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[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"39158","attributes":{"class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","alt":"Chris Textiles"}}]]By Jennifer Noffze, Children's Museum Registrar and Archivist
Over the past two years, I’ve worked with our two Textile Assistants, Chief Conservator, and American Collection Curator to update storage conditions for our wonderful 9,000 piece textile collection! Obviously, we need a lot of space to store that many objects—could you imagine having a closet big enough to store 9,000 pieces of clothing? Our textile collection comprises everything from special outfits like baptismal gowns, Girl Scout uniforms, and wedding dresses to everyday items like jeans and sweaters and even fun items like Halloween costumes!
In 2012, the museum was awarded a prestigious IMLS Conservation Support grant in the amount of $125,000 with additional generous financial support from Gerald and Dorit Paul. We used these funds to hire two temporary assistants to help with inventory, moving and re-storing the items in a fabulous new shelving system. As Registrar/Archivist, it’s my job to keep track of everything in the collection; this means making sure that each item has a database record, digital image, and storage location.
Before moving the textiles, I worked with the two assistants to inventory the entire collection. This alone took us close to two months! We then moved everything out of the collection. Finding somewhere to store the items during this time was a challenge, but we used aisles in our over-sized storage space. Let’s just say that area was cramped for a while!
Once the new shelving was installed, our Textile Assistants started moving the items into the new space. I created a worksheet for them to use for gathering additional information about each piece including condition, measurements and types of materials. They also took a digital image of each piece that I added to the database—I've now seen every piece in the collection! It’s been great seeing new and fun items that I didn’t know we had. I’ve started a whole new list of favorite pieces including this fabulous 1960s dress!
The previous textile storage rooms were cramped and the overcrowded conditions were not safe for moving the pieces. It also made it hard to show off the collection to our visitors! With our new space it’s much easier to share our collection on special tours. The photo above shows our Director of Collections, Chris Carron, showing off the Campbell's Soup dress in the new, upgraded storage. The items are now less cramped and we can easily find pieces with the addition of hanging tags which list the accession number (the unique identification number that is given to every piece in our collection.) We were also able to upgrade storage conditions for specific groups of objects, like these incredible parasols!
Watch out next week for a brand new This Week's WOW, when Josh takes us inside the upgraded Textiles Storage to show us his top 5 favorite pieces!
