“Treasures” from the Canadian War Museum’s Backlog

Authors

Dan Glenney, Canadian War Museum
Eric Fernberg, Canadian War Museum
Harry Martin, Canadian War Museum
Philip White, Canadian War Museum

Abstract

In the 1970s Canadian War Museum curatorial staff decided they needed to bolster the scope of the museum’s national military collection. Consequently, they placed ads in Legion magazine and enclosed flyers in veterans’ pension cheques inviting veterans to send in military or military related items they had in their possession that they thought would be of interest to the museum. The response was overwhelming. In the end, a grand total of 24,400 objects poured in; many more than was anticipated and much too large a number for the museum’s small staff to properly register and catalogue. The only option was to carry out a basic inventory and then pack the objects away in boxes (which occupied a total of 197 pallets) pending the day when sufficient resources would become available to process them adequately, so that they would become properly identified and usable museum artifacts.

Recommended Citation

Glenney, Dan; Fernberg, Eric; Martin, Harry; and White, Philip "“Treasures” from the Canadian War Museum’s Backlog." Canadian Military History 11, 2 (2002)