American Textile History Museum

Transcription

1 American Textile History Museum General Information 491 Dutton Street Lowell, MA 1854 (978) Website Organization Contact Todd Smith Year of Incorporation 196 1

2 Statements & Search Criteria Mission Statement An affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA, tells America s story through the art, history, and science of textiles. ATHM holds the world s largest and most important collections of spinning wheels, hand looms, and early production machines, as well as more than five million pieces of textile prints, fabric samples, rolled textiles coverlets, and costumes. The Osborne Library contains a rich and comprehensive collection of printed, pictorial and manuscript material of interest to researchers in a variety of fields. Background Statement Caroline Stevens Rogers, a member of a venerable textile industry family and a hand-weaver and dyer, founded the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum in North Andover, Massachusetts in 196. It was accredited by the American Association of Museums in The Museum s name changed to the American Textile History Museum in 1987 to reflect the broadening scope of our collections and presentations. In 1992, the Museum purchased the Kitson Building in Lowell, completed renovations and opened to the public in April, Another change came in 26, with an agreement to sell part of its building for conversion into mixed-use space including residential lofts, and the home of The Lowell Sun, the region s daily newspaper. The redesigned core exhibition, Textile Revolution: An Exploration through Space and Time opened in 29. Visitors spin, weave, recycle, and design their way through history, weaving on an authentic hand-loom, maneuvering the controls of a real single-engine plane, and creating their own textile inventions. From a bicycle made from carbon fiber to clothing made from recycled plastic soda bottles, they see firsthand how textiles impact our world every day. Also in 29, ATHM announced an affiliation with the Smithsonian Institution. In 211, the Museum was selected to participate in the Smithsonian Institution s prestigious Places of Invention project one of only six museums in the country to earn this distinction. Places of Invention, a planned 3,5-square-foot exhibition at the National Museum of American History, scheduled to open in 215, will feature a selection of hot spots of invention and innovation places where a critical mass of inventive people, networks, institutions, funding and other resources come together and creativity flourishes. ATHM holds one of the world's largest publicly held collections of tools, spinning wheels, hand looms, and early production machines. In 212, the collection of early textile machines was recognized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for its historic significance to 19th century engineering and technology. The textile collections include more than five million pieces of prints, fabric samples, rolled textiles coverlets, and clothing which are accessible on-line through the Chace Catalogue. This catalogue enables visitors to the website to gain access to key portions of its curatorial and storage facilities through the technology of a virtual museum. 2

3 Impact Statement Accomplishments: ATHM presented four fascinating rotating exhibitions in 214: Flowers in the Factory, Inventing Lowell, Fiberart International, and Artist Textiles: Picasso to Warhol. Additionally, ATHM s critically acclaimed travelling exhibition, Homefront & Battlefield: Quilts & Context in the Civil War, was loaned to the New-York Historical Society and the Shelburne Museum. The Museum was made more accessible to the more than 1, visitors that visited for free through programs including Free Super Saturdays, the Highland Street Foundation s Free Fun Friday, and a new initiative that offers free admission for residents of Lowell and Lawrence in July and August. ATHM launched a renovated website, making the site more functional, visually appealing and responsive. The Virtual Textile Project, an open access database for high quality digitally-conserved textile images, digitally captured approximately 15, fabrics from ATHM s sample book collection, ranging from the 186s to the 195s. ATHM strengthened and built new partnerships for educational and outreach programming with organizations including Girls, Inc., Lowell and Lawrence Public Schools, and Phillips Academy. Goals: Expand educational programming to reach new school districts and audiences. Increase access to the Osborne Library through IMLS grant. Create greater community engagement with focused rotating exhibitions. Increase the strength of the endowment through an Institutional Development Campaign. Expand the capacity of the Museum s online shop. Needs Statement The American Textile History Museum like most museums in America has struggled during the past decade with economic downturns and diminished funding in the arts and humanities. Our most pressing concern at this point is to build sustainable annual gifts and develop diversified revenue streams from education, research and retail operations. To do this, we will be utilizing our tremendous collections and resources as well as dynamic permanent and special exhibitions. Following that, we want to expand and enhance our educational offerings with increased staff and resources to develop curriculum, improve outreach and serve as a resource for a national and international community. ATHM would also like to improve virtual access to our research collections through enhanced technological tools for the website and collections management. 3

