1. Hi Everyone! I have decided, at least for now, that I will be focusing on best/worst practices when putting together or acquiring items for a historical collection for our #phstmu Twitter thread. I was inspired to look into issues related to acquiring items for the collection

2. by the story, we read in our Intro to PH textbook by Lyon, Nix, and Shrum about the questions surrounding the acquisition of the Eaton Collection of Japanese American internee artifacts. Eaton, who was a private collector and folk art expert, began his collection after meeting

3. internees in the Japanese-American internment camps and collecting artifacts from them. After his death, the collection passed to his daughter, and then on to family friends, who decided to sell the collection. This rightly caused an uproar in the Japanese American community

4. many of whom believed that it was not right for someone to profit off the sale of a collection, to which had been given so many artifacts that were never intended for sale. The items in the collection were deeply personal, especially for those whose relatives had been interned

5 Additionally, the company that planned to sell the collection had split it up into 24 different lots, thereby threatening the integrity of the collection. Luckily, the sale was stopped due to the public indignation at the prospect of the sale. After the sale was completed numb-

6. er of Japanese American organizations chose to band together to discuss collectively what to do next. It was during this discussion that the Japanese American National Museum negotiated the purchase of the entire collection. This angered many of the other organizations intere-

7. sted in the fate of collection who felt that they should have had a bigger say in the negotiations. However, it is important to note that the collection was purchased in its entirety and thus its integrity was maintained. Nonetheless, reading this story made me ask if JANM

8. did the wrong thing by excluding the other organizations from the negotiations. I believe that all the interested organizations should have been able to have a say in the final fate of the collection. Especially since it was so important to so many people. In fairness to JANM

9. They did reach out to members of the community to get input about the items. If you want to read more about the exhibit put on by the JNAM you can read this article by the L.A. Times, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-ca-cm-eaton-collection-20180105-htmlstory.html

10. Sources for the thread:
Cherstin M. Lyon, Elizabeth M. Nix, and Rebecca K. Shrum, Introduction to Public History: Interpreting the Past, Engaging Audiences (New York: Rowan & Littlefield, 2017), 70-72.

11. Deborah Vankin, "Contested Art and artifacts from Japanese American Internment Camps go on view," January 5, 2018, Los Angles Times, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-ca-cm-eaton-collection-20180105-htmlstory.html