Next Conservation Conversations Featuring Helene Tello 12/1 @ 11 AM PT

The use of pesticides in museum collections at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century will be discussed in the socio-political context of Germans history. Embedded in the formation of nation states, the First World War, industrialization, and the subsequent hygiene movement, museums fought with various active ingredients and agents against the decay of their objects by harmful insects. Appearing as small self-contained institutions, they relied heavily on outside support. The Ethnological Museum in Berlin (EM), with its cultural-political significance, and geographical location, is ideally suited as a case study. There, an extensive collection policy led to completely overcrowded storages and exhibition halls, where harmful insects found plenty of food at the objects made of organic materials. As a consequence, individuals, scientific institutions, and a booming industry were feverishly searching for active ingredients and agents for combating harmful pests. The former staff at the EM began networking nationally and internationally to stop the infestation in the collections. But the most innovative and revolutionary technological aid came from Sweden, where a plant for mass fumigation of insect pests, specially constructed for museum facilities, was invented. It was spread to Germany and throughout Europe in the further course. This presentation on the history of conserving cultural assets against harmful pests complements our knowledge on the preservation of museum objects as well as on the assessment of human-toxic hazards that emanate from the formerly introduced active ingredients and agents in the collection’s objects. The presentation also refers to the various efforts to develop methods and technologies to remove or mitigate toxic substances from objects with organic materials.

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