4 CEO/Executive Director Statement It is my pleasure to welcome you to the American Textile History Museum, where we preserve the past and explore the future of our country through the unique lens of textiles. It is an exciting and critical time for ATHM, as we seek to undergo a major transformation, forming new partnerships and launching a major fundraising campaign to protect and preserve our unparalleled core collection and ensure we are here to fulfill our mission for generations to come. In early 216, we have temporarily closed our exhibits to the general public to allow us to focus on this essential transformation. From the first spinning mill to today s nanotechnology, the textile industry has been at the forefront of innovation, entrepreneurship and fashion. And ATHM is at the forefront of telling that story. Affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, this Museum is an invaluable resource of knowledge about an industry that helped define the course of this country. ATHM holds the world s largest and most important publicly held collections of tools, spinning wheels, hand looms, and early production machines, as well as more than five million pieces of textile prints, fabric samples, rolled textiles coverlets, and costumes. The Osborne Library alone contains more than 9, items including books, manuscripts, periodicals, trade literature postcards, and images. For those who have visited us, it is no surprise that we earned the Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence and were voted Merrimack Valley s Favorite Museum. With your support, we will preserve and protect the Museum s unparalleled core collection of American artifacts and continue to fulfill our mission for generations to come. We ask that all who share a love of and concern for America s textile history and heritage to help us ensure ATHM s future success and donate today. Thank you for helping us to preserve our nation s past and our museum s future. Warm regards, Todd Smith Interim Executive Director Service Categories Museums Libraries Geographic Areas Served The reach of ATHM is national and international through exhibitions and research. ATHM is an educator and a source of inspiration for people throughout northeast MA, particularly Lowell and Lawrence. Lowell is comprised of 4% minorities; 2% of residents live below the poverty level and 6% of students are eligible for free/reduced lunch. In Lawrence, the unemployment rate is 2%, nearly 6% of residents are minorities, and 84% of students are eligible for free/reduced lunch. Please review online profile for full list of selected areas served. 4

5 Programs Exhibitions Description As ATHM undergoes a significant transformation, our exhibits, galleries, and gift shop are temporarily closed to the general public as of January 1, 216, with access limited to members, private group tours, and educational programs. Access to the collections is available on a limited basis, by appointment only. Please visit for more information. Budget 19 Category Population Served Program Short Term Success Arts, Culture & Humanities, General/Other Museums Families, Children and Youth ( - 19 years), Adults Increases in Museum attendance and membership sales, positive reviews on travel sites, such as TripAdvisor.com, and increases in media coverage indicate growing popularity and reach of ATHM s exhibitions. Program Long term Success Program Success Monitored By Examples of Program Success Our exhibitions seek to provide greater public understanding of the innovative development of our country through the teaching tool of textile development. Increased reach will bring national name recognition through word-of-mouth publicity and new financial supporters. Museum attendance reports indicate the popularity of our exhibitions. Website and social media analytics as well as press coverage also indicate growing awareness and interest in ATHM exhibitions. ATHM earned TripAdvisor s Certificate of Excellence for consistent outstanding reviews. ATHM has received television coverage on WGBH s Open Studio, WCVB s Chronicle, as well as coverage in publications including The Boston Globe, Lowell Sun, New York Times, Boston Herald, Merrimack Valley Magazine, and FiberArt Now. ATHM also saw significant increases in attendance in 212 and

6 Educational Programs Description ATHM educational programs provide enjoyable opportunities for personal growth and discovery through exposure to information and objects that connect to America's diverse textile heritage and stimulate creativity and problem-solving skills. Our programs for school age children all conform to state achievement regulations and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) curriculum. Budget 1 Category Population Served Program Short Term Success Program Long term Success Program Success Monitored By Examples of Program Success Education, General/Other Education, General/Other Children and Youth ( - 19 years), Adults, ATHM s unique educational programming sees continuously high levels of participation across all areas, with new schools brining students for field trips or guided tours and highly skilled instructors leading textile arts classes and school programs. Increased enrollment in programs held on-site. Renewal of the Museum's traveling education program to local schools. Development of curriculum which can serve as a replicable model for other museums and/or schools. The Museum tracks program enrollment statistics and gathers feedback from program participants. We are the only institution locally to offer programs which help Boy Scouts earn the Textile and the new Inventing merit badges. The Inventing merit badge was instituted by the Lemelson Foundation which has a goal of fostering innovation, invention, and entrepreneurship. 6

