Protect Our Collection

About the Award

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the Boston Athenæum’s Conservation Laboratory a five-year Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grant of $182,500.

How You Can Help

Meet the challenge and help preserve the Athenæum’s collections for generations to come. Your gift and a match from the National Endowment for the Humanities will provide the Conservation Laboratory with the tools and team it needs to stay on the cutting edge of collections care. For every $3 our community donates, the National Endowment for the Humanities will chip in $1.

Grant-Funded Conservation Treatments

Combined gifts from donors and the grant match supported the acquisition of essential, state-of-the-art tools and materials, and allowed the Athenæum to hire a full-time conservator with expertise in photography. So far, seventy-six items have been treated, including unique, fragile daguerreotypes.