In the summer of 2024, I spent eight weeks at the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) for my first paper conservation internship as part of my master’s program in conservation at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Under the guidance of Chief Conservator Babette Gehnrich — who has dedicated over 35 years to stewarding this remarkable collection — I had the privilege of engaging in various conservation projects. Through this internship, I came to appreciate how AAS’s vast collection, comprising over four million items, embodies American history not only through its texts and imagery but also through traces of use, repair, and past conservation efforts. In this blog post, I will share my experiences from three major projects I participated in.
The Patowmac Guardian
One of my primary projects during the internship was treating 203 newly acquired issues of the 1791-94 Patowmac Guardian. [1] This newspaper — the first printed in what is now West Virginia — arrived at AAS in a bound, though deteriorating state, covered in dust and inactive mold. With 160 of the 203 issues the only known extant copies, and with its acidified and brittle condition, the volume became a high priority for conservation. To preserve the rare newspaper and maximize accessibility for scholars at AAS and beyond, the institution digitized all 203 issues after treatment.
With a limited timeframe for conservation treatment before digitization, my work focused on improving the newspaper’s legibility and ensuring safe handling. I removed surface dirt and mold deposits, washed out acidic degradation products, and sized the paper with gelatin to give it more strength.
While most issues had stable paper substrates, minimizing complications during treatment, the sheer volume of work and the varying paper quality posed challenges. However, this project provided an invaluable opportunity to refine my hand skills in handling wet paper and deepen my understanding of the differences between paper used for daily, functional objects and that of fine art materials.
The Prodigal Daughter
While washing, drying, and sizing issues of The Patowmac Guardian at the sink and shared workstations, I also worked on other objects at my bench. One particularly fascinating project involved the survey and treatment of multiple copies of The Prodigal Daughter, a Puritan children’s book published in New England between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. [2]
Though the original author remains unknown, this story was widely printed and circulated in small sixteen-page pamphlets with wrappers for nearly a century. Intrigued by its history, I conducted a survey of twenty-four copies, focusing on those printed in the 18th century, and treated three of them.
Evolution of Conservation Materials — Undoing Earlier Paper Repairs
The first copy I treated was the earliest known edition of The Prodigal Daughter in the United States, presumed to have been printed between 1742 and 1754.
This copy had undergone tear mending and loss compensation using Asian tissue paper and wheat paste, a widely used technique until today due to its stable aging properties and mechanical durability from the long fibers. However, the quality of the Japanese paper used in the previous treatment no longer met today’s conservation standards. While it likely was the best material commercially available at the time, it was excessively thick, obscuring text and images beneath the opaque tissue layers.
To today’s book and paper conservators, including Babette and me, this treatment no longer aligns with current aesthetic standards, especially given our access to a wide range of much thinner Asian papers today, ones that will keep the legibility of text and images intact.
Fortunately, Babette’s meticulous record-keeping led us to a 1978 treatment report written by her predecessor, Kenneth Desautels. This short note from 46 years ago confirmed that the old repairs were reversible, allowing us to proceed confidently with their removal.
Video of Minyoung Kim working to remove tissue.
Using controlled moisture, I carefully reactivated the wheat starch paste adhesive and peeled away the old mends. Tears and small holes were then re-mended with much finer Kozo tissue. To repair larger areas of loss, I prepared a toned paper pulp, closely matching the color of the pages. Once dried under light pressure, I trimmed the excess fill material and sewed the sections back together.
(Left: The Prodigal Daughter before removal of old mends.)
(Right: The Prodigal Daughter after pulp fills.)
Undoing Silking – Scientific Understanding of Conservation Materials
While the process of undoing old repairs and re-mending the second copy of The Prodigal Daughter (printed in 1768) was nearly identical to the first, the history behind the material I removed was quite different. This copy had undergone silking, a treatment in which silk crepeline is adhered to one or both sides of a damaged document to reinforce its structural integrity and prevent further damage. This treatment gained attention in the late nineteenth century and became a common practice from 1900 into the 1940s, as it was the only available material then, and because it successfully reinforced the paper without compromising legibility. [3] [4]
Over time, unforeseen issues with silking emerged. First, if too much pressure was applied during the lining process, the texture of the laminated textile left an irreversible impression on the paper’s surface, altering the character of the original material. While this unintended surface alteration is undesirable, more concerning are the poor aging properties of silk, particularly when alum was added to the starch paste. As conservation science advanced, and conservators studied objects that had undergone silking, it became evident that while supporting the paper, the silk was potentially contributing to the document’s fragility. [4]
(Left: Detail of previous silking on The Prodigal Daughter.)
(Right: Detail of impression left by previous silking after removal.)
While undoing silking is not always critical, Babette and I decided to treat this particular object to restore its original pamphlet format as well as reduce the paper’s acidity, as it exhibited yellowing and pH testing gave us low readings. Its historically inaccurate cover — likely a later modification by a collector or dealer — was removed also.
(Left: Silked title page of The Prodigal Daughter (1768) before treatment.)
(Right: Title page of The Prodigal Daughter (1768) after silk removal.)
