Philadelphia Civil War Library Negotiations Under Way
By Deborah Fitts May '02 issue

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — A struggle over control of the troubled Civil War Library & Museum has shifted from the courtroom to the negotiating table.

Sources close to the situation said at presstime in April that talks were under way between the board of the Library and representatives of a coalition that believes the board has failed to protect and maintain the Library's vast artifact collection.
The negotiations were aimed at short-circuiting a lawsuit by Attorney General Mike Fisher and others seeking to wrest ownership of the collection from the current board, and prevent the board from loaning a substantial portion of the collection to a new museum proposed in Richmond.

Also put on hold was a request by Fisher seeking to replace the Library board with a court-appointed receiver. A trial had been scheduled for late April but has been indefinitely postponed.

Sources said personnel at the planned Richmond museum — the Tredegar National Civil War Center — were facilitating the negotiations, and that two meetings had been held by the end of the first week in April.

Besides the Library, parties involved include MOLLUS, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the U.S., which claims ownership of the collection, and the offices of state Sen. Vincent Fumo and Rep. James Roebuck, who have spearheaded an effort to prevent the collection from going to Richmond.

Indications were that the coalition hopes to negotiate the replacement of the Library board, or at least to place control of the collection in other hands. That is crucial if the financially strapped collection is to have the credibility necessary to attract money, sources said, and to find a more suitable location than the outdated facilities on Pine Street.

Sources said the terms of the settlement could allow a small portion of the collection to go on temporary loan to Richmond.

A settlement could take weeks or months, sources said. As an outcome becomes clear, they said, others would be brought into the picture. They include the attorney general's office and other members of a wide-ranging partnership of historical groups that have collaborated to solve the Library's problems, among them the Union League, the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

That partnership recently proposed moving the Library's documents to the South Broad Street home of the Union League, and creating a new museum elsewhere for the relics.