Making A Historic Difference - Part One

If you're a Crawfordsville local, you may have seen signs around town with a big drawing of the Study and the phrase "Making A Historic Difference." You might be wondering why we're trying to raise $300,000 and what we're going to do with that money. We're going to have a series of posts on our blog about The Making A Historic Difference Campaign so you find out why we're so excited and, hopefully, get excited along with us.

Lew's mural

Ella Kostanzer was raised in Montgomery County and was teaching in Chicago when she visited Lew in his Study on January 1, 1900. She described a fresco painted inside the Study dome. An elaborate work of trompe l'oeil,

"The border around the skylight is handpainted, designed by the owner. It consists of implements of warfare in groups chained together. We see the shield, helmet, sword, bugle, breastplate, etc..." - Ella Kostanzer

Fast forward to 2011. Workers at the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum were in the midst of their Study Restoration Project designed to address structural deterioration and water damage inside the Study building. With the Study emptied of artifacts, it was an ideal time to have a paint analysis done.

After analysis by Matthew Mosca of Baltimore, we contacted Brian Fick and Mary Yeager of Acanthus Arts in Indianapolis. Thanks to their hard work, Lew's frescoes were partially uncovered.

That's great, but why are you asking for money?

Well, one of our goals here at the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum is to present the Study as close as possible to the way it looked when Lew used it. With very few exceptions, we have accomplished that. One of the exceptions, however, is the interior paint.

Except for the one corner of the interior paint uncovered by Acanthus Arts, the Study is decorated with paint put up in the 1990s. Not only is that historically inaccurate, but it's just not as dramatic as the paint decorations Lew had. We want to bring back the paint conservators and have them uncover all of the interior paint.

On top of that, we can't turn on the lights in the main room of the Study.

Lew had electricity in the building. Crawfordsville was one of the first cities in Indiana to be electrified. Lew was a wealthy man, and he spared no expense in creating this "pleasure house for [his] soul". The main room of his Study had almost 100 light bulbs in it. But the wiring in many places still dates back to the 1890s. No one wants to be responsible for burning down the Study, so we rely on natural light from the skylight. But we'd love to update the wiring so we can light the Study for evening events.

It'll be a lot of work, and it'll take a lot of money. The Jeffris Foundation of Wisconsin has generously awarded us a $100,000 grant, but we have to match that with $200,000 in funds we raise.

So this is where you come in.

We know you're a dedicated supporter of our museum and mission. After all, you read our blog, and you might even be a member of the Lew Wallace Study Preservation Society. But right now we need a little bit more from you.

Yep, you guessed it, I'm about to ask you for money.

But we'll save that for next week. I want you to take some time to browse our website and Flickr account. Take a look at the pictures we have of Lew's amazing interior paint. Read the articles written for this blog in 2011 while the original paint analysis was being done. Then next week, when you're still on a sugar high from Halloween, come back to the blog and we'll talk about how much we've raised so far and how far we have yet to go.

Last Piece of the Puzzle

The General Lew Wallace Study & Museum received a $51,000 grant from the Montgomery County Community Foundation for the Study Restoration Project! The Community Foundation has been a strong contributer to the Museum, and we are thrilled that they have continued to support us. Our request was especially dire this year with the Study roof needing replacement very soon. This grant is the last piece in the funding puzzle for the Study Restoration project, and now the wheels are really turning. We have started meeting with architects and lawyers, talking about bids and project scope, and fitting the work items into the funds we have. Work will begin in the next few months, so keep a lookout for progress updates!

IMLS AWARDS GRANT TO GENERAL LEW WALLACE STUDY FOR ARCHIVE STORAGE

$3000 will be used for storage for Wallace’s uniforms, Civil War saddle

CRAWFORDSVILLE, IN, March 27, 2009— Thanks to a grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), General Lew Wallace’s personal artifacts from the Civil War will have a long-lasting resting place.

The IMLS has awarded the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum a $3000 American Heritage Preservation Program grant for the stabilization and storage of many of General Wallace and his wife Susan’s personal effects, including clothing, the General’s Civil War saddle, and a drum first used in the Mexican War.

“We are excited to be one of the first recipients of this beneficial new grant program,” said Museum Director Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko. “This reminds us how important Wallace’s library and mementos are to American history.”

“With these awards, communities will be able to rescue exceptional objects that link their pasts to their futures,” said IMLS Director Dr. Anne-Imelda Radice. “This grant program is an important part of IMLS’s Connecting to Collections: A Call to Action, a multi-year, multi-pronged initiative to protect our national treasures.”

American Heritage Preservation Program grants are used by small museums, libraries, and archives to help to preserve specific items, including works of art, artifacts and historical documents that are in need of conservation. Applicants will build on completed conservation assessments of their collections, to ensure that the grants are used in accordance with best practices in the field. Nearly 190 million objects in U.S. collections are in immediate danger of deterioration and need restoration or conservation, according to the Heritage Health Index report (http://www.heritagepreservation.org/HHI/full.html).

Some of the items in danger of deteriorating are a Zouave uniform from the 11th Indiana Volunteers, which Wallace led off to war in 1861, the dress worn by Susan Wallace when she was presented at the Court of St. James in London, and six killim and Navajo rugs collected by the Wallaces during their travels throughout the American Southwest. These items were displayed for years in the Study building where they were exposed to extreme fluctuations in temperature, humidity, and ultraviolet radiation.

“Unfortunately, putting an historical object on public display is one of the worst things you can do to it,” said Catlin-Legutko. “Exposure to sunlight, humidity, and temperature highs and lows—all of which have been present in the Study building at one time or another—cause an object to degrade a lot faster than if it was properly archived. We want to make sure General Wallace’s personal mementos are still around for our children’s children to see.”

Many of the original items will be displayed for the final time this year, during the Museum’s Embattled: General Wallace’s Leadership in the Civil War exhibit, opening March 21 and continuing through December 13, 2009. After the exhibit, many of the items will be “retired” into proper archival storage in the Carriage House Interpretive Center, where a state-of-the-art artifact storage vault has been erected.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute's mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. The Institute works at the national level and in coordination with state and local organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; enhance learning and innovation; and support professional development. To learn more about the Institute, please visit: http://www.imls.gov/.