Purchase of Furniture to Upgrade Seward House Museum's Collections Storage

FAIN: PG-280709-21

Seward House Museum (Auburn, NY 13021-3929)
Emily Kraft (Project Director: January 2021 to October 2022)

The purchase of furniture to upgrade the Seward House Museum’s collections storage from metal, open shelving units to enclosed, temperature-regulated, secure cabinets, in accordance with its institutional preservation and strategic plans. This National Historic Landmark houses political memorabilia, fine and decorative art, photographs, Civil War artifacts, and ethnographic material, much of it associated with the travels of William Henry Seward, one of the foremost politicians of the nineteenth century, in what would eventually become the state of Alaska. These materials are critical to the museum’s narrative about the Seward family as well as programming and research offerings.

The Seward House Museum is seeking NEH Preservation Assistance for Smaller Institutions grant money to upgrade our current storage shelving to museum standard cabinetry. The Museum would like to use the money to purchase three mid-depth museum cabinets with glass doors to rehouse three important sub-collections. The collections are integral to our narrative about the Seward family, along with educational programming and scholarly research requests. The Museum is using industry standards and core documentation at the institution to justify this ask.