Welcome to the Conservation Lab!

Guests at the Michigan Capitol get to see some fascinating exhibits in Heritage Hall. These displays include hundreds of artifacts, historical photos, and sometimes - live people! One of the most prominent features here is a window looking into a conservation laboratory where my colleague Cambray and I care for Michigan’s Civil War battle flags.

While the 240 flags in the Capitol’s collection are stored safely at the Michigan History Museum, most of them are now over 150 years old and are extremely delicate. Many were damaged by their time on the battlefields as well as decades of display in the Capitol’s rotunda. Conservation is the best way to preserve these flags for future generations.

The 240 battle flags and their staffs are stored in a dedicated, climate controlled flag storage room within the Michigan History Museum.

Unfortunately, textile conservation is time consuming and expensive. Save The Flags has spent as much as $40,000 to conserve a single flag! The ability to do conservation onsite allows us to care for more of the flags in the collection and saves funding for the most deteriorated flags to be treated by outside experts. It’s also a wonderful opportunity to let the public see the flags and learn about the collection.

In the summer of 2021, Cambray and I traveled to West Virginia to train with Textile Preservation Associates, one of the nation’s top conservation companies specializing in historic flags. At TPA we got an intensive course in textiles including how to identify fibers, evaluate damage, humidify and flatten wrinkles, encapsulate original fabric, and remove previous conservation treatments. (Don’t worry, we’ll talk more about these techniques in future posts!)

Cambray Sampson, Save the Flags Co-Curator, training to conduct battle flag conservation with Textile Preservation Associates in West Virginia.

May Oyler, Conservation Specialist, training to conduct battle flag conservation with Textile Preservation Associates in West Virginia.

It's important to note that these methods will help us preserve the flags not restore them. The goal of conservation is to protect an artifact from further deterioration, not to make it look new again. After we conserve our flags, they will still have holes, tears, stains, and missing fabric, we consider this damage to be part of the flag’s history. Our hope is simply to keep the damage from getting any worse.

Cambray Sampson works on the flag of the 21st Michigan Infantry Regiment.

While we were at TPA we started work on a flag carried by the 21st Michigan Infantry Regiment. We chose this to be our first conservation project because the flag was largely intact and made of lightweight wool, a more durable fabric than the silk which most of the Civil War flags were made of. When Heritage Hall opened in 2022, we brought the flag into the lab to continue our work. Seven months later, after spending about 150 hours in the lab, the conservation process was complete!

The view from the Heritage Hall exhibit ramp where visitors to the Capitol can observe ongoing conservation efforts.

While Cambray and I were ecstatic to finish this first project, we both know we have a lot more to learn. We’re looking forward to building our experience with each flag we care for, and we will continue to work with other expert conservators to perfect our skills.

Every flag in the collection is a unique artifact with its own important story to tell, and its own specific needs. Cambray and I are excited to share the details of conservation work with you in our future posts here, and in person in Heritage Hall.

We hope to see you on the other side of the lab window soon!

May Oyler

Conservation Specialist