C. F. Davis drawing of Mackinac Island and fort, 1839.
Collecting Priorities
We are always on the lookout for objects to add to the collection. Some of the items are for specific exhibits, others are for the study and research collections. The chart below outlines what we are currently seeking. General object categories are on the left. At the right are specific examples of objects in each category. If you have items you think we might be interested in, please contact Chief Curator Steve Brisson at 906-847-3328 or 231-436-4100 brissons@michigan.gov.
Archival Materials
Letters, diaries and journals; broadsides, posters and pamphlets; business records, ledgers and hotel registers; maps, legal documents and military records.
Specific:
Mackinac Island News bound copies 1930s-1940s. Any issues from 1939, 1942 and 1943.
Art Work
Paintings, drawings and sketches of Straits of Mackinac locations.
Specific:
Quill work-on-birchbark craft items.
Fishing Industry
Fishing tools and equipment, records and packaging.
Souvenir "fudgie" button from Ryba's fudge shop, ca. 1960's.
Fudge Trade
Items representing the confectionary industry on Mackinac Island.
Specific:
Early to mid twentieth-century commercial fudge making equipment, advertising and packaging.
Fur Trade
Trade goods and fur processing materials, late 1600s through the early 1800s.
Specific:
American Fur Company objects (records, products, furnishings, personal items of key individuals).
Beaver-felt hat, ca. 1780.
Wicker rocker from the Governor's residence.
Furniture
Original interior furnishings from the interpreted sites. Interior store, hotel and cottage furnishings from Mackinac Island.
Specific:
Wicker furniture from Mackinac Island.
Fort Mackinac furnishings.
Heywood Brothers & Wakefield Company (later Heywood-Wakefield) and Lloyd Manufacturing Company (consolidated with Heywood-Wakefield, 1921) catalogs and other product literature.
Original blueprint for the Young Cottage (Governor's residence).
Governor’s Summer Residence
Furnishings and personal items from the residence and of the governors and their families used at the residence. Particularly objects representative of the families’ summer leisure activities while on the island.
Mackinac Island State Park Commission & Mackinac State Historic Parks
Items representative of the institutional history of the parks including publications, brochures, records, personal items of key individuals, signs, banners, exhibit components etc.
Specific:
Brochures and publications from the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Maritime
Great Lakes Shipping Lines: china, room keys, tickets, brochures and posters.
Specific:
Erie & Western Transportation Company-- Anchor Line, brochures, timetables and other literature ca. 1902-16. Particularly items with photographic illustrations.
Shipping-line posters and broadsides.
Mackinac Island Yacht Club Flags
Yacht Race material (Chicago to Mackinac & Detroit to Mackinac) including literature, trophies, flags etc.
Military
Arms, uniforms, etc. representing the Great Lakes activity of the French, 1600s through 1761; British, 1700s through 1840; and Americans through 1895.
Specific:
Any original objects from Colonial Michilimackinac or Fort Mackinac.
British 1770s Shortland Pattern “Brown Bess” (Second Model) musket.
1770s King’s 8th Regiment uniform (British army).
1872 Pattern U. S. Army enlisted and officer’s dress caps.
1872 Pattern U. S. Army officer’s forage cap.
1881 Pattern U. S. Army infantry officer’s helmet.
1880s U.S. Army infantry and uniform.
Nineteenth-century bust of Civil War General John Alexander Logan.
Native American
Upper Great Lakes.
President Gerald R. Ford's 1975 (18 hour) visit to Mackinac Island.
Photographs & Movies
Professional Photos and Snapshots of Mackinac locations. Portraits of Mackinac people: Fort soldiers and their families; summer tourists; cottages and business owners. Motion Pictures: Newsreels and other commercial motion picture productions. Home Movies (8mm and others)
Specific:
Twentieth-century Mackinac Island photos and slides (especially pre-1960).
Props, literature, posters, scripts etc. from commercial films, This Time for Keeps (1947) and Somewhere in Time(1980).
Somewhere in Time bicycle license plate.
