Get Involved
Crowdfunding for Preservation
YOU CAN HELP
We as a nation are defined by our cultural resources.
They are our history, our memory, our symbols, and our shared identity.
Are you interested in history?
Would you like to play an important role in the preservation
of America’s historical artifacts?
PRESERVING PAPER AND AUDIO COLLECTIONS
A Race Against Time
Many collections are in urgent need of conservation treatment and digitization, and America's cultural organizations still struggle to identify sources of funding to help preserve these collections.
Our nation’s collections at risk far outnumber funding opportunities currently available through federal, state, and foundation grants. Increasingly, the responsibility for preserving our history is in ALL our hands.
Collections at risk of deterioration include:
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HOW CAN YOU HELP? WHY CROWDFUNDING ?
Browse Crowdfunding Projects:
LEXINGTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Lexington, MA
CROWDFUNDING PROJECT:
Conservation treatment, rehousing, and digitization of the 1776 Jonas Clarke Commemorative Sermon
This thirty-four page booklet contains Reverend Jonas Clarke’s manuscript of the sermon he gave on April 19, 1776 “to commemorate the murder, blood-shed and Commencement of Hostilities, between Great-Britain and America” begun at the Battle of Lexington exactly one year before. Clarke (1730-1805) was the minister in Lexington from 1755 until his death, and he was present at the parsonage (the current Hancock-Clarke House) with visitors John Hancock and Samuel Adams during Paul Revere’s visit in April 1775. Clarke stood as a stronghold of Revolutionary ideals leading up to, and in the aftermath of, the Battle of Lexington. This document is an important part of the Jonas Clarke Family Collection of personal papers and sermons held by the Society.
Treatment needed: Cleaning, disbinding, mending and repair, deacidification, reassembling, creation of custom made housing, digitization.
DONATE to the Lexington Historical Society Crowdfunding Project
SANDY ISLAND FAMILY CAMP ARCHIVES, Wolfeboro, NH
CROWDFUNDING PROJECT:
Conservation and Digitization of Rare Landscape Plans Created by the Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architecture Firm
The Sandy Island Family Camp Archives is working to repair two historic landscape plans prepared for Sandy Island by the famous Olmsted Landscape Architects Firm and dated 1952 and 1938. "The plans are drawn on paper that is too old and brittle for us to handle safely, so we would like to have the plans repaired by paper conservation professionals," says Sara Clarkson of the Archives Committee. Once the plans are repaired, the plans will be digitized. Both the original plans and the digitized images will be available to interested Sandy Island viewers, to Sandy Island and YMCA historians, and to Olmsted historians.
UPDATE - March 2017:
The Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site recently posted images on their Flickr collection that show on-site photographs of the Sandy Island "Mens" Camp in 1938 and after the hurricane in 1939. The first visit seems to correspond to one of the plans being conserved in this project. Amazing to see the photos snapped by the Olmsted team! View the Images Here - Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site.
DONATE to the Sandy Island Family Camp Archives Crowdfunding Project
UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA, FAIRBANKS, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, Oral History Program
CROWDFUNDING PROJECT:
Recovering the Damaged Recording
of a Lost Native Alaskan Dialect
Using the IRENE Technology
The Alaska and Polar Regions Archives at the University of Alaska recently discovered four 78 RPM glass-based discs in the collection of Anthropologist Dorothy Jean Ray. Robyn Russell, Collections Manager of the Library’s Oral History Program says: “I opened the archival box, and inside there were four 78 rpm glass-base records in faded paper record jackets. The only information we had was the hand-written labels. For example, “Aleut (ATTU) #7 12/4/1945 ‘Song sung by father to child upon return after long absence.’”
Robyn explains, “With audio collections, you can’t look in the table of contents – you can’t thumb through them like a book to find out what it contains. You have to have playback. We knew that these recordings were unique and we could see that they were extremely fragile. We didn’t dare put a stylus to them. They were essentially hidden gems.”
DONATE to the University of Alaska Oral History Crowdfunding Project
SOUTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Charleston, SC
CROWDFUNDING PROJECT:
Sandy Island Plantation
Journals / Almanacs
1792–1798
Click image to zoom
These three almanacs provide an in-depth look at life and labor on an 18th century plantation, but the books are worn, with faded ink and torn pages. Dating from 1792, 1797, and 1798, the handwritten plantation journal entries were kept by Allard Belin near Georgetown, South Carolina. Entries pertain to planting and harvesting, maintaining ditches and drains, problems with an overseer, as well as a list of the names of slaves and number of blankets they received.
These materials are frequently requested by researchers but their fragile condition prohibits access. After treatment, the text will be available through digitization and the items will be part of our physical exhibit.
About the South Carolina Historical Society: http://schistory.org/who-we-are/visit-us/
DONATE to the South Carolina Historical Society Crowdfunding Project
K-STATE LIBRARIES, Kansas State University Libraries, Manhattan,Kansas
CROWDFUNDING PROJECT:
Adopt-a-Manuscript:
Macaroni Pudding and a Good Cake:
Conserving K-State’s Manuscript
Cookbook Collection
1650-1896
Click image to zoom
Kansas State University Libraries’ Macaroni Pudding and a Good Cake is a two-year project that will enhance international scholarship pertaining to the history of food and medicine, women’s culture, comparative literature and epidemiology. Over 10,000 pages of manuscript cookery books dating from 1650-1896 will be available in an institutional repository as well as a crowdsourced transcription interface.
As these manuscripts are digitized, the most fragile will be selected for conservation treatment. Please make a donation toward these conservation efforts.
NASHUA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Nashua, New Hampshire
CROWDFUNDING PROJECT:
Conservation Treatment of:
Two Insurance Map Books of Nashua, New Hampshire;
Sanborn Map Company, 1912 (with corrections to 1930) and 1912 (with corrections to 1939).
These oversized books of insurance maps are an invaluable resource for finding where a house or business used to be located, as well as the changes made to Nashua’s Streets and neighborhoods. Of interest to those studying maps, historic urban planning, and early 20th century New England cities. Interesting use of paper patches to keep the maps current!
DONATE to the Nashua Historical Society Crowdfunding Project
Northeast Document Conservation Center
100 Brickstone Square
Andover, MA 01810
Phone: 978-470-1010
Fax: 978-475-6021
Email: info@nedcc.org
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