7 Research and Library Programs Description The Osborne Library contains a rich and comprehensive collection of printed, pictorial and manuscript material of interest to researchers in a variety of fields. Users include historians of business, technology and labor, textile and exhibit designers, spinners, weavers, architects, filmmakers, textile workers and their families, and the general public. The collections include books, pamphlets, government documents, trade catalogs, advertising material, prints, photographs, insurance maps and business records that document the history of textile production in the United States. Budget 7 Category Arts, Culture & Humanities, General/Other Cultural Heritage Population Served General/Unspecified,, Program Short Term Success Program Long term Success Program Success Monitored By Examples of Program Success The Osborne Library has been awarded three two-year IMLS grants between 28 and 214 that have enabled us to make a large portion of our collections available through our online catalogue, the Chace Catalogue, and OCLC, an international database. That has increased usage of images and reference requests for more information. Improved technological tools, such as a new and upgraded collections database, will enable visitors to the website to have better access to all of our reference and research tools. However, a portion of our collections are still inaccessible to researchers who cannot make a physical visit to the library. An expanded library staff could increase access to this material, particularly in the labor-intensive area of processing manuscript collections. Data tracking both in-person and online inquiries, including web data analytics for the Chace Catalogue. Researchers in the past month have included a college senior researching a specific North Carolina company; an independent scholar researching the material used for slave clothes in the U.S.; a Ph.D. scholar working on museum studies and art history; and a post-doctoral scholar working on a conference presentation on 19 th -century medicine, using the details of the treatment of victims of the 186 Pemberton Mill collapse. Photo image requests in the past month have come from publishers, free-lance authors, an historic house museum preparing an exhibition; and members of the general public doing genealogical research. 7

8 Artifact Collections Description The American Textile History Museum houses one of the largest collections of its kind in the world making it an un-parallel resource for the study of American textile history. Historians and textile designers, architects and preservationist, engineers, novelists, and industrial archaeologists are all drawn to the Museum s collections. The textile and clothing collections include everyday garments, textile samples, textiles, and decorative art objects from the eighteenth century to the present. The tools & machinery collection includes pre-industrial artifacts and tools, industrial and powered machines, and workplace artifacts. Budget 11 Category Arts, Culture & Humanities, General/Other Population Served General/Unspecified,, Program Short Term Success Program Long term Success Program Success Monitored By Examples of Program Success ATHM provides access to its collections through its on-line database, exhibitions, and community programming. The collections have continued to grow and support the Museum s goal of telling America s story through the art, science, and history of textiles. Success is measured by tracking activities such as visitors and researchers both on-site and online. There is a steady increase in research inquiries to use the collections and a commitment to make the museum s collections available through as many avenues as possible. 8

9 Management CEO/Executive Director Executive Director Mr Jonathan A Stevens Term Start Jan 215 tsmith@athm.org Experience Senior Staff Mr. Steven Jackson Title Director of Finance and Administration Experience/Biography Staff Information Full Time Staff Part Time Staff Volunteers Contractors Retention Rate % Staff Demographics - Ethnicity African American/Black Asian American/Pacific Islander Caucasian 9 Hispanic/Latino Native American/American Indian Other Staff Demographics - Gender Male Female Unspecified 3 7 Formal Evaluations CEO Formal Evaluation 9

10 CEO/Executive Formal Evaluation Frequency Senior Management Formal Evaluation Senior Management Formal Evaluation Frequency NonManagement Formal Evaluation Non Management Formal Evaluation Frequency Annually Annually Annually Plans & Policies Organization has a Fundraising Plan? Organization has a Strategic Plan? Does your organization have a Business Continuity of Operations Plan? Management Succession Plan? Organization Policy and Procedures Nondiscrimination Policy Whistleblower Policy Document Destruction Policy Under Development No No Under Development Under Development No No Awards Awards Award/Recognition Organization Year Landmark Mechanical Engineering Collection Reader's Choice Award - Museums American Society Of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) 212 Merrimack Valley Magazine 212 Certificate of Excellence TripAdvisor 214 External Assessments and Accreditations Assessment/Accreditation American Association of Museums - 1 Year Accreditation Year Affiliations Affiliation Year American Association of Museums - Member Smithsonian Museum - Affiliate 1

