Connecting to Collections Care

Hello from Mesilla, NM! 

I am currently working on a housekeeping plan for a historic house museum. The museum has multiple bedrooms with bedding and pillows, some of which will be collections objects (i.e. handmade quilts). I'm putting together a plan for maintenance for these textiles and am wondering if anyone has experience caring for similar objects? I am planning on vacuuming the bedding quarterly with a Nilfisk HEPA vacuum, does anyone have any other ideas on preventing dust and protecting the textiles while they are on display? What about mattress maintenance?

Thank you in advance,  

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Yasmine Jahangiri
Museum Technician/Conservator- A
New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs
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Hello!

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Rebecca Gridley
Associate Conservator
Art Conservation Group
Long Island City, NY
rebecca.ec.gridley@gmail.com
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Hello!

One of the experts I reached out to also sent me this resource which might be useful more broadly for housekeeping -- the Minnesota Historical Society's Housekeeping Manual:

https://mnhs.gitlab.io/archive/conservation/www.mnhs.org/preserve/conservation/docs_pdfs/HOUSEKEEPINGMANUAL.pdf

RG

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Rebecca Gridley
Associate Conservator
Art Conservation Group
Long Island City, NY
rebecca.ec.gridley@gmail.com
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-01-2025 19:30
From: Rebecca Gridley
Subject: Caring for bedding in historic house museum

Hello!

I am the C2CC monitor for this week. I have reached out to some experts and asked them to chime in here. In the meantime, I've pulled together some resources on textile care (though none of them specifically discuss mattresses):

- The Textile Museum at GW has a really nice summary on textile care & display -- be sure to check out the Additional Resources section too.

- The Canadian Conservation Institute's Note on Mechanical Cleaning of Textiles, which gives a step by step on vacuuming textiles. It refers to a few useful-looking books in its bibliography section. 

- The C2CC forum had a Live Q&A with a textile conservator that might be helpful; you can preview the powerpoint to see the topics discussed. See the Additional Resources section at the bottom of the page as well. 

Beyond dust, other considerations for these materials include: 

- controlling relative humidity (risk of mold and mildew) 

- exposure to UV light (if light levels are high/cannot be controlled, can the textiles be regularly rotated on display?)

- integrated pest management 

Inspecting each layer of the bedding and historic textiles for evidence of mold or insects can go hand-in-hand with the regular dusting protocol. I'm happy to provide additional resources on the above topics if need be.

An understanding of what fibers are included in the historic textiles is key to understanding risk (e.g. wool is more susceptible to clothes moths). In the vein of understanding the materials at hand: I assume the mattresses and pillows are modern rather than historic?

Best,

Rebecca 

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Rebecca Gridley
Associate Conservator
Art Conservation Group
Long Island City, NY
rebecca.ec.gridley@gmail.com
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