Purchase of Furniture and Supplies to Upgrade Homewood Museum's Collections Storage Room

FAIN: PG-266664-19

Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD 21218-2608)
Julia Rose (Project Director: January 2019 to March 2022)

The purchase of storage furniture and preservation supplies to rehouse 434 metal and leather objects pertaining to early nineteenth-century life in Baltimore, Maryland.  Materials mainly consist of homewares, such as a leather trunk, silver salver, and leather fireplace bellows, used to portray the lives of the wealthy Charles Carroll family and their slaves, the Ross and Conner families. The award would also support the hiring of a consultant to plan a storage layout for the museum’s holdings.  Collection items are used for exhibitions, such as More Than a Name: Enslaved Families at Historic Homewood, and in undergraduate classes such as Conservation of Material Culture: Art, Artifacts, and Heritage Sites.

Grant funding would support the purchase of storage solutions and supplies to house Homewood Museum’s metal and leather collections, as recommended by a Collections Assessment for Preservation (CAP) report developed for the museum in 2018. Homewood Museum will upgrade a dedicated room on the historic house’s second floor to serve as a suitable collections storage space. Metal and leather objects in Homewood Museum’s collections were identified in its CAP assessment as a high priority for improved storage conditions. In consultation with an objects conservator, Homewood will purchase archival furniture and supplies, design the storage room’s overall layout, install and retrofit suitable storage solutions for metal and leather objects, and monitor environmental conditions. The museum will partner with Johns Hopkins University students in the interdisciplinary "Museums and Society" academic program who will provide an appropriate level of supervised project assistance.