Unlike the first copy I treated, there was no documentation of the original silking treatment. However, by conducting a water reactivity test, we were able to make an informed assessment of the adhesive used and safely remove both the silk and its adhesive. After washing the pages to flush out acidic degradation products and residual adhesive, I performed a paper pulp fill and carefully rejoined the leaves to restore the pamphlet’s original structure.
History of Connoisseurship – To Preserve or to Remove?
Throughout my survey of twenty-four pre-1801 copies of The Prodigal Daughter, I encountered many with condition issues, including outdated repairs as discussed in previous treatment examples. However, I did not treat every single one of them. In some cases, this was simply due to the limited time I had at AAS, while in other cases, condition issues were too complex to be successfully addressed.
Among the previously repaired copies that were left untreated ( even though those repairs no longer meet modern conservation standards), were those where the repairs themselves held historical significance. One particularly memorable example was a copy donated by connoisseur, collector, and AAS Member d’Alte Welch, which had undergone a rather unorthodox yet fascinating repair in the mid-20th century.
(Top left: d’Alte Welch’s note on the inside front cover: “The imprint on the title- page is conjectural based on the evidence set forth in the 3 pages slipped in this cover”.)
(Top right: The cover of The Prodigal Daughter.)
(Bottom left: Page 10 and 11 of The Prodigal Daughter.)
(Bottom right: d’Alte Welch’s note on his repair.)
Upon opening the book, I found small fragments of the original pamphlet meticulously pasted onto modern printing paper. What surprised me most was a sudden change in paper type just before a page from the original text block. Accompanied by detailed notes from the connoisseur/collector himself attached to the cover, I speculated that the shift from commercial printing paper to Asian tissue paper — known for its stable aging properties — was an intentional effort to preserve the original page that followed the fragmented pieces. Though this step is not one a conservator would undertake today, it demonstrated a careful and intentional effort to preserve the original material and reflected the connoisseur’s deep appreciation for the object. Rather than reversing this intervention, we decided to retain it as part of the object’s history, acknowledging the different conservation philosophies over time and the limitations of available paper repair supplies.
Will my treatments stand the test of time?
As I surveyed and treated objects that had undergone past treatments, those no longer in alignment with today’s conservation standards, I could not help but wonder: will the treatments I perform today stand the test of time? The materials and techniques I use are, as far as I know, widely accepted as ‘appropriate’ by current conservation standards. But will they still be considered as such 50 or 100 years later?
As New York University Professor Michele Marincola notes in her 2011 article, “Many treatments we consider problematic today may not have been entirely ineffective in the period in which they were carried out. In fact, the continued survival of the objects may be due to these very ‘mistaken’ methods.” [5]
I am certain that, despite my fullest commitment to practice a meticulous approach and careful decision-making, some of the treatments will one day be deemed outdated or even unacceptable. However, I have no choice but to move forward with my best efforts to preserve cultural heritage—not only for the next generation of scholars, who will study these objects, but also for future conservators, who will re-treat them with more advanced materials and techniques.
This humbling lesson, learned through re-treating historical repairs, reinforced for me the importance of using reversible or re-treatable materials in conservation, as well as maintaining thorough documentation. As I advance in my career, I will ensure that my treatment reports are detailed and transparent — certainly much longer than the brief report left by Babette’s predecessor in 1978.
References
[1] American Antiquarian Society. 2024. First newspaper published in West Virginia acquired by the American Antiquarian Society [Press release].
[2] The Prodigal daughter: or A strange and wonderful relation, shewing, how a gentleman of a vast estate in Bristol, had a proud and disobedient daughter, who because her parents would not support her in all her extravagance, bargained with the Devil to poison them. How an angel informed her parents of their daughter’s design. How she lay in a trance four days, and when she was put into the grave, she came to life again, and related the wonderful things she saw in the other world. Likewise the substance of a sermon preached on this occasion by the Reverend Mr. Williams, from Luke 15. 24. (1742). [Boston, Massachusetts. Printed and sold by Thomas Fleet at the Heart and Crown in Cornhill, Boston, between 1742 and 1754.] American Antiquarian Society (Dated Pamphlets B4630), Worcester, MA, United States.
[3] Krueger, Holly H. 1995. “The Core Collection of the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress.” The Book and Paper Group Annual 14: 9-17.
[4] Krueger, Holly H. 2003. “Magnesium Revisited” The Book and Paper Group Annual 22. Washington DC : AIC. 33-39.
[5] Marincola, Michele; and Maisey, Sarah. 2011. To err is human: understanding and sharing mistakes in conservation practice.
Minyoung Kim is a second-year paper conservation student at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts. In the summer of 2024, she worked as a conservation intern at the American Antiquarian Society under the supervision of Chief Conservator Babette Gehnrich. While focusing on paper conservation, Minyoung is also deeply interested in the technical and art historical aspects of cultural heritage across various materials, including photographs, books, and textiles. She currently serves as the NYC Regional Co-Liaison for the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network and will intern at the Yale Center for British Art in the summer of 2025.