Storage Furniture and Preservation Supplies for the Museum of the Grand Prairie

FAIN: PG-51954-13

Museum of the Grand Prairie (Mahomet, IL 61853)
Barbara Oehlschlaeger-Garvey (Project Director: May 2012 to September 2014)

The purchase of storage furniture and preservation supplies for the museum's collection of more than 18,000 tools, items of furniture, and other artifacts--most of them related to the history of Champaign County, Illinois, from the 18th to the 20th century. Particular emphasis would be placed on preserving items of clothing (575), quilts (60), historic lamps and other lighting equipment (326), photographs of rural life (350), and oral history interviews of veterans of the Second World War (225).

The Museum of the Grand Prairie requests $5,978 for the purchase and installation of Spacesaver shelving components and archival quality storage supplies to complete the relocation of its collection, and for expenses related to the training and oversight of staff and volunteers involved in this effort. This project will allow the museum to meet the final recommendation of its CAP study - to move its collection into a climate-controlled, highly efficient, accessible, and secure storage space. A 1,200 square foot dedicated, state-of-the-art collections storage and processing area will be available when a new addition to the museum is completed this summer. The humanities collections to be relocated consist of a wide range of artifacts used by the museum for exhibits and programming, including quilts, textiles, the Redhed/Smith lighting collection, glass plate and acetate negatives documenting early farm life in Champaign County, and WW II oral histories from area veterans.