Hello FSJ Friends!
I hope everyone is enjoying the start of their holidays! Decorations, lights, parades, and holiday open houses are just a few of the fun events available to communities around the globe. This year, the Project has teamed up with our friends at the Niles History Center (NHC) to offer a special behind the scenes look at the Fort St. Joseph collection during the Chapin Mansion’s Holiday Evening Open House. The event is open to the public and will occur on Saturday, December 14 from 4 pm – 7 pm. This behind the scenes look will offer a chance for visitors to see items from the collection, where the artifacts are housed, and what progress has been made in preserving the past for the future.
As many of you know, I have been working as the Fort St. Joseph Curatorial fellow over the past year. Through a generous donation, the fellowship program was developed to address the challenges of curating recovered artifacts from Fort St. Joseph so that they are available for exhibits, research, and preserved for future generations. From this opportunity, I have researched ways to improve our curation practices, developed a plan, and began to implement these initiatives starting in September. To start, I have been working on taking an inventory of the Project and pre-Project artifacts on display in the Fort St. Joseph exhibits (Figure 1 and 2). Currently, we do not have a complete list of the artifacts in the exhibits which makes it difficult to answer research requests and account for all of the collection’s items. During this process, I have also been assisting with updating the exhibits with new information and selecting additional artifacts for these displays (Figure 3).
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| Figure 1. Artifacts from this display were inventoried in October. The process involved assessing their condition and identifying the accession number for the artifacts not labeled with one. I also worked on identifying the accession numbers for the plaque rings, medallions, and crosses in the pre-Project collection. |
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| Figure 2. In order to identify the accession number for the pre-Project items, I had to look up their paper catalog cards and match the artifacts with the descriptions provided. |
Once these steps are complete, I will move on to compiling a complete inventory of the artifacts in storage. This involves making sure that all of the artifacts found from excavations at the fort as well as the pre-Project artifacts discussed in Hulse (1977) are accounted for. During this step, I (with the help from some friends) will be transferring the artifacts into new acid-free storage boxes! Each item will be checked to make sure that it is in its correct storage location and the location for each will be recorded to ensure that all of the artifacts are easily locatable. This will reduce the staff time involved in pulling artifacts for future research projects and exhibits. As I move through this process, I will also be making sure that each artifact bag is still intact, the silica packets are in good standing, and that boxes are not overcrowded. We have attempted to transfer a few items thus far in order to work through the process and have learned a bit along the way (Figure 4). For instance, the NHC and Project staff like the idea of having smaller boxes within the larger storage boxes to help organize the contents. However, they can be quite costly. To help reduce expenses, other museums have built their own boxes. This is something we have begun experimenting with, but it is a learning process that requires a fair amount of planning.
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| Figure 3. This case was recently painted by a very helpful volunteer! Some artifacts used in the old exhibit will return with updated information and newly recovered items will be added. You can see the progress we have made the next time you visit the NHC! |
To ensure continued work, we are seeking additional funding to implement the plan. Our fellowship founder has issued a challenge grant. If we can raise $5000 by December 31, 2019, the donor will double the amount, allowing us to move forward more quickly with our initiative. A detailed rationale for the curation of the collection and the scope of the task will be available Saturday during the behind the scenes tour or I can email you the information. You can get in touch with me by email at hartleyerikak@jccmi.edu. As always, I will continue to update you as we move forward, but at this time the best way to find out more information is to attend the behind the scenes tour. If you already have plans for that night, you can stop by the NHC (Wed-Sat, 10 am – 4 pm) for more information or contact myself or another Project member at any time. We may also offer another behind the scenes event in the future if there is interest.
Thank you everyone for your continued support! Hope to see you Saturday,
Erika Hartley
