The Union City Area Historical Museum is a non-profit museum operating  in
the rural area of Northwestern PA. The city funds only utilities all other
operations are funded through the Community Historical Society. The museum
staff is 3 full time a archaeologist historian, museum director and  tour
guide all these positions are unpaid only the janitor part time is paid. The
museum publishes a news letter monthly and operates both archaeological
research and information collection. The county of Erie operates a Historical
Society which does not support or cover our diverse cultural heritage. Though
they recieve all state, county and federial funding. In many cases this
action is a form of political  discrimination which is pointed at destroying
and other history but that produced by the politicaly active county society.
The problems which we are faced with are mind boggling. Our museum has three
floors of artifacts apx.10,000 and a compleate archive devoted to our area. e
do our work with no funding and we are not alone as the Commonwealth of PA
does not recognize community over county museums. The budget of our county
society is over 2 million a year. This year we have been told that the city
will no longer cover utilities, so the search goes on for funding. In many
cases small museums are the best repositories fpr communities far removed
from county or state units. Our history is that of the people and not the
city or county but in a time of large government and small funding sources
will the small museum survive? We need help as many other museums do from
private and federal sources. We are an acredited museum but that does not
seem to matter thr large question is where will support for us and others
come from. This is a point in need of larger discussion.

UCAM