Museums Probably Don’t Want Your Stuff

Museums probably don’t want your stuff. It’s hard to imagine but it’s the cold, hard truth. You may have family heirlooms that no one in your family has room for and you thought that a museum would want them. They might, ask around and see. But here are some reasons that a museum might not want your stuff and what to do with it instead:

1. It’s unlikely you have a truly “museum quality” piece. Museum quality means different things when dealing with different items. 

2. If your piece is quality, it might not have enough historical value or be significant or rare enough. Letters, diaries and photos are one-of-a-kind, mass produced items such as 20^th century clothing or books, probably aren’t rare enough. The museum might even already have a few identical items. If it is a really historical piece, the quality probably doesn’t matter anyway. Letters, diaries and photos, get snatched up quickly as do items that are pre-1900.  

3. Most museums have big collections and small budgets. Artifact preservation, archiving and storage cost a lot of money. Would you believe the Library of Congress receives 22,000 donated items per day according to their website and adds 10,000 of those items to their collection daily? That’s a lot of conservation!   

The National WWII museum says it best “Due to the generous donations of WWII veterans, their families, friends and other donors, the Museum has neared its goal of acquiring a collection that is representative of the American Experience in World War II, thus the Museum must be selective with any new artifacts it accepts. Our archives, though, are ever growing, and we are particularly seeking additions to our archive of personal stories and wartime letters, diaries and photographs.”

Many people donate to museums with the idea that they can visit their item on display, but this is frequently not the case. Museums have many more items in storage than they do on display. Museums strive to tell stories through their exhibitions; your item may never make the display collection. Researchers will still be able to study your item but “visiting” the item with your grandkids might be out of the question. A museum might even sell your item after a few years if they don’t have room for it. Right now, museums are selling parts of their collections to make up for the lack of funding. 
 

What to do with family heirlooms that no one wants:

- You probably know at least one history-crazed person who would *love* your stuff. Not that I know any… :) 

-Try visiting local museums or museums in the town that the owner grew up in. A big war museum might not want dad’s Vietnam helmet but a small museum trying to tell the history of a town might.  

-See if any museums are putting on exhibits in the future that your piece might fit well in. Many museum websites have lists of items that they are accepting or want. 

- Consider donating to a local school, club, or community center. Many places, not just museums, are interested in telling the local history. Many reenacting groups like to have originals for study and for living history exhibits.

-Sell it. It might seem harsh to sell a family heirloom but if no one truly wants it, you are really under no obligation to keep it. Grandma would probably scold you for holding on to her wedding dress all of these years and tell you to buy something nice for her grand kids.  

Things to think about before you donate:

-Will you retain the rights to reprint or use photos and letters after you transfer ownership?

-Did you make a digital record of your things? Photograph artifacts from a variety of angles and scan photos and letters? Just because you don’t have room for the physical items doesn’t mean you have to erase their existence. You can find an online site and make the photos, letters and diary entries into books inexpensively. You could even make copies for your relatives. 

-Did you add a note to the item detailing the history of it? You might want to ask family members for further recollections. Help give the piece context. 

-Are you absolutely sure that you or your kids will not want the item? Will your kids want to show it to their kids? If you think this is a possibility, keep it until they are old enough to make the decision. If this is the case, you might consider loaning the item to a museum, if possible.

Knitted Beret

I finally got some modern knitting done! I'm always excited for modern knitting because I work with period yarns a lot and after awhile the selection is pretty boring.

I was so excited to finish that I threw it on and took some photos. Now that I am looking at them, I really should have changed out of my pajamas and put something nice on.







It's pretty from the back, it forms a intricate looking star pattern but it ended up being pretty easy.

Side view of the beret.

This project was great because it only required a small ball of cotton. I choose a cream color like the original pattern purely for the fact that I wanted to be able to wear this with a lot of different outfits. up close the cotton has tiny little black specs. I liked that I could wear this one in the summer and into the fall.  

Close-up view of the pattern.

