Have you ever wondered if you are storing family photographs correctly to preserve them for future generations? Has a great-grandmother’s quilt been handed down to you and in time, you want to be able to give it to your granddaughter? Do you want to know how to better care for your antiques?
The answer to these questions and more will be provided through an exhibit and special presentations to be given during October at the President Andrew Johnson Museum and Library in commemoration of National Archives Month.
The museum, located on the Tusculum College campus, will have on display the exhibit, “Preserving Your Traditions” during the month of October. The exhibit will provide an overview of archives and share information on how to care for personal collections. The public is invited to come view the treasures in the Tusculum College Archives and learn how to care for their own treasures. There is no admission fee to the exhibit or related presentations.
As part of the exhibit, which begins Oct. 5, visitors will have the rare opportunity to handle items such as records, books, photographs and other materials maintained in the Tusculum College Archives. Visitors will wear protective gloves, as a professional archivist does, and handle objects spanning the past 100 years of Tusculum College history.
Through this hands-on experience, visitors will learn about the results of improper storage and gain a greater appreciation of historic objects. Handling the objects will also actively illustrate the purpose of archives – to make documents and objects available and accessible to visitors.
Special presentations about how to care for various types of objects from clothing to film will be presented on Friday, October 30.
During the morning, Myers Brown, curator of extension services at the Tennessee State Museum, will make two 30-minute presentations about the care of clothing, memorabilia and decorative arts.
Amy Collins, archivist at East Tennessee State University’s Archives of Appalachia, will give two 30-minute presentations during the afternoon about the care of paper, photographs and film.
The presentations will alternate with 30-minute screenings of historic films of Tusculum College campus life in the 1940s-60s. The films include period scenes of campus, sporting events and class activities. The films were unreadable a year ago and represent an on-going process to migrate antiquated media onto new media.
Do-it-yourself kits of archival supplies to help individuals to care properly for their collections will available for $15 at the museum.
The Tusculum College Archives are also available anytime as a research source for academic papers and projects. For more information about the Archives, call 423-636-7348 or e-mail kcuff@tusculum.edu. Walk-in researchers are welcome.
The museum is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is recommended that anyone planning a visit call in advance.
The Museums of Tusculum College administer the President Andrew Johnson Museum and Library and the Doak House Museum on campus. The Doak House Museum, the 19th century home of the Rev. Samuel Witherspoon Doak, co-founder of Tusculum College, hosts thousands of school children from the region for a variety of educational programs related to the 19th century and CHARACTER COUNTS! The President Andrew Johnson Museum and Library houses a special collection of items relating to the 17th president, the college’s archives and volumes from the institution’s original library. The museums are also two of the 10 structures on the Tusculum campus on the National Register of Historic Places. The museum department also offers one of the few undergraduate degree programs in museum studies in the country.