Bill Beebe Collection Cold Storage Project
FAIN: PG-266756-19
Santa Monica History Museum (Santa Monica, CA 90401-1608)
Sara Crown (Project Director: January 2019 to October 2023)
The purchase of two freezers and preservation
supplies to rehouse 40 linear feet of photographic negatives from the Bill
Beebe Collection. The photographs were taken between the 1930s and 1990s for
the Santa Monica Evening Outlook
newspaper and provide a visual record of the city’s public history and daily
life, covering subjects such as parades and celebrations, buildings and land developments,
local officials, and political activities.
In its proposed project, the museum would be following the guidance of
authorities in the preservation field, such as the Image Permanence Institute
and the National Park Service. Through
the museum’s online photograph archive, it shares its historical photograph
collection, having received over 3,300 views in 2018.
The Santa Monica History Museum (SMHM) respectfully requests a $4,033 National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation Assistance Grant to enhance the preservation of one of the museum’s most significant photography collections—the Bill Beebe Collection, which consists of 87 linear feet of negatives. The proposed project includes the purchase and implementation of a cold storage program to house the sensitive portion of the Bill Beebe Collection within the museum’s building. Cold storage preservation is integral to halting the deterioration of the photographic negatives in this collection. The collection documents Santa Monica, one of Southern California’s most vibrant cities, from the 1930s to the 1990s. Successful completion of the proposed project addresses one of the priorities specified in a preservation assessment conducted by an outside consultant in 2017. The SMHM is dedicated to preserving Santa Monica’s rich history and making it available to members of the community.