The Kankakee County Historical Society Museum Preservation Assessment

FAIN: PG-51897-13

Kankakee Couny Historical Society (Kankakee, IL 60901-4744)
Connie Licon (Project Director: May 2012 to September 2014)

Hiring a consultant to undertake a preservation assessment of a collection of historical manuscripts, photographs, artifacts, and period rooms that document the life and history of Kankakee County, Illinois. Highlights of the collection include the 19th-century journal of one of the county's earliest settlers, fur trader Noel LeVasseur; glass-plate negatives of a turn-of-the-century amateur photographer; and photographic negatives dating back to the 1950s of the "Kankakee Daily Journal"; the Taylor one-room schoolhouse, built in 1904; and housing materials and furnishings from the era.

The Kankakee County Historical Society seeks to have a professional conservator perform a preservation assessment on the KCHS collection. The KCHS collection is over one hundred years old, and has never had an assessment. The collection is heavily used by historians, researchers, genealogists, and the general public and is of great importance to the community. If awarded the National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions grant, the KCHS will employ professional conservator Jennifer Teper to perform the necessary preservation assessment, and will then use this assessment as a tool to create a preservation plan. Having a preservation assessment of the collection is the first important step in creating a preservation plan, prioritizing preservation treatments, and ensuring that the collection remains in good condition and is accessible to the community into the future.