This pattern can be downloaded for free from Ravelry at Spring Beret.






If you don't have a Ravelry account they might make you sign up, but it's free and worth it to see everyone's projects and comments. I know reading the comments on there saved me from a lot of frustration and stitch-ripping.

The Perversion of Classic Novels (Warning: This post deals with adult themes.)

When i first heard about "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," I thought it was a cheap gimmick but pretty harmless. Many people have told me that the book and others along the same lines have gotten their sons interested in classics that typically appeal to girls. I support this. Books like this can create conversation between brothers and sisters. That's great. A book like this might even inspire younger readers to read the real thing some day.

I am typically for anything that gets people reading, but there's a new "treatment"  classics are getting that make them,well, not classics. Classics are timeless. The themes they explore are enduring and the struggles are as real today as they were the day they were written. These new adaptions are not. Our favorite classics such as "Jane Eyre", "Pride and Prejudice", "Nothanger Abbey", and even "Sherlock Holmes" have been colored a la "50 Shades of Grey."

Thoroughly modern readers will be appalled at my backwardness and prudishness. Far from it. Maybe I read too deeply into things but I think a glance or the holding of a hand can betray 1,000 feelings in a way that a graphic scene cannot. I may be in the minority but I find the the subtle attraction and tension in "Pride and Prejudice" to be alluring. I have an imagination, I don't need help connecting the dots. 

What happened in our culture to get to the point where we need everything spelled out? Remember in older movies where murder, death and sex happened off-screen and the plots weren't affected by it? Why does everything try to shock us now? I'm never so shocked at what I see as I am that the directors thought that I wouldn't notice that the story wasn't good because they added a bunch of explosions and nudity. A good story does well on its own. It doesn't need gimmicky fillers. Classics don't need fillers, they are already great stories. A good story, like a classy lady is as much about what you don't see as what you do see.

Naked people and violence are nothing new. It's shocking that this is the new "love." Aren't we inundated with enough graphic messages? Aren't our daughters oversexed enough? Since when does lust equal love and why are we teaching this message?

For more on the subject:

-News Busters
-New Versions, Still Classics?
-Oh Mr. Darcy!


What are your thoughts?

You Might be a Reenactor if...

Ladies will understand. :)

"But What is it Worth?" (and Why You Shouldn't Answer It) The Price of Antiques

As a person in the history field, I hear this question a lot. Sometimes I explain to a tour group that we can't touch anything in the rooms, because most  of the furniture is over 200 years old. Someone, either adult or child, will invariably point to an object and ask "What is it worth?"

"This object gives historians a lot of information about how people lived in the 1700s. This information was not recorded in books and therefore it is of considerable value to historians."

That's not what they want to hear. They will then clarify their question as if I didn't understand, "How much money is it worth?"

I don't know if it is today's economy, but lately historical artifacts seem to be about the money that can be made. Shows like American Pickers, Pawn Stars, American Digger and many others put an emphasis on the price tag of antiques instead of their educational, historical and cultural value. It is an even more grave situation, when people are prompted to loot historic sites, like what happened in Gettysburg two weeks ago.

It's really important for history educators to go over the basics of archeology and the importance of artifacts and antiques to our understanding of history. Tell your listeners the importance of the information gained from archeological sites and how the artifacts collected are not the goal, but a result of archeologists excavating for information. Try to bring the focus off the antiques and artifacts and try to emphasis how important these things are for learning about the past.

It's almost never good to put a monetary value on an antique in front of a crowd. Many people have the notion that antiques are worth huge sums of money, and some are. But, most antiques are pretty modest in price compared to the impression many get from Antiques Roadshow. If you tell your crowd that your dug Civil War Eagle Coat button is only monetarily worth about $6.55, many will be surprised at the low "value" but many more won't have an interest in holding it because it's no longer special in their eyes. Putting a monetary value on these things breaks the connection with the past that each individual can make when touching and passing them around.  

Has anyone else noticed this at events and in museums? If someone asks you about the "value" of something, what do you say?