightships, fireboats, tugboats, submarines, and other warships. Delgado's work led to the largest group of maritime resources being designated as National Historic Landmarks since the creation of the NHL Program. Among the ships and sites he personally studied and nominated are the schooner Adventuress, USS Albacore, the fireboat Firefighter, the schooner Governor Stone, the U.S. Navy tug USS Hoga, the aircraft carriers USS Lexington and USS Hornet, schooner American Eagle, the tugboat Arthur Foss, the fireboat Duwamish, the destroyer USS Edson, the Victory Ship SS Lane Victory, the Ambrose Lightship, the river steamboat Nenana, the four-masted ship Falls of Clyde, the arctic schooner Bowdoin, the bark Elissa, the nuclear ship Savannah, and the excursion steamer Virginia V. Delgado also conducted the NHL study for Lowell's Boat Shop in Amesbury, Massachusetts, as well as the home of former First Lady Lou Henry Hoover at Stanford University.

As part of his duties, and with his degree in maritime archaeology, Delgado closely interacted with the National Park Service's Submerged Cultural Resources Center as well as the Chief Archaeologist of the NPS during his tenure with the National Maritime Initiative. This included co-authoring the guidelines for the implementation of the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987 following a series of national public meetings, several of which Delgado personally led.

Delgado also joined the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit (SCRU) in their fieldwork in various parks, including his former assignment, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Cape Cod National Seashore, Fort Jefferson National Monument, the USS Arizona Memorial, and outside the park system, notably at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. Delgado spent his final field season with NPS in 1990, working again at Bikini, and then leading a team to Mexico to jointly study the remains of the 1846 USS Somers, the setting for the navy's only mutiny and the inspiration for Herman Melville's Billy Budd. One of his final assignments was co-authoring the first submerged cultural resources assessment for the region where he first worked, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Point Reyes National Seashore, and the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.

The Vancouver Maritime Museum and The Sea Hunters

In 1991, he moved to Vancouver, British Columbia where he took on the role of Executive Director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum for the next 15 years. His work included organizing a $3-million reenactment of the historic Northwest Passage and North America-circumnavigating voyages of the museum's centerpiece exhibit, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police motor schooner, St. Roch. He led the crew that restored Ben Franklin (PX-15), a 130-ton oceanographic research submersible originally built in Switzerland for famed undersea explorer and scientist Jacques Piccard and most famously used on a historic 30-day "drift mission" along the eastern seaboard of the United States in 1969. He spearheaded a major initiative to relocate the museum from its original, crowded and outdated facilities and to create a National Maritime Center for Canada from 2004 to 2006, but despite gaining federal and provincial support, the effort faltered when the City of Vancouver, despite initial encouragement, ultimately decided not to support moving the museum. His final project at the museum, an illustrated maritime history of Vancouver, Waterfront, won the City of Vancouver Book Award and a British Columbia BC Book Award in 2006.

View of Sub Marine Explorer at Low Tide, 2006. (James P. Delgado)

The Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA)

In 2006, he remained in Vancouver but joined the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) as its Executive Director. In April 2008, he was elected President and CEO of this worldwide nautical archaeology organization. Among his achievements were a new strategic plan, a new website and publications, new partnerships, and several international projects undertaken by INA scholars. Among those were the excavation of a Phoenician wreck in Spain, the study of a riverine naval battle of 1288 in Vietnam, the excavation of Byzantine wrecks in Istanbul, and the study of abandoned and wrecked river steamers in Canada's Yukon. During this period, Delgado continued his own archaeological work, the documentation of a U.S. Civil War-era submersible, Sub Marine Explorer.

NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries

After a one-year sabbatical from the NPS, from 1984 to 1985, to attend East Carolina University, Delgado graduated with a master's degree in Maritime History and Underwater Research. His thesis focused on the Gold Rush steamer Tennessee, located in Tennessee Cove within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. He was subsequently assigned by NPS Chief Historian Edwin C. Bearss to work as a project historian on the USS Monitor project with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). That work led to a series of historical and archaeological context studies, and Delgado personally completed the successful nomination for Monitor's designation as one of the first National Historic Landmark shipwrecks in the United States. He subsequently completed the National Historic Landmark studies for the wrecks of USS Arizona and USS Utah at Pearl Harbor. As of 2018, there are only nine National Historic Landmark shipwrecks or hulks that have been designated by the Secretary of the Interior.

In October 2010, he left INA to become the Director of Maritime Heritage in the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries for the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration in Washington, D.C. He coordinated and supervised all maritime heritage activities in the 14 units in the NMS system, and provided maritime heritage support to all other parts of NOAA.

Maritime archaeology

Following his doctoral graduation in 2006, he was named and remains an Adjunct Member of the Faculty of the Department of Archaeology at Simon Fraser University. From 2001 to 2006, he hosted and was the team archaeologist on, the popular Canadian-made National Geographic international documentary series, which drew an audience of over 200 million people in over 172 countries for its six seasons. He worked with famous novelist, raconteur, and shipwreck hunter Clive Cussler, the series presenter, master divers Mike and Warren Fletcher, and John Davis from Eco-Nova Productions.

