Category: Museum Collections

Our Collections Department share stories of the Museum’s history and the special items that have helped defined us over the last century.

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Hidden Object Highlight: Sini (سینی)

Every museum with a collection has materials identified as “found in collection,” AKA objects that have been disassociated from their records, numbers, or other identifying information. Perhaps they were once familiar to former staff, but with turnover, the institutional memory is lost. These objects are often set aside to be researched and reconciled “as time allows.” But when one of these found in collection items catches someone’s attention, the story emerges. In this post, Collections Intern Sayyara Huseynli explores one of these “mystery” objects.

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The Archives Celebrates Women’s History Month: Delia Griffin

On Boston Children’s Museums’s opening day in July 1913, Delia Griffin began her work as Museum Curator. Miss Griffin wasted no time in creating exceptional experiences for the museum’s visitors, bolstering incredible growth during her time as curator. In honor of Women’s History Month, we are spotlighting the life and work of the incredible Miss Griffin, a woman to whom Boston Children’s Museum owes so much of its history.

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A Museum Collections Highlight: The “Her”story of a Dollhouse

Women have always been the guiding force behind the Museum’s collection. They have shaped it as curators, educators, trustees, and donors. However, when it comes to this last group, many of those women are overshadowed by “his”tory. With the wonders of the internet (and a little digging), we can reveal the rich “her”story of the Museum’s collection donors.

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Hidden Object Highlight: Gat (갓)

If you have been furiously binging Netflix shows during the quarantine like I have, you may have come across the Korean historical zombie-thriller Kingdom. The show is set in the late 1500s during Korea’s Joseon (조선) period, which lasted from 1392 – 1910. One of the most distinctive parts of the show is the variety of hats, a constant halo around the head of almost every male on the show. Seeing the unique, conical top hats on screen immediately transported me back to the Museum’s collection storage room, where I had spent hours inventorying the Korean collection. It was in one of the drawers that I came across several of the Museum’s own Korean top hats.

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Hans at Home: Museum Collections Mascot Holds Down the Fort

The Collections and Archives team may be working remotely these days, but collections care doesn’t stop for a pandemic. Caring for and preserving the diverse array of historical materials at the Museum is a big job and an ongoing task as part of the Museum’s stewardship responsibilities. To help in these efforts, we recruited our team mascot, Hans, to share some of these tasks and explain why they are a priority in our work. Our staff is helping to oversee Hans’s work from afar…

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Blast from the Past: Travel through time with Museum scrapbooks

Boston Children’s Museum has a collection of late-nineteenth century scrapbooks that range in size, shape, and genre. The scrapbooks have brittle paper, many small parts, and many parts glued in. This can make them difficult to use in the Museum in programs or exhibits, so we worked with professionals at Digital Commonwealth and Simmons University to digitize them so they can be shared and experienced online.

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