Conservation for Collections in Stearns County

FAIN: PG-50994-10

Stearns History Museum (St. Cloud, MN 56301-3752)
Ann Elizabeth Meline (Project Director: May 2009 to September 2010)

Hiring a preservation consultant to assess local history and ethnographic collections held by six formally affiliated museums in Stearns County, Minnesota, that include the Stearns Historical Museum; historical societies in the towns of Centre, Melrose, Kimball, St. Joseph, and Paynesville; and the unaffiliated Sinclair Lewis Foundation in Sauk Center. Collectively, these hold more than 23,250 household, agricultural, and recreational artifacts documenting the immigrant experience; 405 Dakota and Ojibwe ethnographic items; 500,000 images; 1,000 linear feet of documents; 900 books; 1,800 audiotapes; and 17,000 family histories.

The National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation Assistance Grant For Smaller Institutions will support a collections project with two components. The first component is an examination of clothing, quilts, glassware, shoes, and beadwork of the Stearns History Museum's (SHM) and five affiliated museums in Stearns County. Stearns History Museum has a formal affiliate relationship with historical societies in the Stearns County towns of Sauk Centre, Melrose, Kimball, St. Joseph, and Paynesville. Also included is the Sinclair Lewis Foundation in Sauk Centre.