2019 Preservation Assistance Grant: Preparation through Preservation at Victoria College’s Museum of the Coastal Bend

FAIN: PG-263491-19

Victoria College (Victoria, TX 77901-4442)
Elizabeth Neucere (Project Director: April 2018 to June 2019)
Sue Prudhomme (Project Director: June 2019 to March 2021)

Purchase of archival and preservation equipment for improved future implementation of the collections management policy and emergency plan. The MCB’s collections span 13,000 years of history in this part of Texas and number around 25,000 objects, including stone artifacts from early coastal peoples, Native American pottery sherds, and seven French cannons of significance to the colonial history of the area. The collection is used for exhibitions, research, and teaching in this Hispanic-serving community college. The MCB was in an area evacuated during Hurricane Harvey (2017). While staff implemented the short-term emergency procedures, the natural disaster exposed collection objects to high heat and humidity and brought urgency to addressing inadequacies of current shelving, storage, and preservation equipment.

Victoria College’s Museum of the Coastal Bend (MCB) presents the last 13,000 years of history in the 10-county Texas Coastal Bend region. Its 25,000 artifacts include weapons, tools, jewelry, bones, and pottery that let the public explore regional cultural and economic origins through the transition from nomadic lifestyles to European economic and religious settlement to Spanish cattle ranching enterprise and the Mexican culture now ingrained in Texas’ society. This project focuses on the collection’s 90% research and interpretive artifacts. The goal is to align preventive conservation and disaster response capabilities with the standards of MCB’s Collections Management Policy and Emergency Plan. A HEPA vacuum, data logger system, and archival storage will preserve sensitive artifacts. After experiencing Hurricane Harvey’s effects, MCB will also purchase cabinetry and archival bags for the evacuation of on-display gallery artifacts and a dehumidifier for post-disaster mitigation.