CHAPT
Collecting Hi t y
collections
preservation
archives
uilt environment
National Register of Historic Places
vernacular
Gans-Huxtable debate
wonder rooms/cabinets of curiosity
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
material culture
Antiquities Act of 1906
Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
epatriation
accession and deaccession
PROFESSIONALS WORKING IN museums, historic sites, li
aries, archives, and his-toric preservation have to think about what to collect, preserve, or archive. While these terms can have multiple meanings, collections often refers to three-dimensional
objects like those in museums; preservation refers to buildings, structures, and landscapes;
and archives refers to two-dimensional paper records. While at times we will reference
these distinctions in this chapter, we will also talk about "collections" as a term that encom-
passes all three kinds ofitems as we explore a common set of questions that public historians
face as they seek to build and maintain a wide variety of collections. In this
oader sense,
collections can include textual documents, artifacts, and even landscapes, such as groves of
trees or battlefields.
As an example of how diverse collections can be, consider the historic Reeder Citrus
Ranch in Montclair, California. This site is most visible as a preserved historic house, but it
is also an excellent representation of the small family-owned citrus ranches that dominated
the inland regions of Southern California throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
The collections that accompany the historic house include the outbuildings, farm equip-
ment, furniture, and extensive paper collection of business records and documents, as well
as the family's personal effects, photographs, and period appliances. The grounds, historic
trees, and orchard round out the collection. Collections management challenges include
A 57
h Montclair, California. Courtesy of the G
. ·c Reeder Citrus Ra nc , eorge C
h41
Hrston . •
Photograp • • H ·tage Foundation.
and Hazel H. Reeder e
h er records, as well as historically co
h
fi niture, t e pap di .
ect a
t
. n of the house, t e ur . the orchard. The versity of the collecti· nd
preserva 10 h • t us trees in on . d - tandard care for t e c1 r all historic homes that also struggle with s at
in ustry s . sual for srn rneag
R de
Citrus Ranch is not unu h li'ance on volunteers. Even though most f er
ee 1 ff, and a eavy re . . • o thi
operating budgets, srnal sta ' . d maJ·or institutions, it is important to keep in • s
al
. h 1 ge collections an h h • llltnd chapter de s wit ar bli h' storians work s are muc more m commo •
. . f 1 s where pu c 1 n With
that the maJonty o p ace h h 'th large national museums.
d C'
us Rane t an w1 the historic Ree er 1 al' . {collecting is that it is impossible to hold on to
h fu d ental re ities o every,
One oft e n am every document, material object, structure, or land
. Kn • that we cannot save scape
thing. owing k hoices about what we keep and what we do not. Befor
. res that we must ma e c b li h • • e an reqw d archived someone has to e eve t e item is worth sa •
item is collected, preserve ' or . . • f h' • • ving.
d
. that the item or the lives it represents is o istoncal importa
Someone has to etermme . . • • • nee.
al 11
. good place to start thinking about the dec1s10n-making pro
Person co ections are a . . cess
h
. r. ssi'onal collecting We all make dec1S1ons every day about what we will
t at goes mto pro1e •
save, what we will toss, what we will collect, and what we no longer need. People who cannot
make these choices may be classified as having a mental disorder and are featured on 1he
Learning Channel's reality television program Hoarding: Buried Alive.
How do we decide what photos to erase from our phones? Do we create a physical
archive of letters, cards, and images, or is everything safe in a digital format? Do we keep
evidence of our daily lives, or only the extraordinary moments? What would historians be
able to discern about our lives based solely on the scraps and artifacts we have collected and
saved over our lives? How accurately would it reflect our lives? Who will be able to access
S8 A CHAPTER 4
that material a century fro~ now? Where could interviews with family member , friend
neighbors, coworkers, or W:th ourselves fill in the gaps left by the material or digital record
of ourselves: a.rl ~,eckers 1931 American Historical Association Address, "Everyman
Bis Own Historian, .show~ u~ that these questions are not new. Becker suggested that the
5Jci]ls that people use m their lives are the same skills as those of the historian. We all hav
imperfect memor.ies. Be~ker asked his audience how they would ever remember how much
coal they had delivered m the past to determine how much they would need in the future.
Referencing scraps _of paper, receipts, ledger books, and other forms of primary evidence, we
can reconstruct a history of our own lives in ways that help us make meaning of the past in
ways that are useful in the present.
Certain assum~tion_s drive what we save personally and what professionals and society
in general deem historically valuable. Should institutions keep objects that represent the
ordinary daily lives of individuals, or only the extraordinary achievements of our society as a
whole? Are the lives of illiterate workers, children, or prisoners worthy of historical inquiry,
or do museums care more about the accomplishments of the rich and famous, the powerful
and elite? If public historians have to choose what to collect' and what will be lost to the
dustbin of history, how are we to determine which is which?
