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Heirlooms, Artifacts, & Family Treasures: A 2009 Preservation Emporium
Urbana-Champaign—The University of Illinois Preservation Working Group (PWG) hosted the third annual “Heirlooms, Artifacts, & Family Treasures: A Preservation Emporium” at the Spurlock Museum on Saturday, February 21, 2009 from noon to 4pm. About a hundred people attended this free event. Visitors were welcome to bring in small, hand-held items or images of larger items in order to discuss specific preservation questions with specialists. Experts were available in a variety of specialized areas ranging from antiquities to modern digital media. People brought quite a range of items—from silk gowns to surveying equipment to birth certificates, books, and photographs.
(Photo caption: Jennifer Hain Teper, Conservation Librarian at the University Library, consults with an attendee at the Preservation Emporium)
(Photo caption: A crowd gathers to talk with Christa Deacy-Quinn, Collections Manager at the Spurlock Museum)
There was an hour long key note address delivered by Mark Pohlad, Associate Professor of Art History at DePaul University and a specialist in photohistory. The address, entitled “Historic Photography in the Age of Lincoln,” explored photographs of Abraham Lincoln as a way of discussing nineteenth-century photographs as physical objects. Pohlad discussed the history of early techniques and the quality and care of early photographs. He showed that examining photographs of the first extensively photographed president provides an intriguing way into an understanding of the medium that defined the modern era. Early “operators” like Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and unknowns working in downstate “galleries,” took dozens of photographs of the western politician. Some were awkward, some were masterpieces. But all of them revealed Lincoln firmly in his historical moment and all provided clues into how they were made. Lincoln’s appearance—his angular face and lanky body—were a great part of his mystique. And early photographs poignantly documented both our greatest president while testifying to a medium struggling to be accurate and accessible. Altogether, Pohlad showed how caring for his memory and for early photos are worthwhile undertakings in this bicentennial year of Lincoln’s birth.
(Photo caption: Scott Schwartz of the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music consults with an attendee at the Preservation Emporium)
(Photo caption: Laura Kozuch, Ph.D., curator at the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program, along with other experts, speaks with interested visitors)
(Photo caption: Kathleen Jones, registrar at the Krannert Art Museum, discusses preservation issues dealing with paintings and decorative arts)
The Preservation Emporium is just one of the public engagement events that the Preservation Working Group hosts regularly. Other events include Home Movie Day, an event held internationally that provides a chance for people to see and share their home movies with community members and learn how to care for their old films.