Boise, Idaho, has the highest density of Basque Americans in the United States and is home to the Basque Museum and Cultural Center, the only museum of its kind in the nation. It offers changing exhibitions—many of which have been supported by the Idaho Humanities Council—that help Idahoans understand the history and culture of the local Basque community. In addition, the museum hosts educational programming including invited speakers, documentary workshops, and cooking courses for adults, and Basque dance classes for children. It also holds an extensive collection of historical items that document the history and heritage of Basque Americans and extends to their relatives in the Old Country. Now, an NEH grant to the museum is supporting the preservation of delicate items in the collection, ensuring that they will remain accessible to researchers and visitors.
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From letters, journals, newspapers, scrapbooks, and photographs to musical instruments, pillowcases, and blankets representing the history of Basque-run boarding houses in the region, the museum’s collections document the history and culture of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Basque immigrants to the United States and their descendents. The collection holds dance costumes worn by Boise-based Basque dancers as well as an extensive number of books related to Basque culture. NEH funding is helping make large, cumbersome, and fragile items more accessible to these researchers while also protecting them. By purchasing flat file cabinets and archival supplies, the museum can better house posters documenting the history of the San Inazio Basque Festival, as well as maps, certificates, newspapers dating back to the 1910s, and birth, marriage, immigration, and naturalization records.
In addition to being used in exhibitions and educational activities, these collections are in constant use by researchers from across the United States and from Spain, as well as by students working on school projects and genealogists tracking down their own family histories. And as part of the grant, the Museum has two student interns from the University of Idaho processing materials for preservation, providing them with hands-on curatorial experience they can use in their future careers.