The Wendy Shadwell Conservation Grant was established in 2015 to help conserve of significant prints in institutional collections. Since then the program has funded the preservation of a number of important historical prints.
2024: St. Ann and the Holy Episcopal Church
The St. Ann and the Holy Episcopal Church in Brooklyn, New York, received a conservation grant of $2,700 for a newly discovered early Fanny Palmer lithograph, Church of the Holy Trinity, Brooklyn, 1846.
2024: Noah Webster House
The Noah Webster House in West Hartford, Connecticut, received a grant of $975 to conserve a chromolithograph portrait of Noah Webster titled Noah Webster, Schoolmaster of the Republic, published by Root & Tinker, circa 1885. The print is considered by the museum to be among the most significant prints in their collection and was created to be used by booksellers to advertise Webster’s dictionary and blue-blacked spelling book, which are both depicted in the print.
2024: Philadelphia Sketch Club
The Philadelphia Sketch Club received $2,300 to conserve six prints: one poster titled “Ask a Policeman” (c. 1914-18) by Herbert Pullinger and four etchings consisting of Stephen J. Ferris’s Nymphs, Carl Phillip Weber’s Landscape with Gated Wall, Albert P. Fellows’ Card game, and Bernhard Uhle’s Columbus.
2023: Philadelphia Sketch Club
The Philadelphia Sketch Club received $2,425 to conserve eight etchings from a collection of “exchange etchings” from members of the Philadelphia Society of Etchers, a group active from 1880 until 1903. During “exchange meetings,” each member would bring sufficient prints from an unpublished (usually recent) etching to give to all the others, and one extra to include in the Society’s library collection. Most, if not all, were printed by the etchers themselves, off their own presses, rather than by an independent printer. The etchings consist of Landscape by Henry T. Cariss, Dordrecht by Ludwig E. Faber, Deer by Hermann Faber, Barges on Shore by Josiah Neely, Jr., Performer by Albert P. Fellows, Girl with Animals by Stephen J. Ferris, Man with Parrots by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, and Landscape with Structures by James P. Simpson.
2023: LancasterHistory
The LancasterHistory Museum received $2,250 for the restoration of a “steel engraved mezzotint” portrait of Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868) by John Sartain. The print was created in 1867, one year before Stevens death.
2023: Polk County Historical Association
The Polk County Historical Association in North Carolina received $3,075 for the restoration of the historic “Spring Mountain Map” (c. 1900-05) encompassing a large portion of the Polk County’s White Mountain area. The map was printed in Cleveland and created by Ohio native Frank M. Stearns who became a local entrepreneur beginning in 1888. The purpose of the map was aid in the development of the area. The map is of local interest and it is highly important to the local museum to document the history of the early development of the area.
2022: Historic Deerfield
Historic Deerfield received a grant of $2,170 to conserve the print Death of Captain Pike.
2021: Vigilance Club of the Thompson-Hickman Museum
The Vigilance Club of the Thompson-Hickman Museum in Virginia City, Montana Virginia City, Montana received a grant of $2,500 to conserve an extremely rare 1866 broadside advertising the publication of Thomas Dimsdale’s Vigilantes of Montana. It was printed and published in Montana’s first print shop and was the first book published in the new Montana Territory. This book and the subject broadside are two of the earliest printing treasures of the Territory.
2020: No awards given
2019: Society of California Pioneers
The Society of California Pioneers received a grant of $3,375 to conserve six historical prints produced by the iconic San Francisco printing and publishing firm of Britton & Rey. These six important prints date from the 1850s to the 1880s and include significant views of early California. Treatments included surface cleaning, removing adhesive residue, mending tears, and flattening.
2019: National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
AHPCS awarded $2,500 to the National Museum of American History for the long-term preservation of four engraved steel-faced plates created for illustrations in the 1840s volumes of the Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition by Charles Wilkes. The plates depict four scenes from the United States South Seas Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842.
The study of print matrices is an often overlooked part of the printing process, and this award will help to preserve plates that form part of one of the Smithsonian’s foundational collections.
2017: Ashland Museum
In 2017, AHPCS awarded a matching grant of $2,500 to the Ashland Museum in Ashland, Virginia, for the restoration of their most treasured print: the lithograph First Regt. Va Volunteers. Col. T. P. August – Camp Robinson Hanover Co. May 22 1858. The 1858 lithograph by Ritchies & Dunnavant depicts a pre-Civil War event in their small town and was too fragile and badly damaged to be handled or exhibited. The print was a 2016 Honoree for Virginia’s Top 10 Endangered Artifacts.
2017: Historic Deerfield
Historic Deerfield received a grant of $1,180 in 2017 to conserve a broadside advertising cabinet maker Asa Field of Brattleboro, Vermont. Treatment on the 1846 broadside printed on white silk included replacing the board backing and securing loose fragments.
2016: Cape Ann Museum – Fitz Henry Lane lithograph, $400