The museum of The Balch Institute is unique in collecting cultural materials from all ethnic groups in the United States. Over sixty groups are currently represented in the museum collections. Just as the museum is the first of its kind, so is this catalog. To document such a diverse collection requires a major departure from most scholarship in American "material culture," which has tended to focus narrowly on a single ethnic group (primarily Anglo-Americans, or other early immigrants including Pennsylvania Germans and more recently, other major groups such as African Americans and Jews).
The museum's holdings concentrate heavily on late nineteenth and twentieth century immigration and are especially strong in eastern and southern European textiles and other items from the mass immigration at the turn of the century. The collections also contain many contemporary materials which document the ethnic revival of the 1970s and '80s and the arrival of new immigrant groups, especially those from Asia. Materials reflecting ethnic and racial discrimination, a painful part of the experience of most immigrants and racial minorities in the United States, comprise another major part of our holdings.
The museum's policy stipulates that acquisitions must "bear some relationship to the immigrant or ethnic experience in North America." Clarifying this extremely broad mandate, the Museum Committee of the Board of Directors recently listed thirteen kinds of materials as priorities for collecting:
- Items brought to the United States by immigrants or refugees.
- Items brought back to the United States by immigrants or their descendants after a visit to the homeland.
- Items made or used in the United States reflecting ethnic cultures or traditions.
- Items relating to the United States Immigration Service, immigrant aid societies, or ethnic fraternal organizations.
- Items relating to the preparation of traditional ethnic cuisine in the United States.
- Religious or ceremonial items reflecting traditional ethnic practices in the United States.
- Items relating to ethnic-American businesses or the involvement of ethnic Americans in labor and industry.
- Items reflecting oppression of or discrimination against ethnic Americans.
- Ethnic stereotypes in American popular culture.
- Items reflecting ethnic pride.
- Art works made in or brought to the United States reflecting ethnic traditions.
- Artistic representations of immigrants or ethnic groups.
- Personal or family memorabilia associated with immigration or ethnicity.
For the museum the most important criterion in acquiring an item for the permanent collection is its provenance, the history of the object from its origin to the point at which it came to us. We attempt to obtain as much documentation as possible on its maker, user, subsequent owners and users, and on the circumstances of its eventual acquisition by the museum. Some of the objects are common, everyday things that, on the surface, have no visible ethnic "content." Only the context in which they were used (for example, an immigrant's preparation of a traditional cuisine in a very ordinary pot) invest them with particular value and importance. Our Object History Form, recently developed and modeled on those of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh), and The Strong Museum (Rochester, New York), prompts the donor to recall as much information as possible about a gift. In compiling this catalog we contacted many past donors to obtain more complete documentation, and we thank all who responded to our inquiries.
The museum collection encompasses more than 4,000 objects. The 250 described here represent the collection's ethnic diversity, illustrate the major thematic categories, and include some of the most interesting items from a visual or documentary standpoint.
Because provenance, especially the context in which objects were used, is so important in the museum's collections, this catalog is not organized according to the standard categories of Fine Arts, Decorative Arts, Textiles, Ceramics, and so on. Rather, each chapter represents a significant theme.
Most of the collection consists of gifts from individuals, families, and organizations. Other items were purchased in antique shops or flea markets or from private individuals. We are grateful to the many hundreds of donors who have preserved and donated traditional clothing, household furnishings, tapestries, fraternal badges, tools, table covers, trousseau articles, toys, carvings, signs, posters, identity cards, passports, and countless other materials. Recognizing that their provenance invests these personal and family treasures with sentimental as well as historical value, we are committed to treating them with care and professionalism.
The diversity of the museum's holdings is intended to foster understanding of and appreciation for cultural differences. One of the Institute's founders, explorer and geographer Edwin Swift Balch, believed that the collection and interpretation of ethnographic specimens could instruct people about human behavior. In an autobiographical paper he wrote, "For many years I have spent much time working in picture galleries and ethonological museums both here and in Europe, comparing the fine arts of all times and all climes, tracing resemblances and differences between them and inferring therefrom what they tell man about himself." Several of the objects he acquired on his travels are now part of the museum's collection, including the kakemono scroll illustrated here.
In 1922 Edwin and his brother Thomas Willing Balch advised the trustees of their estates that "the Museum Department of the Institute... may acquire, by purchase or gift, such things as pictures, sculptures, etchings, etc.; maps and charts; ethnographical specimens, especially American... and other similar things...." It is these rich and diverse ethnographic "specimens" which we employ to tell us about ourselves and our fellow human beings.
Gail F. Stern
Museum Director
[Introduction: Image Archive]
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© 1996 The Balch Institute For Ethnic Studies
This Internet publication has been supported by grants from
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