Using Museum Collections

CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Information for Parks, Federal Agencies, Indian Tribes, States, Local Governments, and the Private Sector CRM VOLUME 18 NO. 10 1995 Using Museum Collections U.S. DEPARTMENT OFTHE INTERIOR National Park Service Cultural Resources PUBLISHED BY THE VOLUME 18 NO. 10 1995 NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Contents ISSN 1068-4999 To promote and maintain high standards for preserving and managing cultural resources Introduction Restoring Wolves and Integrated Pest Management Using NPS Museum Historic Interiors 28 and Preserving DIRECTOR Collections 3 Susan Kraft Exhibit Items 42 Roger G. Kennedy Jean H. Rodeck Bruce A. Weisman Mementos and Memories: ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR We've Come a Long Way: The Vietnam Veterans Exhibiting Katherine H. Stevenson A Servicewide View 4 Memorial Collection .... 30 Color Copies 43 Ann Hitchcock Duery Felton Doug Stover EDITOR Tony Porco Mike Antonioni Ronald M. Greenberg Perspectives From Restoration to Replicating Historic The Guise of Summer: Collections in the PRODUCTION MANAGER Seasonal Changes in Fund-raising 32 Karlota M. Koester National Park Service... 44 Historic House Christine Ford Louise Samson GUEST EDITOR Furnishings 6 Florissant Fossil Beds lean H. Rodeck (Swearingen) David Guynes National Monument.... 34 Anniversaries Doris Kneuer Exhibit Celebrates Draft Standards for the ADVISORS Glacier's 85th Treatment of a Distinct David Andrews San Francisco Maritime Anniversary 45 Editor. NPS Cultural Resource 10 National Historical Deirdre Shaw Joan Bacharach Nancy H. Waters Park 34 Museum Registrar, NPS Lisbet Collins Bailey Another First for Randall J. Biallas Beyond Traditional Erica Schoenhals Toland the Wright Brothers .... 46 Historical Architect, NPS Curation of Collections. 14 John A. Bums Steve Harrison Architect, NPS Abby Sue Fisher Two Hundred and Sixteen Jamestown Prepares for Harry A. Butowsky Carolyn Wallingford Square Feet of Treasure. 35 Historian, NPS Jennifer S. Wolk Quadricentennial Pratt Cassity The University of Alaska in 2007 47 Executive Director, Mammal Collection .... 15 Mount Rushmore David F. Riggs National Alliance of Preservation Commissions Joseph A. Cook National Memorial 36 Muriel Crespi Jim Popovich Documentation Cultural Anthropologist. NPS Uses of Museum It's a Matter of Time Craig W. Davis Jennifer Chapman Collections 16 The Value of ArcheologistNPS Little Bighorn Mark R. Edwards H. Dale Durham Documentation 49 Director. Historic Preservation Division, National Monument.... 36 Connie Hudson State Historic Preservation Officer. Georgia Using Resource Scott Pawlowski Backlund Bruce W. Fry Management Records... 18 Chief of Research Publications Elizabeth Banks The Southeast Utah ANCS Provides Access National Historic Sites, Parks Canada Group 37 to Alaska Museum John Hnedak Museum Collections in Vicki Black Webster Architectural Historian. NPS Collections 50 the Columbia Cascades Roger E. Kelly A Rare Spot for an Owl. 38 Eileen Devinney Archeologist, NPS Cluster 20 Antoinette J. Lee Kent Bush Mia Monro Storage Historian, NPS Sapatqayn, Nakia's Link Designing Critical Habitat John Poppeliers Uses to the Past 38 for Collections Use 51 International Liaison Officer A Used Collection Still for Cultural Resources. NPS Bob Chenoweth Jonathan Bayless in Use 21 Brit Allan Storey Linda Paisano High Technology in Historian, Bureau of Reclamation Bess Gibbs Federal Preservation Forum Rediscovering Civil War Era Storage Using the Fort Union Resources 39 Facility 52 CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Trading Post Felice S. Ciccione Anna von Lunz Stephen A. Morris Collection 24 Certified Local Governments (CLG) Coordinator, NPS MOUs Can Be The Curator Kay D. Weeks Audrey Barnhart Technical Writer-Editor, NPS the Way to Go 40 The Curator as Social Harry S Truman Pamela Beth West Historian 53 CONSULTANTS National Historic Site ... 25 Doris D. Fanelli Michael G. Schene R. Scott Stone Techniques Historian, NPS Preserving and Exhibiting Bibliography Wm. H. Freeman Historic Structure Publications Using Design, Imaging, Production-Freeman Publishing Services Wet Specimens 41 Field Collections 27 Douglas Stover NPS Collections 57 Carol J. Dage Martha J. Lee Cover image: See page 9. Statements of fact and views are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect an opinion or endorsement on the part of the editors, the CRM advisors and consultants, or the National Park Service. Send articles, news items, and correspondence to the Editor, CRM (2250), U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Cultural Resources, P.O. Box 37127,Washington, DC 20013-7127; (202-343-3395, Fax 202-343-5260, Internet: [email protected]). 