Brown University Library News

Thanks to the generosity of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, along with the Brown Forman Corporation, the Brown University Library will be able to begin development of a comprehensive database devoted to the study of the Gorham Manufacturing Company. Brown will work in conjunction with both the Museum and the Library of the Rhode Island School of Design to design the digital collection, which will draw on collections of Gorham silverware held by museums from around the world. The $29, 609 grant will enable staff members to create a website to house archival drawings, sketches, and product descriptions based on catalogues produced by Gorham Manufacturing and held by the Brown Library. Users will be able to identify their own pieces and contribute their own descriptions of their personal holdings to the virtual catalogue, thereby leading to a fuller understanding of Gorham and, by extension, American manufacturing.
“The funding provided by IMLS is important for getting us started down the long road to making the Gorham Archive accessible to the public,” says project coordinator Holly Snyder, North American History Librarian at the Brown University Library.”There are wonderful materials in the collection that, at present, no one is able to use because they are uncatalogued. This project is where we begin to change all that. The Gorham Archive is enormously important from an academic perspective, because it is one of the largest collections of research material devoted to a single corporation in the United States. It contains a wealth of documentation on the design, engineering, manufacturing, labor on and social history of silver products for consumers between 1831 and the 1980s.”
Brown University holds the largest collection of material relating to the Gorham Manufacturing Company, a leading American manufacturer of sterling and silverplate and producer of ecclesiastical wear from Victorian time through the 1960s. The Gorham Collection boasts a broad and diverse array of archival records including thousands of drawings and photographs of Gorham products, corporate files, personnel and sales records, advertisements, blueprints, plaster casts, and copper printing plates.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 122,000 libraries and 15,000 museums. Its mission is to grow and sustain a “Nation of Learners” because life-long learning is essential to a democratic society and individual success. Through its grant making, convenings, research and publications, the Institute empowers museums and libraries nationwide to provide leadership and services to enhance learning in families and communities, sustain cultural heritage, build twenty-first-century skills, and increase civic participation. To learn more about the Institute, please visit: http://www.imls.gov.