Overview of the Orra White Hitchcock Project

By Ryan Cochran

Followers of this blog, as well at the MTS Faceboook page, have become familiar with the sixty-one painted textiles that comprise the  Orra White Hitchcock Project. Created as "classroom charts" for her husband, naturalist Edward Hitchcock, they came to us for conservation from the Archives and Special Collections Department at Amherst College, in Amherst, Massachusetts. As an intern learning the ropes of textile conservation, this has been an exciting and enlightening experience which I would like to share with those out there curious about the techniques we used to preserve these amazing works.

Orra assigned this chart the number "23," therefore we labeled it "OWH.23." Courtesy of Amherst College.

The first job I had was to create a spreadsheet to document each stage of conservation. Next, each textile was hung and photographed, which often required a second set of hands. As each textile was photographed, it was recorded in the spreadsheet, which contains fields for condition, treatments performed, and whether additional conservation, such as stabilization, is recommended. 

Tyvek labels are stitched to the back each textile, within the binding wherever possible. Courtesy of Amherst College.

In preparation for accessioning, I assigned a number to each object in the collection. Since most of these classroom charts are already numbered, we decided to keep those numbers in an attempt to avoid confusion. Unnumbered textiles, or those with repeated numbers, were assigned sequential numbers in the series. The new labels were written in Sharpie on smooth Tyvek and hand-stitched to the back of the top-left corner of each textile.

Vacuuming an object, taking care not to pull or strain the fabric in any way. That look on my face is pure determination! Courtesy of Amherst College.

After photographing and labeling, I surface cleaned each textile. This was done with much care using a special conservation vacuum with a low-suction setting so that no tension was put on the fabric. Vacuuming removes dust and debris which is not normally visible to the naked eye, and prepares the textile for further treatment.

OWH.23 being prepared for humidification. Next it will be covered in a layer of Gore-Tex, then blotter paper moistened with deionized water. Courtesy of Amherst College.

After vacuuming, I placed each textile in clean acid-free tissue in a folder away from other objects which had not yet been vacuumed. Next, each textile was humidified to reduce the many wrinkles and creases that have accumulated over nearly two centuries in storage. Since we did not want to apply heat or water directly to these textiles, we decided to use the Gore-Tex method of cold humidification. 

OWH.23 safely sealed off in the humidification chamber. Courtesy of Amherst College.

To do this, we created our own humidification chamber with acid-free blotter, Gore-Tex, deionized water, and polyethylene sheeting (you can read about this process in Camille Breeze's MA Thesis.) The textile is placed on top of a dry piece of blotting paper, which is sitting on polypropylene. The textile is then covered with Gore-Tex membrane, which is laminated to Hollytex. A blotter moistened with deionized water is carefully placed on top of the Gore-Tex, followed by polypropylene. The edges of the chamber are sealed with weights to keep the moisture in. The pores in the Gore-Tex membrane are smaller than a water droplet but larger than a water vapor molecule, allowing for a gentle and thorough humidifica-tion. Each textile was humidified for approxi-mately two hours, after which is was moved to a pinning board and blocked with pins to dry. 

OWH.23 after humidification, being pinned out to dry. Courtesy of Amherst College.

After each textile was humidified, it was condition reported again and suggestions were made for additional conservation, when needed. The textile then was placed either on an archival tube or in a custom-made archival tray. The trays were designed by MTS and built in-house of Coroplast with a twill-tape hinge. 

OWH.7 rehoused in its new archival storage tray. Courtesy of Amherst College.

We eagerly await the day when all of the Orra White Hitchcock textiles are back at Amherst College and safely stored in the archive.

Many thanks go out to Michael Kelly, Head of Archives and Special Collections, Frost Library, Amherst College, and suppliers University Products, Talas, Testfabrics, Masterpak, J Freeman, and Larry Glickman of Traveling Framers for their assistance.

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