We have an 1861 log house that the my museum has operated since 1976.
We're located in Wisconsin, and though a family of 10 did live in this
house through many winters, we close it down for the season because it
doesn't have electricity or heat. When I began working at the museum in
2000, the standard practice was to keep the furniture and larger ceramic
and metal objects in the log house throughout the winter, remove objects
with local historical value, textiles and any mouse friendly objects,
and pack up the small items in case petty thieves did break into the
house. The items were then stored in the main museum (after being
cleaned) and brought out again in the spring when the house opened. This
worked okay, except that some of the items we displayed were rather
important historical pieces that shouldn't have been in that
uncontrolled environment, summer or winter. A few years ago, we made the
decision to only furnish the house with education collection items, ie,
things that could suffer through a Wisconsin year that may see a
temperature range of -25 to 105 (though not lately) as well as dry
winters and humid summers and get replaced when the stress of such an
environment (as well as the touch of little fingers) finally gets to be
too much. Many of the items in the log house were already of that nature
and the ones that weren't, we replaced with items that didn't have a
documented history. A grant helped us purchase some of the replacement
items. While not ideal, we're at least preserving our most valuable
artifacts.
We continue to winter our mid to large non-textile furnishings in the
house and remove the bedding, clothing, and smaller items. Replacing
some of the mid-sized furnishings with education collections has
actually made closing the log house easier because we store fewer items
inside the museum. We have also made it a practice to deep freeze
textiles & woods that were in the log house before storage in the museum
in case they did pick up some kind of pest. So far, so good.
I would say that in your case, you'd want to bring in items that make
good nesting material. For the other items, you should consider the
material as well as the historical value of the items to determine if
you should bring them inside or not, especially since you do have
limited storage space. Collections that have historical value to your
institution and community should be protected as much as possible and
even though they may have gone through Wyoming winters in the past, it's
never too late to stop the cycle. This would be especially true for wood
and paper artifacts. And then in some cases, there is reality. There
just may not have room for the homesteader's bed in your museum and
that's the way it is. It was only this year that I found a replacement
bed for a locally made bed that was on display in the log house and had
wintered in the house for a couple of decades. Preserve what you can.
Carrie Ronnander
Curator
Chippewa Valley Museum
Eau Claire, WI
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
> Of John Gavin
> Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 1:54 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Homestead furnishings
>
> We have a 1913 homestead log cabin furnished with period artifacts, (not
> necessarily original to the home). We close it for the winter and I am
> wondering if we should move all of the artifacts inside the museum where
> lack of storage space is critical. The cabin with its contents have wintered
> over in the past when it was still in the donors possession. There is not
> any heat of electrical available. Suggestions?
>
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