FOUND IN MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

by Kelly Francis-Love, Museum of South Texas History Archivist

For a museum, knowing the origins of an artifact is incredibly important. Artifacts are meant to tell a story. Sometimes the item itself is enough to tell that story, but often staff members need to know more.

Whenever an item is offered to the museum as a donation, collections staff interview the donor to get more information about its origins or provenance. Who used the item? Where was it used? What was it used for? All this information is important in making sure the museum’s collections tell the story of South Texas and northeastern Mexico.

Despite this process, sometimes staff members come across items that, for whatever reason, never had their story documented. This is not a unique occurrence to the Museum of South Texas History (MOSTHistory); it happens to just about every museum in the world. What happens with those items?

At MOSTHistory, items without a provenance are identified as Found in Museum Collection (FIMC). When a FIMC item is discovered, staff must make a decision. Can this item tell a story on its own, or has that story been lost? If there is no story, the item will have to be relocated to a more suitable location. If there is still a story, then after following orphaned property procedures, it can still be added to the museum collection.

What are some of the kinds of items that have been found in this way? A few examples include:

• Diplomas

• Family trees

• Maps

• Photographs

• Books

• Land title abstracts

• Yearbooks

• Medicinal packages

• A Safe

• Paintings

• A certificate signed by President William Howard Taft

• An advertisement for a slave auction

Museum staff will accept donations if the donor is available to provide details so documentation and provenance are not lost in the future.