Page 1 Abstract Pilgrim Hall Museum (PHM) is requesting a grant of $6,000 from the NEH Preservation Assistance Grants

for Smaller Institutions program, in support of a conservation survey of a portion of the PHM collection. PHM is the steward for a world-class collection of artifacts, personal possessions, documents and artwork related to the 1620 founding of the Plymouth colony and its residents, immortalized as the Mayflower Pilgrims in the founding myths of the United States. This so-called Pilgrim Story has transformed these ordinary people from fleshand-blood settlers into heroes of almost legendary stature, and still influences the way that modern Americans think about their 17th century ancestors and about themselves. The evolution of that story can be seen in Pilgrim Hall Museums collection of fine art. These 92 pieces chronicle both the journey of the Pilgrims from England to the New World and the way that journey has been interpreted and understood by Americans for nearly 4 centuries. Throughout Pilgrim Hall Museums nearly 200 years of continuous operation, the institution has protected these resources and made them available for both public and academic use and enjoyment. In order to conserve these paintings in the present and to continue to do so in the future, PHM needs to conduct a conservation assessment survey on these 92 pieces of artwork. This process involves hiring a conservation consultant from the professional Oliver Brothers firm of Massachusetts. The consultant will examine each item, take reference photographs, assign conservation priorities to the pieces most in need of attention, and create a report for the purposes of dissemination throughout Pilgrim Hall Museum. This report and the consultants recommendations will allow PHM to create short and long term plans for the preservation of this important humanities collection, ensuring universal access to this collection for years to come.

A. What activity (or activities) would the grant support? If selected to receive the Preservation Assistance Grant, Pilgrim Hall Museum will contract professional consultants from the Oliver Brothers firm of Boston and Beverly, Massachusetts. This consultant will carry out a preservation assessment survey of the Societys collection of 92 paintings and their frames, ranging in date from the 17th century to the 20th century and representing the evolution of one of the United States most important founding myths. The assessment will have three major goals. First, the consultants will perform an on-site evaluation of the 92 paintings and their frames, identifying the basic condition issues of each individual painting. Second, they will create a three-tiered priority list and a written report detailing each items condition and priority rating, to aid in future conservation. Third, the report will be submitted to PHM staff for the purpose of creating a preservation plan for these 92 paintings, allowing PHM to identify and address its most pressing conservation issues. B. What are the content and size of the humanities collections that are the focus of the project? PHM is the steward for the nations pre-eminent collection of Pilgrim possessions. The general collection contains 4,000 items of both historic and cultural value, including 17th century arms and armor, furniture, documents and letters related to the Plymouth colonys early settlers, and the remains of the 1626 trans-Atlantic vessel Sparrow-Hawk.

Page 2 The portion of this collection that is the focus of the Preservation Assessment is PHMs fine arts collection, 92 pieces created between the 17th century and the 20th century. Taken together, this humanities collection represents not only a lush visual history of the Pilgrim story which supplements PHMs collection of related documents, but also a historiography of the evolution of that story. Each generation of colonists, and later Americans, chose to interpret the Pilgrims in a way that documented their changing society. The largest portion of this collection consists of 44 portraits depicting 17th century Plymouth settlers, their contemporaries in England, their descendants in America, and notables relevant to Pilgrim Hall Museum, the Pilgrim Society and the town of Plymouth. Significant items include the ca. 1651 painting of Edward Winslow, which is the only portrait of a Mayflower Pilgrim painted from life, and similar portraits of his son Josiah Winslow, governor of the Plymouth colony during King Philips War, and Josiahs wife Penelope. From the Revolutionary period comes a unique 1781 self-portrait of the prominent American painter John Trumbull. It is a collaboration between two of the most influential American painters of the early Republic, Trumbull and his colleague Gilbert Stuart. Also included is the 1890 oil on canvas of Zerviah Gould Mitchell, a native activist and historian who was the descendant of the Massasoit (King) of the native Wampanoag tribe which first made contact with the Pilgrims in 1621. 22 are depictions of historical scenes that chronicle different episodes in the Pilgrim story, including their crossing of the Atlantic, their arrival in Plymouth Harbor, their encounters with the local native people, and the famous first Thanksgiving. Highlights in this portion of the collection include Henry Sargents landmark painting The Landing of the Pilgrims, (ca. 1818) one of the earliest serious attempts by an American artist to portray early American history; and an even earlier (ca. 1806) work of similar subject by the Neapolitan painter Michel Felice Corne, one of the first artists to depict the Pilgrims arrival. 11 are various images that chronicle the development of an American identity after the arrival of the Mayflower, including: the coats of arms of the Mayflower families Winslow and Standish; the royal arms of Englands 18th century kings; and the 19th century American Eagle, an emblem of the United States. Finally, 15 pieces of artwork are landscapes, seascapes, and cityscapes of locations in Europe, New England, and the ocean that present a visual backdrop to the Pilgrims journey from England to Holland, and from Holland to the New World. Prominent items include: a 1900s landscape of Scrooby Manor in Nottinghamshire, England, where the Pilgrims Separatist congregation first began to organize; images of the now demolished Doten house, built in Plymouth by Mayflower passenger Edward Doten; and a painting of St. Helens Church in Austerfield, England, the birthplace of long-time Plymouth Governor William Bradford. C. How are these humanities collections used? Spread throughout Pilgrim Hall Museum, the painting collection serves as a grand backdrop and provides visual context to the museums exhibits and artifacts, as well as being included in a variety of publications that reach beyond the museum walls. Specifically, the paintings are used to: 1) Support PHM exhibits and educational activities.

