Museum of the Confederacy

[dave81276]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

Tim,

As I heard last, the MoC will be moving to the suburbs of Richmond. If the current negotiations work out, they will move to a location in Henrico County. The big problem won't be the move; it will be raising the funds to accomplish that move, whether to build a new museum in Henrico or retrofit a museum into the Lexington City Hall.

Unfortunately, the location isn't the entire problem, nor even the most important. The MoC has suffered for years from a pitiful development department, and no museum can live off of admissions alone. Furthermore, the members of the Board of Trustees of the MoC, unlike those of Boards of other eleemosynary institutions, aren't significant contributors to their own organization. Luckily, in the last year, the Board has hired a new Director of Development, Sandy Thurston, who has single-handedly turned the money situation around. The MoC is probably going to break $1,000,000 this year in donations, according to my sources, and that is partly Sandy's doing, and partly donations from new, more responsible Board members. $1,000,000 is still a long way from where they should be, considering the fund-raising potential in Central Virginia alone. But, Sandy is a go-getter (a breath of fresh air) and hopefully will get the development department back into the game. And we can hope the new members will direct the Board of Trustees in a new, less parochial direction.

[Dignann]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

City debates museum benefits

Some Lexington residents don't want a museum that focuses on the Confederacy.

By Jay Conley

The Roanoke Times
March 26, 2007

Since an announcement in January that Lexington is being considered as the new location for the Museum of the Confederacy, now in Richmond, there have been questions in the small city over whether the museum's arrival would be positive or profitable for the community.

Landlocked by Virginia Commonwealth University's medical campus and in need of larger quarters, the museum is looking for a new home in time for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in 2011.

Lexington is among about 10 localities that plan to submit proposals to the museum by April 15 in an effort to attract the facility and the tourism dollars that come with it. Museum officials won't say where the other sites are, but revealed about half of the localities are near Civil War battlefield sites.

Waite Rawls, the museum's director, said there's much that the museum and Lexington have to offer each other.

"It is a tremendous opportunity to Lexington," Rawls said. "We are the most important Civil War collection that exists in the world."

The museum's educational and research programs could match up well with Virginia Military Institute and nearby Washington and Lee University. Lexington also has the Lee Chapel and Museum, where Robert E. Lee is buried, as well as the Stonewall Jackson House, where Jackson lived while he was a professor at VMI before the war. Jackson is also buried in Lexington.

The Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors and Lexington City Council are considering a proposal to locate the museum in the old Rockbridge County Courthouse complex on Main Street.

Rawls said the museum drew 50,000 visitors last year and generated close to a half-million in sales tax revenue.

"The numbers show history tourists shop till they drop," Rawls said.

Lexington, in turn, has a pedestrian-friendly downtown and will have plenty of parking when the new Rockbridge County Courthouse and its parking garage are completed in two years.

"This is, at its heart, an economic development opportunity," said Brian Shaw, chairman of the Rockbridge Area Tourism Board and executive vice president of the George C. Marshall Foundation in Lexington.

Rawls said the museum's primary appeal is to retired baby boomers, the same target audience that is already attracted to the Lexington area.

"The demographic profile of their visitor fits the demographic profile of the Lexington visitor," said Shaw, who said the additional tourist traffic from the museum could bring a million dollars annually in total tax revenue to the area.

At least one Lexington official isn't convinced the museum would be a success there.

"I'm not sure it's going to be as income-producing for our citizens as people think it is," said Lexington City Council member Mimi Elrod, who voted against the city submitting a proposal to attract the museum. "I have real questions about the numbers."

Elrod is among those who view the museum's focus on the Confederacy, which fought to preserve slavery, to be as divisive now as it was during the Civil War.

"My concern with the Museum of the Confederacy is it is celebrating a cause that was established to maintain the enslavement of people," she said. "I don't want to celebrate the Confederacy."

Elrod said the museum would be more acceptable if it were a Civil War museum that represented both sides of the war.

She had hoped that the museum's mission would be broader when Rawls said recently that museum officials were considering changing the museum's name to remove the word Confederacy.

Rawls said people have misinterpreted his statements.

"We've tried our best to tell people ... that speculation about a name change is exactly that. We're not considering a name change until we can determine where our future location is," he said, adding, "There's no fundamental change in the mission being contemplated at all."

Rawls said controversial topics such as slavery should be explored from an educational standpoint in order to truly understand them.

"It's therefore vital that our educational mission be emphasized," he said. "I think we do a very good job of making people understand better the causes of the war, the aftermath of the war, how it was conducted, who fought it, what they believed in at the time."

Elrod also objects to the museum's intent to fly the Confederate flag over its building if it were to relocate in downtown Lexington.

"If you're flying the Confederate flag, you're celebrating the Confederacy, and I don't think we need to do that in Lexington," she said.

Shaw said any Confederate flag that would be flown wouldn't be the battle flag that's most associated with the Confederacy, but rather a Confederate state flag.