Early interior photographs of Fort Mackinac buildings, Mackinaw Point Lighthouse, hotels, cottages, etc.
Original W. H. Gardiner prints.
Mackinac Island postcard, ca. 1955.
Postcards
Postcards of Straits of Mackinac sites.
Specific:
Detroit Publishing Company views.
Recreation
Equipment and literature of golfing, fishing, boating, swimming, horseback riding, lacrosse etc. on Mackinac Island or the interpreted sites.
Specific:
Wawashkamo Golf Club literature and equipment.
Religion
Upper Great Lakes Native American; Straits Region French missions and early 19th-century Protestant missions; Mackinac Island churches; Moral Re-Armament
Specific:
Moral Re-Armament material (literature, photographs, objects and original prints of MRA films).
Late 18th-century French missionary Roman Catholic sacred vessels and liturgical vestments.
Scout Service Camp, Mackinac Island
Objects, photographs, scrapbooks and other graphic materials.
Specific:
Boy Scout uniform and equipment (worn or used on Mackinac Island) from the early decades of the camp.
Snapshots.
Souvenirs
Pictorial china, pennants, paper weights, spoons, etc. with Mackinac inscriptions and/or views.
Specific:
Cobalt blue china.
Ruby glass items.
Balsam pillow postcards (leather pillows stuffed with balsam needles).
Items produced by island merchant Frank Kniesche.
Stereoview of the Todd House on Mackinac Island (1991.10.35).
Stereoviews
Mackinac locations (common publishers include H. J. Rossiter, P. B. Greene, J. A Jenney, B. F. Childs, Foley, Crater & Bill, L. Black & Co./John R. Bailey distributer)
Specific:
Selections from Foley’s Stereoview Series, late 1880s: Arch Rock, taken from bluff Maiden Arch, under Arch Rock Lover’s Retreat Scott’s Cave Chimney Rock Lover’s Leap Thimble Cave, under Fairy Arch Stairs to Devil’s Kitchen Keightley’s bluff Pulpit Rock Cap of Fairy Arch Point Look-Out Fort Holmes, highest point on Is. Fort Mackinac, from the rear Parade Ground, in Ft. Mackinac Drill ground, in Ft. Mackinac Battery, in Ft. Mackinac Soldier’s Quarters, at Ft. Soldier’s Quarters, interior at Ft. Guard House, St.. Ft. Block House, built in 1769 (sic) (have cabinet view Officers Quarters, at Ft. 1000 Yards Rifle Range, at Ft. View of Village, from Ft. Mack. Astor St.., from Fort street Harbor and Docks Catholic Church Episcopal Church Palmer House Astor House Mission House Mackinac House Foley’s Art Gallery Plank’s Grand Hotel New Mackinac The Windsor Grand Central New Murray House
Selections from P. B. Greene Stereoview Series Arch Rock, from below (2 views) Robinson’s Folly Sugarloaf Rock (need 1 of 3) Friendship’s Altar Chimney Rock Fairy Arch of Giant’s Stairway O-Tush-Ke-Now Point Fort Mackinac C. B. Fenton’s Residence Mission House Leaning Rock Gitchie Manitou Lover’s Leap, from above Giants’s Stairway Maiden’s Rock Buttress to Arch rock St. Cloud Hotel John J. Astor House Mackinac House Officers’Quarters Fenton’s Bazaar buttress to Arch Rock St. Cloud Hotel John J. Astor House Mackinac House Officers’Quarters Fenton’s Bazaaar
Fenton's Indian Bazaar advertisement, ca. 1880's.
Tourism Industry
Materials representing the sumner tourist industry at Mackinac from the mid 1800s to the present.
Specific:
Hotel items including room furnishings, china, room keys, literature and matchbooks(especially objects bearing hotel names and/or logos).
Clothing and personal items of tourists and cottagers.
Grand Hotel conference badges.
Signs: trade or advertising (e.g. fudge and souvenir shops; hotels; boat docks; steamship lines; liveries; bicycle rentals).
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Historic
Mackinac Island
Colonial
Old Mackinac
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