Improved Storage for Naper Settlement's Humanities Collections

FAIN: PZ-50127-08

Naper Settlement (Naperville, IL 60540-6517)
Louise Howard (Project Director: October 2007 to July 2010)

The purchase of storage furniture and rehousing of approximately 24,000 items from Naper Settlement's archival and material culture collections, which document the history of Naperville from its pioneer days to the present.

The Naperville Heritage Society, the parent organization for Naper Settlement, a history museum in Naperville, Illinois has partnered with the City of Naperville to build a 23,000 square feet storage facility within the new $25M Public Works Service Center. The Heritage Society requests $591,088 to support the re-housing of its Museum Collection to the new storage area and expand on-site archival storage. The new climate-controlled, secure areas will house 88% of the museum's current 27,000 items not on public exhibition, and allow for 15 years of future collecting. The archives, clothing and accessories, textiles, personal adornment and artifacts, recreational items, military artifacts and armaments, household furnishings, furniture, tools, equipment and transportation artifacts are significant examples of material culture telling the story of the people who developed America's heartland.