Rethinking our collections: The Reassessing What We Collect project

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Rethinking our collections The Reassessing What
We Collect project

• Charlotte Samuels, Museum of London

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• The communities include
• Ethnic and faith
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT)
• Disabled

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• Recent reports on ethnic minority representation
  in London museums
• Reflections Mapping cultural diversity in
  London's local authority museum collections
  London Museums Agency, April 2003
• Holding Up The Mirror Addressing cultural
  diversity in London's museums London Museums
  Agency, July 2003
• Revisiting Collections Discovering new meanings
  for a diverse audience Archives, Libraries and
  Museums London, May 2005
• Delivering Shared Heritage The Mayor's
  Commission on African and Asian Heritage July 2005

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• Academic essays
• Our Lives, Our Histories, Our Collections Lola
  Young
• Unearthing our Past Engaging With Diversity at
  the Museum of London Dr. Raminder Kaur

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• Drawing on previous work on diversity
• Looking for additional objects in the collection
  which relate to minority communities
• Highlighting gaps in the collection

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• Texts or images produced for displays/
  exhibitions/ publications
• Accession files
• Other archival material

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• Previous Museum of London work on diversity
• The Peopling of London Fifteen thousand years of
  settlement from overseas 1993
• The Quiet Conquest The Huguenots 1685-1985, 1985
• Bedlam Custody, Care and Cure 1247-1997, 1997
• London Bodies Changing shapes from prehistoric
  times to the present 1998
• Pride Prejudice Lesbian and gay London, 1999

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Carved wooden box, 1892 Vivienne Westwood
outfit 1981 and 1983
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Roman amphora used to import fish sauce to London
from Cadiz, 66-200Sugar bowl relating to the
abolition of slavery, 1825Poster for Newham
Mela, a festival for the Asian community in East
London, 1991Grocers trade figure representing
tea, mid 18th century
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Figurine of Shylock, 1800-1830Engraving Opium
smoking the lascars room in Edwin
DroodGolly manufactured 1984Valentine card
1860-65
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Disabled seller of nutmeg graters, Ear trumpet,
1880-19301861-64
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Book Letters of the late Ignatius Photograph of
the Albert Sancho, an African, 1782 Memorial,
1901-1930
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Silver penny with head of Edward II, 1301-1335
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Engraving The Inside of Block printed fabric,
Westminster Abbey 1781-17901750-1800