Minnesota Museum of American Pattern Glass

Goals

The Museum is interested in accomplishing one or more of the goals listed below.

Relocation

• The majority of interest in early American Glassware seems to be centered in the areas of New England and the Mid-Atlantic states which means that we do not experience a high-volume of visitors to the Minneapolis museum.
• The museum does have about 5,000 items and many display cabinets that cannot be housed in the museum proper and, therefore, we might consider relocating some of the glass and cabinets to a site that might be willing and able to house the collection.
• If you know of a venue that might be a candidate for long-term housing and display of some of our glass please contact Peter Thomas in Minneapolis at (612) 991-6880 or by email at peter9120@usinternet.com

Volunteers

• The Minneapolis museum is looking for a few persons who would be willing to serve as receptionists/monitors during the museum's hours of operation.
• If there was sufficient interest, we might also be able to extend the days/hours of the museum schedule.
• If interested, please contact Peter Thomas at (612) 991-6880 or by email at peter9120@usinternet.com

Capital Fund

• The Museum, as an IRS 501 c(3) non-profit and a registered Minnesota Charity would appreciate information about techniques/tools for approaching corporations, trusts, foundations and other charitable donors with the intention to establish a Capital Fund. Such a fund should be able to generate sufficient interest to allow the Museum to:
  • Cover yearly operating costs
  • Establish educational programs for schools, colleges and the public using the museum collections as a teaching tool
  • Potentially expand the current physical space occupied by the museum and to enhance its collections and information.

Online Museum

• In order to make the contents of the museum available to a wider audience, the museum would like to hire local help to photograph and organize the glassware and its information.
• This would involve the museum contents proper and also temporary storage of a large portion of our glass in order to form an online archive available worldwide.
• We have begun to investigate area college programs that might have students who would be interested in such a project.

Any comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.