Purchase of Environmental Monitoring Equipment to Preserve Collections of the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum

FAIN: PG-51703-12

Colonial Dames of America (New York, NY 10065-8736)
Mary Anne Caton (Project Director: May 2011 to October 2013)

The purchase of equipment and training of staff to monitor environmental conditions in the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum's 1799 building, which functioned as a public hotel from 1826 to 1833 serving both travelers and day customers. The museum focuses on this time period, using its collections of furniture, paintings, ceramics, musical instruments, metals, textiles, and documents in exhibitions and educational programs to explore travel, leisure, work, and play in antebellum New York.

The Mount Vernon Hotel Museum (MVHM) seeks a Preservation Assistance Grant to establish an environmental monitoring program in its 1799 building as the first phase in our work to improve the environment for the collection. Grant funds would support the first comprehensive environmental monitoring program for the museum, designed by museum preservation environment experts, through purchase of data loggers and equipment, staff training, and preliminary review of the collected environmental data in preparation for in-depth planning for comprehensive environmental improvements and replacement of the existing aging systems. As recommended by the ReCAP team, MVHM will purchase additional equipment to complement the dataloggers currently in use; staff will be trained in equipment operation and data transmission to the consulting conservator; the conservator will prepare the transmitted data for future analysis and archive the raw and prepared data.