Preservation Assessment of Historical Scrapbooks

FAIN: PG-51242-11

International Tennis Hall of Fame, Inc. (Newport, RI 02840-3515)
Douglas Andrew Stark (Project Director: May 2010 to November 2012)

A preservation assessment of 200 scrapbooks that document the history of tennis in the late 19th and 20th centuries, as well as the social history of the Newport Casino, a men's club that served as an early venue for tennis. Highlights of the collection include the personal scrapbooks of business titan Jay Gould, an avid court tennis player, as well as the scrapbooks of Helen Hull Jacobs and Alice Marble, which chronicle the development of women's tennis from the 1920s to the 1950s. Once a preservation plan is implemented, the scrapbooks would join the museum's other humanities collections made publicly available through exhibitions, public programs, and research services.

The International Tennis Hall of Fame seeks to hire a consultant from the Northeast Document Conservation Center to prepare a written report on the museum's scrapbook collection. The consultant's report will address an overview of the scrapbooks, how they are presently housed and maintained, suggested guidelines for the preservation of the scrapbooks, recommendations for protective enclosures, and three treatment proposals for those scrapbooks in immediate need of conservation. This report will assist in developing conservation and interpretive plans for the museums. Our facility interprets the history of tennis and its impact on our culture as well as the building which is representative of the Gilded Age in Newport, RI, and is a National Historic Landmark.