Exhibit Collections - Textiles - Archives

Amherst Museum is the home of a collection that numbers over 50,000 objects: furniture, clothing, photographs, and more. While the public does not see all of these items on display at once (that would be a very large exhibit!), they are constantly being processed, cared for, and used to both preserve our history and provide clues to researching our past. Rotating exhibits also allow us to display a wider sampling of our artifacts, over time.

Collection materials are permanently housed in two specific places within the Museum: the Archives Room and the Anscombe Collections Storage Building, built in 2000. Both facilities are temperature-controlled and have proper conservation equipment in place. The Storage Building features an HVAC system that strives to regulate the facility's humidity levels, and floor-to-ceiling shelving to house our many artifacts.

Exhibit Collections

The exhibit collections department has approximately 30,000 objects. These objects include paintings, prints, furniture, ceramics, woodworking, metalworking and textile working tools many of which have a history on the Niagara Frontier or a specific connection to Amherst. We have furniture from the 19th century home of the Timothy Hopkins family, Jacob Snyder's pocketwatch, Sterling Amherst Dairy objects, the Smithers' pharmaceutical collection, and many more items that, together, present a picture of daily life in Western New York.

Currently, we are in the midst of a long-term project to move large portions of our collection into the Anscombe Collections Storage Building. The move of these objects involves updating or creating cataloging records in our database, numbering, researching and properly storing these items in their new home. As you might imagine, moving these objects is a time-consuming process that takes considerable time and planning; through the work of staff and dedicated volunteers, we're making great progress.

Please contact Exhibit Collections Curator Jessica Johnson at curator@amherstmuseum.org or at 716-689-1440, ext. 7720, if you have any questions or would like to make an appointment.

Textiles

The Textile Collection at Amherst Museum contains approximately 10,000 artifacts. Ranging in date from 1740 to the present, the collection contains floor coverings, draperies, bedding as well as dolls, garments and personal accessories. These items are displayed in annual changing exhibitions as well as in historic buildings on the museum grounds. Amherst Museum boasts the largest 20th century textile collection in Western New York as well as our nationally recognized Wedding Gown Collection. The collection is available for study by appointment. For further information, please contact Exhibit Collections Curator Jessica Johnson at curator@amherstmuseum.org or at 716-689-1440, ext. 7720.

Archives

The Niederlander Research Library & Archives houses both artifacts and research materials to supplement Museum collections. The Library has 5,500 volumes and an extensive genealogy collection. The Archives contains approximately 8,000 items -- ledgers, scrapbooks, certificates, maps, and photographs. Prominent collections include Hopkins Family materials; Smithers Pharmaceutical ledgers; the Town's earliest business correspondence, between Jacob Hershey and Oziel Smith; the personal letters of a soldier in Europe in World War I, to his fiancée; over 500 historic maps of the region, and over 3,000 identified photographic prints. Archival artifacts from the collection are frequently on display in both the Shaw Building and in our historic buildings, and they also serve to document and preserve our history, supplementing other exhibits with information.

Researchers are welcome to view items from the Archives by appointment; please contact us at library@amherstmuseum.org or at 716-689-1440, ext. 7716.