Director's Message

Spring 2001

The Higgins Armory Museum ended the year 2000 in the black, with strong growth reported in almost every department. The Museum Store continues to make record profits, and Store Manager Anne Burke has now joined the staff full time, to manage the Museum's retail operations.

The Museum continues to forge new partnerships and develop new audiences. Dramatic growth is particularly noticeable in three areas: outreach programs, publications, and web site information services. We know we live in interesting times when a Museum such as ours, with our incomparable collections, reaches out to new audiences through technology. In many cases these new audiences will never see the original objects or visit the Museum. While we had 60,000 visitors last year, our outreach programs served over 15,000 students, and nearly 1 million hits were recorded for our web site in 2000! The Education Department continues to create wonderful extension programs with the advent of two new self-guided tours and a rotating schedule of new weekend activities. They recently sent their first outreach west, to Colorado.

Our publishing collaboration with the Royal Armouries, UK, is a great success. Senior Curator of Arms and Armor Walter Karcheski's book was extremely well-received. Paul S. Morgan Curator Dr. Jeffrey Singman's facsimile of the Royal Armouries' fencing manual will be ready for publication within six months. We have established a fine reputation in our field, and calls upon the curatorial team's expertise are increasing.

The Olive Higgins Prouty Library is realizing its potential as a research center. The library is key to our partnership projects with WPI, and is proving important to an increasing number of independent scholars.

We have received two generous endowment gifts to the library over the past twelve months. One is from Mrs. Sarah Lucinda Lovell Madden, who grew up in West Boylston. Mrs. Madden now resides in Florida and has fond memories of the neighborhood and of visiting the Higgins Armory Museum. The second endowment will be announced shortly. Both endowments are being used to purchase important research materials. Book plates with the names of these endowments perpetuate the memory of the gifts. If you are interested in making this kind of restricted gift to the endowment, please discuss it with me at extension 22 or Linda Barringer, Director of Development, at extension 16.

In spite of the technological revolution we continue to invest in our collection the old fashioned way, by purchase and by gift. Our fine collections are the soul of the institution and our raison d'�tre. Some new and spectacular acquisitions have been made lately, and the Great Hall exhibits are being up-graded with larger labels and better lighting. So the Museum continues to thrive, the old and the new finding equal balance and meaning here at the Higgins!

Let's celebrate 2001 � the Year of the Volunteer! We thank all our volunteers for their many contributions to the Museum in the year 2000! Victoria Augustine, Wesley Blackstone, Burncoat Players, Alan Catalano, Irene Cohen, Dorothy Ericson, Andrew Feland, Ginger Feland, Betty Foley, Adam Freilich, Norma Gould, Barbara Healey, Edward Herman, Sara Hesselton, James Hester, Katie Jameson, Robert Jameson, Mark Jimenez, Carolyn June, Sera Kelley, Paul Kenworthy, Roger Lanciault, Truong Lee, Jeff Lord, Caylie Marden, Christopher Meeks, Mark Millman, Vivian Murphy, Lauren O'Malley, Sydney Perry, Patri Pugliese, Virginia Pulitzer, Jennifer Reed, Robert Reed, Rhode Island Touring Ensemble, Barbara Sanborn, Scola Gregoriana, Kay Sheldon, Bruce Sherwood, Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (WPI), United Way Volunteers, The Company of the Wolfe Argent, Karyn Wozniak.

- Kent dur Russell, Executive Director & CEO