"That's an important distinction," he said. "I would not want to see a Confederate battle flag out on Main Street. That's not what it's going to be."

Ted DeLaney, a history professor at Washington and Lee University and a Lexington native who is black, said such a prominent display of the Confederacy at the museum would create division in the community.

"Even during the days when Lexington was a segregated community ... Lexington was a civil place," he said. "I don't see anything that is positive in the museum relocating to a community like this. The tenor of the debate so far indicates to me that there is great potential for a lack of civility."

A poll taken by a Lexington-area newspaper showed 80 percent of respondents in favor of the museum, and Elrod said she has received about 90 negative e-mails attacking her stance since she first began speaking out against the museum.

DeLaney, too, said he was criticized for his comments against the museum at a tourism board meeting last week.

At Washington and Lee, where just more than 4 percent of the student population is black, it's unclear if the school's minority recruiting efforts would be hampered by the museum.

"I think it is fair to say that the Museum of the Confederacy would not be a net plus for the recruitment of African-American students to Washington and Lee," W&L President Ken Ruscio said in an e-mail. "Whether it would actually be a detriment depends on several factors, including the identity, mission and even the very name it ultimately adopts if it moves to Lexington."

Ruscio said the school honors Lee the educator, not the soldier.

Ultimately, the discussion in Lexington may be much ado about nothing.

Rawls said the museum's board of directors would like for it to remain in Richmond, which was the capital of the Confederacy during the war.

"Our feeling all along is that we have a preference for Richmond," he said. "We've been here for 117 years and we kind of like it."

But proposals from localities such as Lexington that present an appealing financial incentive package will be seriously considered, Rawls said.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/110346

Eric

[DannyJoe]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

I suppose that I fit the demographics of a tourist most likely to visit Richmond and Lexington. In fact, I have visited both cities to explore their Civil War history. Certainly, the MOC is a valuable museum and the Confederate White House, which is located just a few feet away, is a historical treasure in itself. However, I have no intention of visiting the MOC again in Richmond because of its location, parking and the traffic. If finances are in part choking the operation of the MOC, then in my opinion the hassle of getting to the MOC certainly inhibits many people from making visits, which results in decreased visitors, revenue, memberships and public support.
During my visit to the Richmond area, I had the good fortune of finding Pamplin Park, which is located on part of the Peterburg Battlefield. It is quite evident that the operators of Pamplin have a great interest in preserving the history of the Civil War. Perhaps, Pamplin is being considered as an option for the MOC.
Lexington, in my opinion, is a beautiful college town with a rich history regarding the Civil War. VMI and its museum is very impressive. Jackson's presence can be felt on the campus. Washington and Lee University is very impressive also. The Lee Chapel is hallowed ground in my opinion. Lee and several of his family members are entombed in the lower level of the Chapel. Traveler's grave is on the Chapel grounds. There are hundreds of Civil War soldiers buried in the local cemetery, including Jackson. It was a very moving experience to walk the same ground that Jackson and Lee walked. I am looking forward to my next visit to Lexington. In many ways, I enjoyed my visit to Lexington almost as much as visiting Charleston SC. Speaking for myself, the MOC would benefit tourism in Lexington.
In conclusion, I fit the demographics of a person most likely to visit the MOC. However, I would like to add, that my ancestors fought for the Union. I am a member of the SUVCW. My feeling is that regardless if one fought for the Union or the Confederacy.....they were all American soldiers and should be remembered as such.
Regards,

[jlewis]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

The debates in Lexington are getting very silly, very politically motivated and are full of anything but actual history. At a meeting last week a store owner spoke about how he would never allow such a thing to be across the street from him, that it would be a slap in his face everyday. He does not however have an answer when it was addressed that he makes a pretty good living selling confederate memorabilia as well as other Civil War items.

A very small group has turned this into a politically correct agenda. They are making people side with either being for or against the Civil Rights movement rather than exploring the Civil War and specifically the South. Ted Delaney who was mentioned in the article above said, in the local paper, some very historically tweaked things about Robert E. Lee on his birthday. He blamed Lee for not doing enough for blacks in Lexington and the South.

No one has addressed the most important question in regards to the MOC and Lexington, which is population. If only 10 % of those in the Richmond area visit the MOC a year that is still more than the whole population of the County that Lexington is located in. I want to see what is best for the preservation of Southern History.

IMHO: Getting the old 2 cents in. When the museum does move it would probably be best to pack up a large part of its collection and travel around the country as part of an exhibit in different cities. After they get back than they can move into the new location and will have promoted themselves and the history they represent. As a side note, part of a traveling exhibit that came to a museum in Long Beach, CA had items from Hitler's bunker. A globe on his desk with the words, "we are here over Europe" and "We are coming over the US" has had a lasting impression and really gave me an understanding of his mindset. It would be a great way to bring the history of the South and the Civil War to a nation who has lost interest.

