The Robert C. Williams American Museum of Papermaking is a research institution and public museum dedicated to the preservation of the history of paper and paper technology. Located inside the Paper Tricentennial Building at the Georgia Institute of Technology in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, the museum features the largest collection of paper and paper-related artifacts in the world, including watermarks, papers, tools, machines, and manuscripts. Changing exhibits focus on

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...

art, and a permanent exhibit details the science and technology used in papermaking.

History

Originally called the Dard Hunter Paper Museum, the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum began in 1939. The original museum was created by

Dard Hunter William Joseph "Dard" Hunter (November 29, 1883 – February 20, 1966) was an American authority on printing, paper, and papermaking, especially by hand, using sixteenth century tools and techniques. He is known for, among other things, the prod ...

and located at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. Hunter filled the museum with various artifacts representing the art of papermaking. Few people visited the museum while it was at MIT and eventually it was moved to a smaller building on campus. In 1954 the then Institute of Paper Chemistry of

Appleton, Wisconsin Appleton ( mez, Ahkōnemeh) is a city in Outagamie, Calumet, and Winnebago counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. One of the Fox Cities, it is situated on the Fox River, southwest of Green Bay and north of Milwaukee. Appleton is the c ...

offered the museum a prominent place on its campus. Hunter became the museum's curator, a job he held until his death in 1966. In 1989 the Institute of Paper Chemistry was relocated to

and renamed the Institute of Paper Science and Technology. The Dard Hunter Collection was packed and moved as well. Supporting this collection is one of the main goals of the ''Friends of Dard Hunter'', an organization that promotes hand papermaking and the other arts practiced by Hunter. During the spring of 1993 the museum was re-opened inside of IPST and renamed the American Museum of Papermaking. During this time the museum continued to grow, and a traveling exhibition program was instituted. In 1996 the museum received a substantial donation from the

James River Corporation James River Corporation was an American pulp and paper company based in Richmond, Virginia, once the largest paper manufacturer in the world. History The company was founded in 1969 as the James River Paper Company by Brenton Halsey and Robert Wi ...

. As a result, the museum's name was again changed, this time to the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum, in recognition of Robert C. Williams, the co-founder of the James River Corporation. Williams had been a student at the Institute of Paper Chemistry and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Paper Science and Technology. In 2005, through a donation from the Mead-Witter Foundation, an additional exhibition space was added to the museum. This new space was named the George W. Mead Education Center.

References

External links

Robert C. Williams Paper Museum official website
{{authority control Georgia Tech Museums in Atlanta Industry museums in Georgia (U.S. state) University museums in Georgia (U.S. state) Art museums and galleries in Georgia (U.S. state) Museums established in 1939 1939 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)

Paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...

Papermaking in the United States