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The paintings primary use is for education, and for supporting the museums permanent exhibit, The Pilgrim Story. This exhibit begins in the Upper Hall with an introduction to the founding of the Plymouth colony and the origins of the Pilgrim myth, and continues in the Lower Hall with the later history of Plymouth and the continuing evolution of that myth. Installed in 2008 and open to the public eleven months out of the year, the exhibit has been seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors. In addition, highlights of the collection are featured on PHMs Collections and Exhibitions web page and are viewed by approximately 1.7 million online visitors per year. For young visitors, PHMs art collection is heavily utilized in the popular Treasure Hunt educational program. With four different guided study sheets created for K-12 children at different levels of development, and distributed to approximately 10,000 children and adults per year, the Treasure Hunt program encourages students to examine PHMs collection of artwork and create personal connections in a way that text cannot. 14 of these historic works are featured in this program and ensure that thousands of children carefully examine the paintings in detail, partnering learning with enjoyment. 2) Support historical research. Recent scholarship on American origin stories has emphasized the importance of several PHM collection pieces in the development of an American identity. Some of the most prominent sources include Joseph Confortis Imagining New England: Explorations of Regional Identity (2001), John Seelyes Memorys Nation: The Place of Plymouth Rock (1998), and Ann Uhry Abramss The Pilgrims and Pocahontas: Rival Myths of American Origin (1999). In particular, Henry Sargents The Landing of the Pilgrims is considered to be a hugely important piece of iconography; one of the first American origin scenes not resulting from military conquest or profit-seeking motives. 3) Provide visual materials for scholarly publications. The collection is heavily utilized by both scholarly and popular publications that deal with Plymouth, Thanksgiving, and the English colonies, its images reproduced and distributed to audiences around the world. Significant publications utilizing PHMs paintings collection include: Nathaniel Philbricks Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War; a New York Times Bestseller which has been released in three languages since its 2007 publication. Shoppers seeking to buy Mayflower from a retailer or from online sellers like Amazon or Barnes and Nobles will see William Hallsalls The Mayflower on her Arrival in Plymouth Harbor prominently on the books front cover. Mary Beth Nortons Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society, one of three finalists for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in History. PHMs 1670s portrait of Boston colonist Elizabeth Paddy Wensley is one of the two colonial portraits on the cover. D. What is the nature and mission of your institution?

Page 4 Pilgrim Hall Museum is a not-for-profit education institution primarily funded by admissions, memberships, and donations. Its mission is to achieve worldwide awareness of the Pilgrims significance as an enduring narrative of Americas founding. The Pilgrim Society was created by the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1820, for the express purpose of obtaining land in the town of Plymouth, on which was to be constructed a monument to perpetuate the memory of the virtues, the enterprise, and the unparalleled suffering of [the Pilgrims]. To that end, the Pilgrim Society built and opened Pilgrim Hall Museum in 1824, making the institution the oldest public museum in continuous operation in the United States. However, Pilgrim Hall Museum operates with a small staff of only 4 full-time and 7 part-time employees, as well as 8 volunteer staff. Its annual operating budget is *****. From this, the museum is able to remain open 333 days of the year, closing on Christmas Day and for the month of January. E. Has your institution ever had a preservation or conservation assessment or consultation? Yes. The Societys last conservation assessment was September 14-15th, 1993. The consultant hired at this time was Lisa Mibach, of the firm Mibach and Associates Collections Conservation, and the survey was conducted on the entirety of the PHM collections as well as the building. At this time, it was strongly recommended that PHM conduct more detailed surveys of the object, furniture and painting collections to develop detailed priorities. These long-term recommendations were made for a period not to exceed 6 years, meaning that these other surveys should have been completed by 1999. From 1998 to 2008, PHM was engaged in a ten year capital campaign to upgrade and modernize its storage, lighting, and exhibit space, as per the 1993 survey recommendations. The museum has fully completed this massive project and now hopes to continue meeting its preservation challenges. In order to do so, surveys must be carried out on the object, furniture, and painting collections to develop detailed priorities. A Preservation Assistance grant would allow PHM to more closely examine the painting portion of its collection and develop new recommendations for current treatments and future conservation. F. What is the importance of this project to your institution? Pilgrim Hall Museum is a 189 year old institution dedicated to the care and stewardship of the worlds pre-eminent collection of Pilgrim related artifacts, as well as making these artifacts universally available for education and research. The museum collections are the Pilgrim Societys primary assets, and allow the Society to offer programming that goes beyond lectures and enable the public to connect with the personal possessions, documents, and even images of these 17th century settlers. These items reveal the humanity and physical legacy of the Pilgrims, who have become almost mythic figures in the founding narrative of the United States. As such, these collections are invaluable not only to the Pilgrim Society, but also to the nation which has entrusted these items to the Pilgrim Societys care.

