I had some things that I called mine –
F101
A Timely Invitation to Support our Collections Work
What does it mean to discover a long-forgotten box filled with dozens of two-inch squares of delicate silk in surprisingly bold colors and patterns?
And what does it mean to recognize that some of those patterns are identical to items of Dickinson family clothing recently cleaned, tagged, and catalogued?
And what does it mean to realize that each tiny square of silk is fastened with stitches to equally small pieces of paper? And then to notice that the bits of paper include handwriting? Whose handwriting? Emily’s?
What can these pieces of material, attached to bits envelopes, receipts, and invitations tell us about thrift? About creativity? About trade and manufacturing? About the “slant of light” in the room where the stitcher – or stitchers – started, but never finished the quilt?
Welcome to collections management at the Emily Dickinson Museum.
With support from a federal grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Emily Dickinson Museum is working to preserve, catalog, and digitize records related to its collection and to locate Dickinson-related materials at other institutions. Museum staff and Amherst College interns digitized institutional records, including historic structures reports, catalog cards from the 1980s, and photos of each building from the 1990s, and added relevant information from these records into our publicly accessible collections database. Museum staff also conducted surveys of Dickinson material at other institutions, including Amherst College Library, Jones Library, Mount Holyoke College, Harvard University, Brown University, and Yale University, in order to gather information on the extent of primary sources related to EDM collections objects.
“This project has resulted in a better understanding of the Museum’s collections objects, enabling the Museum to better interpret the poet’s life and times more fully, and provide public and scholarly access to an important cultural collection.” – Megan Ramsey, Collections Manager
For example, this image of Susan Dickinson, sister-in-law to Emily Dickinson and resident of The Evergreens, is held in the collection of Houghton Library at Harvard University. The image was taken in a photography studio in Germany during one of Susan’s trips to Europe with her daughter, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, circa 1910. The articles of clothing and accessories worn by Susan in this photo are all represented in the Museum’s collection, some of which can be accessed here:
Ensemble dress: 2023.3.260a-b: Database record
Hat: 2023.6.178: Database record
Eyeglasses: 2021.7.458: Database record
By identifying these objects in the Houghton Library photo, we now understand more of the context of these objects in terms of timeframe and associated person.
A cookbook with Susan Dickinson’s handwriting is held in the collection of the John Hay Library at Brown University. Recipes include apple pudding pie, veal loaf, and hard gingerbread. Image The Jones Library, the local public library in Amherst, holds the account books of the Cutler Dry Goods Store, where the Dickinsons purchased a variety of products in the nineteenth century. The account books contain the monthly grocery bills for both the Homestead and The Evergreens from 1873 to 1877. Image Pairing the grocery bills from the Jones Library with the cookbook from the Hay Library can help the Museum better understand cooking practices in Dickinson homes. These archival materials will directly inform research into domestic labor as well as restoration and interpretation of the kitchen and other domestic spaces in the Homestead.
How You Can Help
On April 9, 2025, the Museum received notice that our federal IMLS grant supporting this project had been terminated. We invite you to help us cover the gap in funding so we can complete the project in full and on schedule by the end of 2025. By supporting our Collections Project you will be supporting all of the work essential to our mission.
“Our work to amplify Emily Dickinson’s revolutionary poetic voice – by opening her family homes to visitors, by interpretive and educational use of her family’s material legacy, by holding up her enduring poetry – continues with your support and our unending gratitude.” – Jane Wald, Jane and Robert Keiter Family Executive Director
To learn more about this timely initiative, please contact Senior Director of Development Erin Martin: erimartin@emilydickinsonmuseum.org