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.