Philadelphia Civil War Museum Hires New Director
By Deborah Fitts
May 2005

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — In case anyone doubted that the winds of change are sweeping the former Civil War Library & Museum, they have hired a new director and sold their home of the last 83 years.

In November the newly named Civil War & Underground Railroad Museum of Philadelphia sold its 1858 row-house at 1805 Pine St. And on Feb. 21 the museum made John Rumm, a 30-year veteran of the museum field, its new executive director.

The next big step is finding a new home for the collection, regarded as one of the most significant accumulations of Union memorabilia in the country. One of the top priorities in making the shift from the old museum was finding a larger and more centrally located site — and one with museum-standard environmental controls.

The Pine Street site, to which the museum moved in 1922, must be vacated by 2008, when it will become a residence. Rumm said the building sold for about $800,000.

One of Rumm’s goals as the new chief is to hike visitation, which he said at present totals “a few thousand people a year.” Marketing is largely “by word of mouth,” but he predicted that plans to develop advertising materials, broaden the museum’s appeal, and undertake community outreach would improve the picture. In fact, he said, things are already looking up.

“We are becoming more of a destination point for people outside Philadelphia,” Rumm declared. “They’re coming from New England, New York and overseas. I don’t want to say they’re flocking, but visitation has really gone up over the last few months.”

Programs already under way or projected within the next two years will provide a more “inclusive” focus, Rumm said, one that will extend beyond the museum’s “core base” of serious students of the war to include families, children and minorities. Among new story lines will be the role of manufacturing and technology in the war and the war’s impact on women and children.

The museum’s new education and community outreach coordinator, African-American playwright Millicent Sparks, was scheduled to start work in May. She will help develop a new focus on the Underground Railroad, abolition, and Philadelphians’ involvement in the struggle to end slavery.

The museum has also hired a curriculum specialist to develop pilot programs for children in grades 5, 8 and 11 that will address the use and outfitting of horses in the Civil War; the labeling of museum artifacts and how labels shape visitors’ perceptions; and how memory and history alter over time.

The museum has rebuilt its website to be “much more dynamic,” Rumm said. In March an open house showcased the museum’s “treasures.” And the museum is sponsoring a new monthly speakers’ program.

A grant of $350,000 from the William Penn Foundation of Philadelphia is paying for a detailed inventory of the collection, due for completion in May 2006. A $400,000 grant from the state of Pennsylvania, plus gifts from board members, is advancing other projects, including a brochure now in development aimed at expanding the membership from its current total of fewer than 200. Among the plans will be an appeal to “young urban professionals” to join a “young friends” program at the museum.

Rumm holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in American History from the University of Delaware. “I would never lay claim to be a Civil War historian,” he said, but his focus is on 19th-century history and the history of technology, business and labor.

He most recently served as director of exhibits at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, where a show that he curated on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War will open in June. Prior to that, Rumm was employed for 11 years at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington where he worked as senior exhibit developer. He has also served as a consultant to corporations and nonprofits on heritage and oral-history projects. He formerly worked as director of corporate communications for the Philadelphia-based Burpee seed company.

The Civil War & Underground Railroad Museum has about 3,000 artifacts, 7,000 books, 5,000 to 7,000 photographs and art works, and 400 cubic feet of archival material including autobiographical accounts by veterans. The full-time staff includes Rumm and two collections workers. There are a half-dozen part-timers, plus consultants and volunteers.

The museum is open Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Rumm said there are plans to expand to a five-day week “in a couple of months.”