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The Corning Flood: Museum Under Water

"On June 23, 1972, The Corning Museum of Glass was flooded to a level of five feet, four inches above the floor, possibly the greatest single catastrophe borne by an American museum. The Agnes Flood broke hundreds of objects, saturated over half the Library (and all the rare books), ruined equipment, and covered galleries, cases, offices, furniture, and files with a thick layer of slime. Thirty-nine days later, on August first, the Museum was reopened to the public, and four years later, in June of 1976, the Museum completed the task of restoring the glass collection and the Library. This book describes the restoration process and offers suggestions for disaster planning gleaned from experience."

Excerpted from the Preface of
The Corning Flood: Museum Under Water.
The Preface was written by Thomas Buechner,
former Director of The Corning Museum of Glass.

Download the Book

Complete Book (5.3 MB)
For individual chapters, use the links below:
Introduction (1.3 MB)
Chapter One: The Restoration of the Glass Collection (827 K)
Chapter Two: The Restoration of the Library (1.3 MB)
Chapter Three: The Restoration of the Photographic and Audio Tape Collection (195 K)
Chapter Four: Fumigation & Sterilization of Flood-Contaminated Archival Materials (168 K)
Chapter 5: Vacuum Freeze Drying: A Report (172 K)
Chapter 6: Planning to Protect an Institution and Its Collections (187 K)
Appendices (1.1 MB) Appendices include:
1. Restoration Staff, 1972-1973-1974
2. Museum Staff, 1976
3. Volunteers Who Helped Reopen the Museum
4. Glass Center, Steuben, Foundation and CGW Employees Who Helped to Restore the Museum
5. Examples of Glass Restoration Problems and Techniques
6. Materials and Suppliers
7. Acknowledgements, References, Chapter IV
8. and Acknowledgements, Chapter V.

To download the book The Corning Flood: Museum Under Water, right click on one of the links above, select "Save Target As", and choose a directory on your computer where you would like to save the file. You may download the entire book in one file (right click on "Complete Book") or you may download individual chapters.