Coombs Brothers Architectural Drawings Collection Rehousing Project

FAIN: PG-50669-09

Maine Historical Society (Portland, ME 04101-3498)
Nicholas Noyes (Project Director: May 2008 to May 2011)

The purchase of storage cabinets and archival supplies to house 5,000 architectural drawings from the Coombs Brothers Collection, documenting the work of a notable New England architectural firm. These sources are consulted not only by historians of the built environment but also by numerous home owners, builders, and architects.

The proposed project would help re-house 512 project sets of architectural drawings from the Coombs Brothers Architectural Drawings Collection through the purchase of five locking flat files, three flat file bases, and 250 archival folders. The Collection includes approximately 5,000 architectural drawings representing 668 commissions of the Lewiston, Maine based architectural firm from 1873 - ca. 1940. These drawings help document the built environment from the mid-19th century to mid-20th century in Maine. The drawings are presently rolled in Kraft paper and stored in cardboard moving boxes with no spare flat files for appropriate storage and access. The drawings are primarily on starch cloth ranging from 50 x 70 cm. (20 x 27 in.) to 113 x 142 cm. (45 x 57 in.) Of the fifteen architectural firm archives at MHS, the Coombs Brothers Collection is the second most requested, after the John Calvin Stevens Collection.