(Feb/Mar 2007) PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - The former Civil War Library & Museum, a rich repository of Civil War artifacts and archives founded by Union officers in 1888, will before long be moving to "a knockout historical building in Philadelphia."

That's the assertion of Harris Baum, chairman of the venerable institution that is now known as the Civil War & Underground Railroad Museum of Philadelphia.

The museum has sold its home at 1805 Pine St., where it moved in 1922, and must be out by 2009.

The "knockout" new structure is going to be kept secret for a few more months, Baum said. But it is the focus of a $20 million capital campaign that suggests the museum board is hoping for a bright future for the once-troubled institution.

In fact, a makeover that began a couple of years ago is still under way. In February 2005 the board hired museum expert John Rumm; now Rumm was to be gone by Feb. 1, Baum said, and the board is seeking a new executive director.

"It was an amicable decision," Baum said, reached by the board and by Rumm. Now the focus is on fund-raising. "We're looking for a person with a lot of business acumen," said Baum. "Someone who knows the political leaders, who knows how to raise money. We want to operate the museum as a business, to stand on our own two feet. Right now we depend upon state and local money and money from donors."

Baum said a lot more changes are in the offing than simply a new home. Once established, he said, the museum will tell the unique story of Philadelphia and the Civil War, including the city's Pro-Southern and pro-slavery past as well as its Quaker abolitionists. "Philadelphia is known for the colonial era," he said, but its Civil War past is equally fascinating and largely undiscovered.

Among the changes will be another new name for the institution. The Civil War & Underground Railroad Museum of Philadelphia name will be dropped, but a museum spokesman declined to predict what the new name would be, or say why a switch was in the offing. The change would be made "in a few months," the spokesman said.

Baum said the museum was making "absolutely spectacular progress" in creating a business plan and planning for the new museum. An inventory of the collection, funded by a $350,000 grant from the William Penn Foundation, would be "done soon," he said. A $400,000 state grant to cover operating funds would soon be available, on top of another $100,000 from the state.

Besides the executive director's position, the museum has a full-time deputy director, an education director and a curator, plus four part-timers and a number of volunteers.

A few years back, shrinking funds and dwindling visitation made life precarious for the museum and its 3,000 artifacts, 7,000 books, thousands of photographs and 400 cubic feet of archival material, including accounts by veterans. An upheaval brought a new board and new leadership - and an influx of state funding to get the museum back on its feet.

Our email address is: mail@civilwarnews.com