The National Museum of the United States Army is slated to open its doors in early 2020. A collaboration between the U.S. Army and the nonprofit Army Historical Foundation, the newly-designed Museum building under construction at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, will showcase objects that tell the story of...
Several waves of German-speaking immigrants settled in Pennsylvania in the 19th century. This included the Martins, founders of C.F. Martin & Co., a world-renowned company that has made instruments in the Nazareth area of eastern Pennsylvania for almost 200 years. One of the members of the Martin...
At CCAHA, we often find that the stories behind the objects we treat are as interesting as the objects themselves. Such was the case with a recent treatment from the Suffolk County Historical Society of Long Island, New York. The Historical Society had a scrapbook of documents that was referred to...
At CCAHA, we’ve noticed a trend. We’re fielding an increasing number of requests for housing-only projects—clients are bringing us their stable objects and asking that we make sure they’re framed or stored in boxes that are up to the highest housing standards. There are many reasons for this uptick...
Ultraviolet (UV) light is harmful. It’s bad for our eyes, bad for our skin, and, unsurprisingly, bad for paper objects. The windows and lights at CCAHA filter UV light, and the glazing we use in frames protects artifacts from the wavelength. But in certain controlled circumstances, UV light can be...
The American Battle Monuments Commission recently brought a soldier’s memorial certificate from c. 1914-1919 to CCAHA for conservation treatment. The 19” x 13” certificate, written largely in French, has this handwritten inscription: “Charlie P. Monroe / Private, 13th Battalion, Infantry Replacement...
CCAHA's Director of Conservation is our veteran staff member—here for 35 years! She looks back on favorite projects and tells us how CCAHA has changed over the past four decades.
One of the earliest projects CCAHA Senior Conservation Assistant Jilliann Wilcox remembers from her 30 years at CCAHA is a series of 18th-century anatomical drawings by Dutch illustrator Jan van Rymsdyk. “They were so, so beautiful,” she says, “The detail was exquisite. I loved thinking about their...
