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...
The 1830s were a dynamic time in photographic experimentation. On either side of the Atlantic, scientists and amateur hobbyists alike traded techniques and guarded discoveries as they sought to capture the world around them in a still image. The first widely-used method of photography was introduced...
The great collectors often desire to leave the world a physical legacy—whether it’s Albert Barnes establishing the Barnes Foundation, Henry Huntington bequeathing his collection to the Huntington Library, or J.P. Morgan amassing the collection that would form the core of the Morgan Library & Museum...
Many of the treatments at the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) ensure that objects can be shared with others. Conservators and technicians clean the surfaces of prints, mend tears, and mount prints and photographs in stabile frames. They also often advise on the best display...
William Heinrich Prestele was born in Germany in 1838 and raised in Iowa. He was the son of a prolific botanical illustrator, Franz Joseph Martin Prestele, whose influence on his son was clear from an early age. After completing several natural painting projects in his twenties, William Heinrich...
Because of the constraints of photography in the art form’s early days, photographs of the Civil War tended to be either posed portraits, camp scenes, or—most haunting of all—images of a battle’s aftermath. Taken days or even weeks after the violent events had passed into history, the aftermath...
Among the first to purchase property when Mount Tabor, New Jersey, opened as a Methodist summer camp meeting ground in 1869 was Benjamin Foster Britten of Jersey City. Like many Victorian-era city dwellers escaping the summer heat by attending open-air religious revivals, Britten traveled to Mount...