2 CRM N^ 10—1995 Jean H. Rodeck Using National Park Service Museum Collections he National Park Service has more of archives) which we are documenting and stor than 28 million natural science ing to be available for future generations. Now specimens, prehistoric artifacts, that we have them, and know what and where ethnographic objects, historic they are (well, we are still working on that), what objectsT, and 11,800 linear feet (l.f.) of archives in purpose can they serve other than to document the the collections of over 300 parks and seven cen park resources? ters in the states and territories of the United In this issue of CRM, there are examples of States. The articles in this issue of CRM present what we can do with these objects and archives some of the many uses to which the collections now, and what can be done in the future. We hope are put each year. these examples will provide readers with inspira Museum collections are each park's natural tion or provocation to begin, or continue, to use and cultural resources; they are not something collections in a manner that will expand the "extra" that is added to a park, but the basic bits knowledge of the parks and make the collections and pieces of the park itself. Museum collections more interesting and visible to the public. are the biology, geology, paleontology, archeology, The people who have contributed to this ethnography, history, and archives of each monu issue are front-line keepers of the public trust. ment, preserve, historic site, and national recre They are the curators, museum technicians, and ation area. The only aspect that differentiates staff with the ancillary duty of collection manage them from other resources in the parks is that they ment, whatever their titles, who have been given can no longer be left in situ or they will be lost. (and have accepted) the responsibility of safe Losing park resources is against the law, for visi guarding, and using, those natural and cultural tors as well as for the keepers of the public trust— resources that are now in boxes and cabinets employees of the National Park Service. across the country. These are the people who must be involved when park managers need information The women sat among the doomed things, to make management decisions. These are the turning them over and looking past them and back. people who can assist managers by expanding their knowledge of what is already known about a This book. My father had it. He liked a book. park contained in archives, museum cabinets, and Pilgrim's Progress. Used to read it. Got his name in herbariums. These are the curators in the trenches. These are the people that should be it... Here's a letter my brother wrote the day before used as thoroughly as they have indicated that he died. Here is an old-time hat. These feathers— collections can be used—used, but not used up! never got to use them. No there isn't room.... How A collection of articles like this is just the can we live without our lives? How can we know it's beginning. The examples presented here are only a few of the many ways that collections have been us without our past? used in the past, and just a hint of how they can —John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath be used in the future. Let us know what you are doing. Send additional articles and news items to Anyone who has gone through the NPS the Editor, CRM, for future publication. training in resource management has learned, early on, that we are all resource managers. Those Jean H. Rodeck (Swearingen), a 35-year NPS vet resources include museum objects of all shapes eran, was Alaska's first regional curator, 1984 to and sizes, of all materials, of all aspects of the nat 1995. She also served as regional curator in the ural world, of all aspects of our collective cultural Southwest Region. Jean is now the superintendent of heritage. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in So, here we have 14 million cataloged Colorado. objects and 6,900 l.f. of archives (add an esti mated backlog of 14 million objects and 4,900 l.f. CRM N2 10—1995 5 Ann Hitchcock WeVe Come a Long Way: A ServicewideView ong-time National Park Service associated resources. That time was only about curators will remember when we 15 years ago. We've come a long way since then. typed catalog records using carbon In 1980, we thought we had an estimated 10 L ribbons, loaded storage cabinets million objects, approximately 3 million of which with paradichlorobenzene, and exhibited human were cataloged. We now estimate the number is remains and sensitive objects without consulta over 28 million objects and 11,800 linear feet (l.f.) tion. That time was before the Automated of archives.* We have cataloged 45% of those National Catalog System (ANCS), the application objects and archives since 1988. Beginning in of Integrated Pest Management to museum col 1983 we have annually tracked the growth and lections, and management policies that called for documentation of NPS collections as parks com consultation with affected communities before plete the Collections Management Report. deciding about the treatment of traditionally- The Object's the Thing Ivecently while reviewing a packet of fact and events is the base, and often the information I acquired 25 or so years ago I inspiration, for a good design.

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