Debating What to Keep from the Past
Debates about what deserves to be saved consume the field of historic preservation. Qyite
clearly it would be impossible, impractical, and even undesirable to preserve every old
uilding or every aspect of the built environment (the man-made su
oundings that serve
human needs, including things like buildings,
idges, parks, cemeteries, and transportation
infrastructure) just because it might be old. City planners and historic preservationists have
to agree on clear criteria for what should be saved and what can be demolished to make
oom for new construction. But what is worth saving? The US federal government and many
state governments have established criteria for having a property listed on the National
Register of Historic Places. The property must be more than fifty years old and fit one or
more of the following criteria: 1) associated with events that have made a significant con-
tribution to the
oad patterns of our history; or 2) associated with the lives of significant
persons in our past; or 3) embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method
of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values,
or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack in-
dividual distinction; or 4) have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in
history or prehistory.
Trends in historic preservation follow other trends in history. The National Register's
criteria for listing properties gives preference to the work of a master architect or a build-
ing with high artistic value, and na
ow interpretations of the definition of "significant"
in their two criteria have limited preservation efforts for vernacular, or ordinary, archi-
tecture and landscapes in the past. Mansions associated with the rich and powerful stand
for centuries, while sweatshops and tenements associated with the laboring classes are
demolished for new development.
COLLECTING HISTORY 59
L
J G accu cd the Landmarks Pr r . . l • t 1 {e
crt • an l h h Vat10
] 1975 u
an c;oeto og1 . d . . n to pr crve on y t e omc of th n o n ' b' • their ec1 JO h c r· 'ti . f ew York of 1a 10 • only the tructures t at repres n 1th .. mi ion o 1 • Pre erving t th "llq
t·ons of famous architect5. h al past exaggerates affiuence and gr c elite, th er a I •distort t e re ' . an
• hi according to Gans, . H table responded both as an architectural .ur, ati..i
oc1c.,, "' Ad Louise ux Sh h cr1r ~
d • ate the present. a f h 1,.'ew York Times. e wrote t at it Was ic a11,1 cmgr d' 'alb ard o t e J.YI f h' not f:. ~
mber of thee 1ton ° ·ng examples o great arc 1tecture a d air t as a me f li • for preservi n th o
the commission o e ttsm f h t she called vernacular structures G at tL accuse d les O w a • ans 11c
commission also preserve ~amp_ di 'duals to preserve whatever they liked, but as Pllsheq
fi r nvate in V1 C • • h a p b further that it was ne ror p ew York Preservation omm1ss1on s ould delib ll 41;
ffort funded by tax dollars, the all and should not allow preservation d .. eratety
e h f ew York equ Y h . h ecis10
epresent all boroug s o h focus more on aest etlcs t an on repr lls to
e made solely on the basis of experts w o esenting a
f h ·ty' history h' h h
oad view o t e a s • f bli historv. called t is exc ange t e Gans-1..1
d holar o pu c .,, • · h 11.\l)ct h Dolores Hay en, a sc si'gnificant quest10ns ne1t er Gans nor 't.r a. 1,
d • d t' fied even more J.1.lbct b debate. In it Hay en 1 en 1 1 the problems of preserving and interpretin a le • d· "He did not exp ore . 'fy di g ghett
had recogruz: • ies "and "she did not ask how to JUst1 spen ng taxpayers' rn c
locations or bitter memor ' . tation."2 Do we only want to preserve part 0ney
. . bli access or mterpre s of th
without giVJng pu c i'ty or as a nation? Or do we want to pres e
1
ate as a commun erve
past that we can ce e . f 1 ry of racially restrictive laws or segregation and
d ·1 eVJdence o save , , and be force to recona he 1 b ;> If resources are limited, should those making prese,.,, . cf
th • f sweats op a or. • vat1 e misery o . t the most exemplary samples of great architect en
d . . ak choices to represen , Ure
eas1ons m e that represent a
oad spectrum of the citys history? Should piece' er
Preserve structures bl' kn 1 d • • s cf ·1 bl t the public and interpreted for pu ic owe ge, or is it acceptabl
history be avai a e O 'bl h e to
. rve spaces that will never be access1 e to t e public? Wh spend public money to prese h ose
. h uld b d as we work to preserve evidence of t e past? While the interests s o e serve . . re are
no definitive answers to these questions, looking back on pa.st practices can help us better
understand how these questions have been answered over time, and how these questions
might be answered in the future.
From Private Collections to Public Display
Public access to historic structures preserved with public funds is a modem question, as his-
torically there was no assumption that great examples of architecture, art, or material objects
should be accessible. The world's greatest collections, for example, now housed at famous
museums and accessible to the public for free or for a relatively reasonable fee were at first
private collections. Before the fifteenth century, the word museum was used to describe groups
of objects more so than the buildings that housed and exhibited the collections as we know
them today. Collections that started as private enterprises were housed in rooms called "cabi-
nets," which displayed "curiosities" of the natural world, science, or