In part one
of my report on the Newport Mansions, I focused primarily on the Chateau Sur
Mer. This time around, I’ll be looking more broadly at the entire milieu of houses and
collections owned and maintained by the Preservation Society of Newport County.
My own visits to the Newport Mansions informed my approach to this report. For
further details on their collections and internal operations, I perused their website,
referred to their 2014-15 State of the Collections Report, and conducted an informational interview with a recent intern working at their
archives.
Governance and Services
The
Preservation Society of Newport County is governed hierarchically, with a Board of Trustees at the top, a
Chief Executive Officer below them, and a Chief of Staff below her. Under these
administrators there are eight departments, each with its own Department Head.
The departments are: Finance, Development, Museum Affairs, Museum Experience,
Properties, Gardens & Grounds, Retail Sales, and Special Events. In this
report, I will be focusing primarily on the Museum Affairs and Museum experience
departments, given the focus of this class.
The Preservation Society’s mission is “to
protect, preserve, and present an exceptional collection of house museums and
landscapes in one of the most historically intact cities in America.” To that end, they provide a variety of services. They preserve and maintain
eleven historical houses and make them available to the public. At their houses
they provide guided tours and educational materials that give historical
context for the houses and the objects contained therein. They maintain an
archival collection of documents, artwork, and dresses related to the house. They
host events and exhibitions that engage with the local community.
About Their Collections
The Preservation
Society holds three main collections:
The Fine and Decorative Arts
collection contains paintings,
furniture, and other objects “collected by the late owners of the houses.” Though their website gives no indication of it, the guide on a tour I took of
the Chateau Sur Mer pointed out several pieces that were never actually owned by
a former resident of the house. This collection contains several objects that
date back to the time period during which the houses were built and which fit in
well with the style of their décor, but which never actually appeared in the
houses during that time.
The Textile and Fashion Arts collection contains historical clothing, textiles,
and accessories related to the houses’ owners and the styles of their times. The
collection’s objects mostly hail from the 1880’s through the 1920’s, though
there are objects from other periods that represent other eras of Newport’s fashion
history.
The Archival Collection is a combination of institutional
archives and special collections. It contains historical records useful in
understanding the history of the houses, their owners, and Newport itself.
According to my interviewee, “there are collections on the families (photos,
letters, scrapbooks, personal papers), on the houses (blueprints, repairs,
etc), and on various other subjects.”
The houses
themselves are the most notable items in the Newport Preservation Society’s
collection, with the Breakers standing out as particularly popular and historically
resonant. The houses were built and renovated by historically significant
architects, and exemplify various schools of architecture. The houses contain
works of art by several noteworthy artists, including a painting by Mary
Cassatt, an opalescent stained glass ceiling by John La Farge, and a portrait
by John Singer Sargent.
Condition of Collections
The Newport
Mansions are all over one hundred years old, and as such they are quite
challenging to maintain. There are usually only a handful of the houses open at
any given time, allowing staff to conduct restoration activities year round.
There is a clear hierarchy when it comes to allocating resources to maintaining
houses and keeping them open. For example, The Breakers, being the most famous
and trafficked of the houses, is open for entirety of 2016. Less well known
houses, and those in more critical condition are only open for part of the
year.
The current
state of the Preservation Society’s archival collections is unclear. Things
appear to be on the upswing though – the Preservation Society hired an
archivist in August of 2015. He is the first archivist they’ve had working on
the collection in several years. He is currently working on processing the
collection, and there is still a ways to go before the entirety is processed.
The archives
does not keep open hours, but members of the public hoping to see specific items
in the collection can reach out to the archivist for an appointment. The archives
uses a meeting room in the building as their reading room, and the archivist brings requested materials there for researchers to peruse. He is also willing to digitize
items and share the resulting files with researchers upon request.
Online access
to the Preservation Society’s collections is limited. Only the Fine and Decorative
Arts collection has information online about specific holdings, and even that
is very basic. There are three pages on their website describing their
holdings: one for paintings, one for furniture, and one for decorative arts. Each
of those pages only lists a small selection of “highlights,” less than ten objects
on each page. Each object has a paragraph description accompanied by a very
small low-res image. Their online exhibition gallery also includes some low-res
images of collection items and information about them as part of online
exhibits.
Fortunately,
the Preservation Society has collaborated with several other local cultural heritage
organizations to put together Newportal, a
publicly accessible online database featuring objects from each organization’s
collections. The site launched just a few days ago, on April 27th. It
is attractive, usable, and contains much more robust collections information
than the Preservation Society’s website, with reasonably thorough metadata. There
are currently only 100 items from the Preservation Society’s collections on there, but
there are plans to add more over time.
Environment
One of the
most insidious environmental threats to the Newport Mansions is the general
dampness of their surroundings. The houses are located on the coast, and are susceptible
to rough weather and high humidity.
Beyond that,
they are currently working to figure out what their most pressing concerns are.
This year they have implemented a preventive conservation program to “monitor
conditions, identify priorities and oversee day-to-day collections.”
All of the
houses have humidity and temperature monitors active in various rooms throughout
the premises to ensure a safe climate. Conservation actions are undertaken on
objects and fixtures that have undergone significant degradation. For example,
the ceiling at the Chateau Sur Mer was recently refurbished. The archives is also
climate controlled, and measures to prevent pest infestation are carried out routinely.
Preservation and Disaster Planning
I was not
able to find a lot of information about the Preservation Society’s disaster
planning, but it is clear that they do have a set of policies. This 2007 article discusses their efforts at hurricane preparedness planning.
Their plan involved monitoring the weather, prioritizing high-value and
high-risk assets, moving objects and shuttering windows, documenting damage,
and re-evaluating inventories after each storm. While I was unable to find more
up-to-date specifics, their most recent State of the Collections report
mentioned that they were working on the “drafting of an inter-departmental disaster
response plan that identifies chain of command, resources available and needed,
and procedures for prevention of loss, loss recovery, and collections
safeguarding in the event of damage or disaster.”
Critical Institutional Priorities
The intern I
interviewed told me that from her point of view, the most critical priorities
of the Preservation Society in terms of their collections are their conservation
efforts and their mission to obtain objects that are original to the houses but
outside of their control. From my own
studies of the Preservation Society, I also see a lot of emphasis on improving
access to their collections management, access, and disaster planning. While I
don’t have access to their financials, it does seem like the Preservation
Society does have the resources to support these endeavors. They have already
made good progress on each of these fronts through grant funding, hiring new
employees, and collaborating with other cultural heritage institutions.
Overall, I’m impressed with the Preservation Society’s current operations and
their efforts to improve them further.
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NOTE: All sources have been hyperlinked within the text.
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