During his years with NOAA, he was involved in the Titanic mapping expedition in 2010 as chief scientist, continued his years of study on the Civil War-era, pearl-diving submersible Sub Marine Explorer, participated in fieldwork while reorganizing and focusing the maritime heritage program, and mentored five high school students from Saginaw, Michigan, for Project Shiphunt.

He led the excavation of the Civil War-era blockade-running steamer Mary Celestia in Bermuda, and either led or co-led maritime heritage expeditions in the Alaskan Arctic, in the waters of Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, where the wrecks of SS City of Rio de Janeiro, SS City of Chester, SS Ituna, SS Selja, and USS Conestoga, among others, were discovered, a survey of coastal communities and the maritime cultural landscape north of San Francisco, the sonar survey of the wreck of USS Hatteras, and deep water submersible expeditions off Hawaii that led to the discovery of the Japanese super-submarine I-400 and the former cable-laying ship USS Kailua, ex-SS Dickensen. Delgado worked closely with NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration in telepresence-enabled missions that relied on remotely operated vehicles linked to shore-based exploration and command centers and the public through the Internet. He also worked with and continues to work with Dr, Robert Ballard's Ocean Exploration Trust on telepresence missions. These have included the first telepresence-assisted maritime archaeological excavation in deep water, with an early 19th-century shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico in 2013, the archaeological reconnaissance of the wrecks of the SS Coast Trader and SS Dorothy Wintermote, and the first archaeological documentation of the wrecks of USS Independence and USS Bugara.

Delgado created a NOAA maritime heritage publication series, instituted the use of maritime cultural landscapes as a principle for characterizing and managing maritime cultural resources in the National Marine Sanctuary System, and led NOAA's ongoing role in the U.S. Government's activities related to the wreck of Titanic. He also was key in the successful negotiation and signing of international agreements between the United States, the Kingdom of Spain, and the Republic of France on shared underwater and maritime cultural heritage, and represented the United States in international meetings with the United Nationals Educational and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Delgado also co-chaired the interagency working group on underwater cultural heritage in Washington, D.C. during his NOAA tenure.

SEARCH, Inc.

In 2017, Delgado retired from public service and became the Senior Vice President of SEARCH, Inc., a major American cultural resources and archaeological firm. He led the analysis of a wreck thought to be Clotilda, the last American ship to bring slaves to the United States. The analysis by Delgado and his colleagues determined the wreck was not Clotilda. He then led a survey which analyzed over a dozen possible targets that culminated in a year-long excavation and analysis that identified one of the targets as Clotilda. He subsequently was the lead author for the listing of the wreck in the National Register of Historic Places. The results were revealed by the Alabama Historical Commission in May 2019. Subsequent projects focused on Clotilda culminated in the 2024 announcement that the wreck, while intact as an archaeological site, cannot be raised and preserved ashore as it is fragile and cost tens of millions of dollars to try to preserve it once out of the water. Delgado's other projects at SEARCH have included other maritime projects, notably serving as the Series Senior Advisor for the ongoing National Geographic Television Series Drain the Oceans, in which he also frequently appears. In May 2020, Delgado was the lead archaeologist in the search for, discovery, and exploration of the battleship USS Nevada (BB-36), discovered by Ocean Infinity and SEARCH, Inc. in three miles of water off Oahu.

Public service and fellowships

In addition to 20 years of public service in the National Park Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Delgado has held a series of appointed civic political positions and has served as an officer in professional associations, including a term as President of the Council of American Maritime Museums. He is a Registered Professional Archaeologist (RPA), and is an elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and The Explorers Club. He is a longstanding member of the Society for Historical Archaeology, the Archaeological Institute of America, and the Society for American Archaeology. He has served on the editorial board for professional journals and is on the editorial advisory board of Archaeology Magazine.

He has been the recipient of several professional and public service awards, including special achievement awards for sustained superior performance from the National Park Service, the Department of Commerce Bronze medal, NOAA Administrator's Awards, book awards including twice receiving the Society for Historical Archaeology's James Deetz Award, the North American Society for Oceanic History's John Lyman Award, Choice's Academic Title of the Year, and was also named Naval History Magazine's Author of the Year. In 2012, he received the Stefansson Medal for Outstanding Contributions to the cause of exploration and/or field sciences in Canada or internationally by exceptionally meritorious Canadian members of the Explorers Club. In 2014, he was named an Officer of the Order of Civil Merit, Knight's Cross by His Majesty Juan Carlos I, King of Spain, for services rendered to Spain for the protection of Spanish underwater cultural heritage while President and CEO of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in the matter of the wreck of the frigate Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes (2014).

In the media

Delgado's minor as an undergraduate was journalism. He has applied this emphasis to a number of the articles and books he has written, to connect to the public. He has written for the Vancouver Sun, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and popular magazines, including Archaeology, American History Illustrated, Naval History, and Wreck Diver. Beginning with his tenure with the National Park Service in San Francisco, he regularly appeared on local, regional, and national news, again emphasizing people's stories and common aspects of history that connect communities. He has appeared in documentary films since the 1990s and continues to actively promote archaeology and history on film and the Internet, including a series of short takes on maritime archaeology and history for CuriosityStream.