11 Board & Governance Board Chair Board Chair Mr J. Matthew Coggins Company Affiliation Enterprise Bank Term Dec 215 to Board Members Name Affiliation Status Ms. Judy Canal Lowell General Hospital Voting Ms. Laurie Carlson Steger Weavers' Guild of RI Voting Mr. Peter J. Caruso II Prince Lobel Tye LLP Voting Ms. Peggy Church Volunteer Voting Mr. J. Matthew Coggins Enterprise Bank Voting Ms. Gail M Dowd CPA, MBA Eaton Vance Management Voting Mr. A. Garcia Broadwater Capital Mangement Voting Mr. Eric A. Lowrey Brown Brothers & Harriman Voting Ms. Marlene Marchilena Volunteer Voting Mr. John H Pearson Jr. Pearson & Pearson Voting Mr. Barrett F. Ripley Troy Mills Voting Ms. Jan Russell Retired Voting Mr. George W Shuster Retired Voting Mr. Karl H Spilhaus National Textile Association Voting Ms. Ruth Ward Volunteer Voting Mr. L. McKay Whatley Attorney Voting Board Demographics - Ethnicity African American/Black Asian American/Pacific Islander Caucasian 16 Hispanic/Latino 1 Native American/American Indian Other Board Demographics - Gender Male Female Unspecified

12 Board Information Board Term Lengths Number of Full Board Meetings Annually Written Board Selection Criteria? Written Conflict of Interest Policy? Percentage Making Monetary Contributions Percentage Making In-Kind Contributions Constituency Includes Client Representation 3 4 9% 1% No Standing Committees Audit Board Development / Board Orientation Development / Fund Development / Fund Raising / Grant Writing / Major Gifts Collections Finance Executive Investment Personnel 12

13 Financials Fiscal Year Fiscal Year Start Jan 1, 213 Fiscal Year End Dec 31, 213 Projected Revenue $2,24,785. Projected Expenses $1,849,759. Endowment? Endowment Value $24. Spending Policy Percentage Percentage 5% Credit Line? Reserve Fund? No Months Reserve Fund Covers Detailed Financials Revenue and Expenses Fiscal Year Total Revenue $1,831,657 $1,297,88 $985,785 Total Expenses $1,799,5 $1,841,462 $1,821,712 Revenue Sources Fiscal Year Foundation and Corporation Contributions Government Contributions $54,741 $63,417 $58,9 Federal State Local Unspecified $54,741 $63,417 $58,9 Individual Contributions $1,452,91 $91,222 $534,32 Indirect Public Support Earned Revenue $113,453 $99,863 $99,685 Investment Income, Net of Losses $149,97 $122,358 $282,71 Membership Dues Special Events $57,97 $9,15 $7,279 Revenue In-Kind Other $2,622 $11,123 $4,628 13

14 Expense Allocation Fiscal Year Program Expense $1,384,265 $1,49,653 $1,478,137 Administration Expense $153,58 $182,396 $146,47 Fundraising Expense $261,277 $249,413 $197,528 Payments to Affiliates Total Revenue/Total Expenses Program Expense/Total Expenses 77% 77% 81% Fundraising Expense/Contributed Revenue 17% 23% 33% Assets and Liabilities Fiscal Year Total Assets $8,625,915 $8,394,719 $8,785,281 Current Assets $1,234,83 $1,137,677 $1,216,657 Long-Term Liabilities $6, $44,31 $89,421 Current Liabilities $22,953 $222,838 $119,12 Total Net Assets $8,344,962 $8,127,85 $8,576,848 Short Term Solvency Fiscal Year Current Ratio: Current Assets/Current Liabilities Long Term Solvency Fiscal Year Long-Term Liabilities/Total Assets 1% 1% 1% Top Funding Sources Fiscal Year Top Funding Source & Dollar Amount Second Highest Funding Source & Dollar Amount Third Highest Funding Source & Dollar Amount Capital Campaign Currently in a Capital Campaign? Capital Campaign Anticipated in Next 5 Years? No Comments CEO Comments The Museum is embarking on a multi-year program impacting all areas of the organization to stabilize our financial situation and grow support through diversified revenue streams. Our objective is to enhance ATHM by leveraging our significant Library and Collection holdings to reach wider audiences, develop curriculum, expand programs, promote educational engagement with all ages and generate income to support these activities. This income will come from diverse activities including enhanced and substantive on-line research assistance, contracted in-house research for businesses, genealogical searches, educational programs that serve audiences on-site, on-line, and in the classroom. By having a more robust use of the information available on our collections and archives we will also use images and resources from those holdings to create salable retail objects. We are developing a retail plan and operation to market Museum capital both on-site and on-line. 14

15 The primary focus of leadership and staff is continual improvement of exhibitions and exceptional educational programming. By accomplishing these goals through multiple venues onsite, on-line, and in appropriate outside locations we continue to advance the Museum s mission to tell America s story through the art; history and science of textiles. Foundation Staff Comments Financial summary data in the charts and graphs above is per the organization's IRS Form 99s. Contributions from foundations and corporations are listed under individuals when the breakout was not available. Created Copyright 218 The Boston Foundation 15