Increasing NHA Collections Access through Cased Photographs Collection Conservation

FAIN: PG-263564-19

NHA (Nantucket, MA 02554-3502)
Amelia W. Holmes (Project Director: May 2018 to March 2021)

A preservation assessment and the acquisition of preservation supplies to maintain a collection of 285 photographs which date from 1845 to the 1870s, constituting a unique record of the final years of Nantucket’s whaling industry.  The museum also holds extensive book, manuscript, and additional photographic materials related to the history of the island and its residents.  Because of their exceptionally fragile condition, these historic photographs remain in storage. Improved preservation conditions would allow staff to better care for and catalog these objects, making them available to the public through the museum’s online collections catalog.

Since 1894 the NHA has collected, preserved, and presented the artifacts, documents, and properties that tell the stories of Nantucket Island over four centuries. Our Cased Photograph Collection comprises 285 ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, and tintypes from 1845 to the 1870s and are often the only photographs of Nantucket’s whaling elite, particularly during the industry’s waning years before the last whaleship departed in 1869. A daguerreotype of Main Street is the only known photograph before the Great Fire of 1846. Many individuals are identified, and with our genealogical resources, can be linked to Nantucket families and stories. The images are evocative, but the collection is inadequately cataloged and stored, and the images are underutilized due to their fragile nature. To remedy this, a Preservation Assistance Grant will support an item-level conservation assessment of the cased collection and evaluation of existing collections management and necessary preservation activities.