Page 5 To honor that trust, Pilgrim Hall Museum has spent the last twenty years improving its facilities and bringing its collections management procedures up to modern standards. A General Conservation Survey carried out in 1993 included a structural component and a collections component. This survey identified problems with the museum structure and dangers to its collections, and made recommendations to resolve both. In response to these findings, the Pilgrim Society and partners launched a ten year capital campaign to modernize the museum building. This campaign resulted in the installation of climate control, upgraded collection storage, and redeveloped exhibit space, all adhering to the specifications and long-term goals of the professional 1993 survey. This work is ongoing. Now that the museum structure has been stabilized it is imperative that museum staff move on to the collections conservation portion of these recommendations. Emphasis was placed on the need for detailed surveys of the object, furniture and paintings collections in order to develop detailed priorities. The paintings were examined and found to not appear to be actively deteriorating but should be more closely examined for instability during a survey. Without this project, therefore, it will be impossible to determine whether the institution is currently fulfilling its obligation of stewardship for this portion of the collection, let alone planning for the future. In short, this survey will enable Pilgrim Hall Museum to assess the condition of its collections, evaluate its preservation needs, and to create both short and long term goals for collections care. The report generated by the proposed conservation survey of these 92 paintings will allow PHM to identify the paintings most in need of treatment, as well as create a blueprint for the preservation of the object and furniture portions of its collections. A digital copy of the report will be kept on the museum servers, and a physical copy printed out and kept in the museum archives, to be accessed by PHM staff. G. What are the names and qualifications of the consultant(s) and staff involved in the project? The conservation survey will be conducted by the Oliver Brothers restoration firm, a Massachusetts based company. Established just after the Civil War, Oliver Brothers is the oldest fine art restoration firm in the country. They offer both conservation services and surveys for notable clients ranging from local historical societies and museums such as the Ipswich Public Library and the Boston Athenaeum, up to state and national bodies like the United States District Court and the National Park Service. They have a successful working relationship with PHM, having been contracted to perform a 2009 conservation assessment on Henry Sargents The Landing of the Pilgrims. Stephen ONeill is the Associate Director and Curator for Pilgrim Hall Museum and will be coordinating with the Oliver Brothers consultants during their site visit. Mr. ONeill holds an MA in American Studies from Boston College and is a current PhD candidate for Boston Universitys American and New England Studies program. His professional experience includes the title of Curator/Archivist for the Social Law Library/ Supreme Judicial Court Historical Society in Boston and his nine year career as a Pilgrim Hall Museum executive and head of Collections. H. What is the plan of work for the project?

Page 6 January 2014. Within four weeks after receiving grant funding, the two conservators will make a 3 day site visit to Pilgrim Hall Museum in order to visually inspect each of the 92 paintings and their 92 frames; 184 items in total. Each art item is expected to take approximately 10 minutes to inspect, with basic condition issues observed and documented and photographs taken for reference. February 2014. The two conservators will rate each of the 184 items in terms of their preservation needs. Items in critical condition and strongly in need of conservation work will be rated Priority 1. Items in moderate condition but lacking the urgency of Priority 1 will be rated Priority 2. And items in stable condition that do not need immediate attention will be rated Priority 3. Using data collected during the survey, the conservators will assign each item a priority and create a written report providing each items priority rating and basic condition issues. March 2014. The completed report will be emailed to PHM Associate Director and Curator Stephen ONeill within 8 weeks of receiving grant funding. PHM curatorial staff will use the report to draw up a long-term preservation plan and develop further preservation goals.