A Preservation Assessment for The Wende Museum and Archive of the Cold War

FAIN: PG-50652-09

Wende Museum and Archive of the Cold War (Culver City, CA 90230-6520)
Justinian Jampol (Project Director: May 2008 to October 2010)

A preservation assessment of artifacts and documentary materials related to the history of Cold War-era Eastern Europe. The collections include an estimated 100,000 books and periodicals, 75 linear feet of archival material, and over 75,000 historical artifacts such as flags, banners, commemorative plaques, clothing, souvenirs, furniture, and works of art.

The Los Angeles-based Wende Museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to acquiring, preserving, and enabling access to the everyday objects, personal histories and documentary materials of Cold War-era Eastern Europe. Since the Museum's establishment in 2002, the collection has provided a unique resource of artifacts and archival materials through which students, scholars, journalists, and political observers from both East and West can investigate the diverse experiences and cultural expressions that emerged as a result of, as well as in spite of, communist rule. The Museum's primary goal is to preserve objects that would otherwise be destroyed, and a professional preservation assessment is integral to upholding that mission. The Museum seeks a grant of $5,200 to contract conservator Beverly Perkins for a general preservation assessment.