History
CCAHA was founded in 1977.
When CCAHA founder Marilyn Kemp Weidner began her career in the early 1960s, paper conservation was considered secondary to the more established and respected practices of oil painting and objects conservation. Weidner saw the dearth of paper conservators as a problem: who would tend to the documents, art on paper, photographs, and books that needed treatment?
Weidner sought out paper conservation training at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art. She set up a studio in her living room and quickly gained a reputation for her skillful treatments, fielding projects from around the country.
Business was good, but Weidner again noticed a void. Many small institutions could not afford to pay for conservation. The collections at these museums, archives, and libraries—critical to interpreting our shared heritage—weren’t receiving the treatment they needed.
Weidner founded CCAHA to address the need for paper conservation.
Since then, CCAHA has gone through many changes—moving twice, extending services to private clients, adding preservation services, fundraising assistance, and a digital imaging studio—but one thing has stayed the same.