Delgado has appeared as a guest speaker at the TED-inspired EG series in Monterey, and at IdeaCity in Toronto. He actively lectures worldwide, including as a regular lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America, lectured onboard small adventure cruise vessels for Lindblad and Zegrahm Expeditions for nearly three decades, and regularly speaks to his favorite audience, school classes ranging from kindergarten to college. One of his favorite activities in this regard was Project Shiphunt. In his role as Director of NOAA's Maritime Heritage Program, Delgado mentored a group of five Saginaw, Michigan high school students on a shipwreck research expedition in Lake Huron. The mission was sponsored by Sony and the Intel Corp and resulted in a positive, life-changing experience for the students and a documentary film.

Personal life

Delgado is married and lives with his wife Ann Goodhart in Rockville, Maryland. He moved there in 2017 when he became senior vice president of Search Inc. Delgado has two children from his marriage.

Awards and honors

• 1999: John Lyman Book Awards
• 2011 and 2021: Society for Historical Archaeology's James L. Deetz Award
• 2006: City of Vancouver Book Award
• Officer of the Order of Civil Merit (Spain)
• NOAA's Administrator Awards
• The Department of Commerce Bronze medal

Selected bibliography

Books

• Delgado, James P. (27 June 2019). War at Sea: A Shipwrecked History from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190888022.
• Delgado, James P. (2012). Misadventures of a civil war submarine: Iron, guns, and pearls. Texas A&M University Press.
• Silent Killers: Submarines and Underwater Warfare. Osprey Publishing. 2011. ISBN 978-1-84908-365-2.
• Nuclear Dawn: The Atomic Bomb from the Manhattan Project to the Cold War. Osprey Publishing. 2009. ISBN 978-1-84603-396-4.
• Khubilai Khan's Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada. University of California Press. 2009. ISBN 978-0-520-25976-8.
• Gold Rush Port: The Maritime Archaeology of San Francisco's Waterfront. University of California Press. 2009. ISBN 978-0-520-25580-7.
• Adventures of a Sea Hunter: In Search of Famous Shipwrecks. Douglas & McIntyre. 2004. ISBN 978-1-55365-071-3.
• Joy Waldron Jasper; James P. Delgado; Jim Adams (2001). The USS Arizona: the ship, the men, the Pearl Harbor attack, and the symbol that aroused America. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-28690-3.

Edited books

• Delgado, J. P., Marx, D. E., Lent, K., Grinnan, J., & DeCaro, A. (2023). Clotilda: The history and archaeology of the last slave ship. University of Alabama Press.
• Delgado, J. P., & Nagiewicz, S. D. (2020). Robert J. Walker: the history and archaeology of a US coast survey steamship. University Press of Florida.
• Carol Ruppé; Jan Barstad, eds. (2002). "Marine and Underwater Archaeology on the Pacific Coast". International handbook of underwater archaeology. Springer. ISBN 978-0-306-46345-7.
• Delgado, J. P., Mendizábal, T., Hanselmann, F. H., & Rissolo, D. (2016). The maritime landscape of the Isthmus of Panamá. University Press of Florida

Selected papers

• Delgado, J. P. (2024). The Blake Ridge Wreck: A Deepwater Antebellum American Fishing Craft. Journal of Maritime Archaeology, 1-36.
• Brennan, M. L., Delgado, J. P., Jozsef, A., Marx, D. E., & Bierwagen, M. (2023). Site formation processes and pollution risk mitigation of World War II oil tanker shipwrecks: Coimbra and Munger T. Ball. Journal of Maritime Archaeology, 18(2), 321-335.
• Delgado, J. P., Brennan, M. L., Haoa, S. A. R., Leong, J. H. R., Gaymer, C. F., Carabias, D., ... & Wagner, D. (2022). The hidden landscape: maritime cultural heritage of the Salas y Gómez and Nazca ridges with implications for conservation on the high seas. Marine Policy, 136, 104877.
• Delgado, J. P., Brennan, M. L., Elliott, K., Matthews, R. E., Lickliter-Mundon, M., Lambert, J. G., ... & Schwemmer, R. V. (2018). Archaeological survey of the ex-USS Independence (CVL22). Journal of Maritime Archaeology, 13, 123-144.
• Brennan, M. L., Cantelas, F., Elliott, K., Delgado, J. P., Bell, K. L., Coleman, D., ... & Ballard, R. D. (2018). Telepresence-enabled maritime archaeological exploration in the deep. Journal of Maritime Archaeology, 13, 97-121.
• Brennan, M. L., Davis, D., Ballard, R. D., Trembanis, A. C., Vaughn, J. I., Krumholz, J. S., ... & DuVal, C. (2016). Quantification of bottom trawl fishing damage to ancient shipwreck sites. Marine Geology, 371, 82-88.
• Delgado, J. P. (2000). Underwater archaeology at the dawn of the 21st century. Historical Archaeology, 34(4), 9-13.

See also

• Institute of Nautical Archaeology
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAO)

External links

• Delgado's Professional Bio
• Records of James P. Delgado are held by Simon Fraser University's Special Collections and Rare Books