The Shaker Museum, which stewards an extensive collection of Shaker material culture and archives, has been awarded a $550,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
The Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grant will be used to construct and outfit a climate-controlled collections storage facility within the new museum building planned for downtown Chatham, Columbia County, NY.
After being closed to the public for more than ten years, Shaker Museum has purchased a 19th century industrial building in Chatham and is in the process of renovating and building an expansive addition to the facility with Selldorf Architects.
The new building,along with the climate-controlled storage facility supported by NEH, are expected to allow the museum to share and preserve its collection. The museum aims to tell the complete story of the Shakers, including their material culture as seen through furniture, costume, archives, and photographs; their social legacy of communalism, inclusion, and pacifism; and their technological innovations in manufacturing, architecture, agriculture, and engineering.
The new permanent facility is estimated for completion in 2023. The museum also operates the historic Shaker site in New Lebanon and has a campus in Old Chatham, which is open year-round by appointment, and where the administrative offices, collections, library, and archives are housed.
The museum’s collection can be viewed online.
Photo of Shaker box courtesy Shaker Museum.
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