Archives Preservation

We are actively working to stabilize and preserve the Nakashima Archives collection.

The archives include photographs, architectural drawings, film, documents, and letters connected to the George Nakashima Woodworkers, the Peace Altar project, the life and travels of the Nakashima family and their experiences, including being incarcerated in Minidoka, Idaho during World War II. The archives also provide insight into the relationships that the Nakashimas had with well-known figures such as Isamu Noguchi, Morris Graves, Ben and Bernarda Shahn, Buckminster Fuller, Mildred Johnstone, George Tsutakawa, and other artists and visionaries.  

In 2020, we received a Preservation Needs Assessment Report conducted by the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia and are implementing its recommendations. In 2022, we received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions to inventory and assess our archives needs, and to purchase archival supplies and environmental monitoring equipment for spaces where we use and store collections throughout the site. These include a polyester sealing machine to make custom-sized protective sleeves for documents and prints, archival quality document folders and boxes for oversized material, and data loggers to measure temperature and humidity. Head Archivist Dave Long and Grants Manager/Administrator Zoriana Siokalo organized and rehoused archival material throughout the compound and planned for this continuing work in the Family House.

The Nakashima archives preservation project has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy Demands Wisdom. 

In 2023, we were awarded a Historical & Archival Records Care (HARC) grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to tend to the Family Archives specifically in the Nakashima Family House. This collection, largely untouched for decades, spans more than 100 years of the Nakashima family, and includes more than 1,000 books, personal correspondence, financial documents, photographs and photo albums, cookbooks, scrap books, correspondence with artists and friends Ben and Bernarda Shahn, Harry Bertoia, and Morris Graves, travel-related documents and memorabilia, sketches and drawings, as well as government documents and personal letters to and from Minidoka, Idaho where the family was incarcerated in WRA camps for Japanese Americans during World War II, and the family’s subsequent release from the camp to Bucks County, Pennsylvania through the sponsorship of architect Antonin Raymond to his nearby farm.

Dave Long, Head Archivist, Lauren Griffin, Program Coordinator and Assistant Archivist, and Zoriana Siokalo, Grants Manager/Administrator, purchased archival supplies and materials to properly care for the collection, monitored environmental conditions in the House, organized and rehoused the archives throughout the House, prepared a draft of a finding guide, and are creating policies for the care and preservation of the material following the recommendations of the CAP report in Dec. 2023. We received two grants in 2024 from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Keystone Preservation Planning Program to produce a Historic Structure Report and other preservation documents. The Nakashima Archives provided a wealth of information throughout this preservation effort.

The Nakashima archives preservation project was supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s Historical Archives and Records Care Grant, a program funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.