Jon Lewis

[Dignann]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

Swept Away By History

Virginia's Museum of the Confederacy Is Struggling Not to Become a Relic of the Past

By Neely Tucker

The Washington Post
April 4, 2007

RICHMOND - This is what the Museum of the Confederacy, the onetime "Shrine of the South," has come down to:

Attendance has dropped by nearly half over the past decade. The museum has been losing about $400,000 each year for a decade. Employees have been laid off, hours curtailed. A recent report by a panel of outside experts in museum management concluded that the 117-year-old institution was at a "tipping point" that was going to affect "its very existence."

And this is in Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. Things are so bleak that the museum will likely have to sell its $7 million site to raise cash. It needed a $400,000 emergency grant from the state legislature earlier this month to allow it more time to look for a new home.

It may even have to change its name. That same doleful report said the Museum of the Confederacy, though it has made efforts to distance itself from being an unabashed shrine, still "conjures up in the public mind images of slavery, racism, and intolerance. . . . [It] carries enormous, intransigent, and negative intellectual and emotional baggage."

The museum and the adjacent White House of the Confederacy, the home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis during the Civil War (and a National Historic Landmark), have been swallowed by a medical complex that surrounds and towers above them, to the point where they are shoehorned onto eight-tenths of an acre at the end of a dead-end downtown street -- just beyond the emergency-room entrance.

"Most museums don't make but record history," says S. Waite Rawls III, the museum's executive director, a former banker brought in a few years ago in an attempt to restore solvency. "But the museum was where Confederate veterans came to give their items to make a statement. Richmond was the epicenter of the Civil War. . . . So yes, there's a symbolic message to our moving."

At its simplest, the saga of the museum is that of a historic institution trying to make its way in the modern age, a privately managed facility with a history of poor finances and a lack of parking, bedeviled by a world far more interested in roller coasters at Kings Dominion than in battle flags from Gettysburg.

But it's also about a historic shift in the mind-set of the white South, whose psychological underpinnings were held together for more than a century by the romantic ideal of "the lost cause" of the Confederacy. This held the antebellum world as a largely mythological place, a land of moonlight and magnolias, of "Gone With the Wind," of mint juleps and Henry Timrod's "Ode to the Confederate Dead at Magnolia Cemetery":

Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!

There is no holier spot of ground

Than where defeated valor lies . . .

These sorts of atmospherics floated about in the cultural id, but the tangible remnants of the belief were preserved here: Robert E. Lee's uniform, the plumed hat of J.E.B. Stuart, hundreds of battle flags, thousands of soldiers' letters from mud-filled trenches that soon would become their graves.

People brought such things from across the war-ravaged South, thousands of them, artifacts presented with such reverence that they were called "sacred relics."

I went there in the 1960s when I was about 14, and it was a shrine, no question -- the sacred relics, locks of hair, all that," says Gary W. Gallagher, professor of Civil War history at the University of Virginia and author of more than a dozen books about the era.

Today, while the Museum of the Confederacy goes begging, the brand-new, $13 million American Civil War Center -- a museum that looks at the war from three perspectives (Southern, Northern and black) -- is a gleaming testament to what might be called a more modern memory of the past. It's only a few blocks away, on the banks of the James River at the city's Civil War-era gun foundry, a National Park Service site.

It's on an eight-acre campus -- 10 times the size of the Museum of the Confederacy site. The center's prime backers include Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson. Just six months old, it's already packed with school kids coming to learn about the Confederacy as a flawed participant in the Civil War, not as the Great Defender of (white) Southern Heritage.

You walk into the bookstore at the Museum of the Confederacy, then the one at the Civil War Center, and the first differences you notice are the black faces on the shelves in the latter: Nat Turner. "Slave Nation." Harriet Tubman. "Remembering Slavery." There were 4 million black people in the 11 slave-owning states at the start of the Civil War, and by war's end, 500,000 had fled to the North -- one out of every eight men, women and children -- looking for something, anything, other than the genteel world of the gallant South.

"A lot of people in Richmond are just sort of embarrassed by [the Museum of the Confederacy], particularly when we have this beautiful new American Civil War Center that people are not embarrassed by," says Harry Kollatz Jr., a senior writer at Richmond magazine, who writes regularly about city history.

The real issue, rarely articulated in direct terms, says Gallagher, is race: "our great national bugaboo."

Ah. The haunted past, the uncertain future.

* * *

Rawls is a balding, amiable, energetic graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. He's talking in his office on the second floor of the museum. Windows offer a view of the adjacent balcony of the White House of the Confederacy and the portico from which Jeff Davis's 5-year-old son fell to his death in April 1864.

That's about all you can see.

The three-story White House and four-story museum (only two stories of which are above ground) are surrounded by Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. Close-in buildings shoot up 13 and 14 stories. Construction crews, jackhammers, red dust and ambulances dominate the street front.

Inside, Rawls is pointing out how the museum has gone from Old South shrine to a professionally managed museum. It houses more than 15,000 documents and artifacts from the Confederate States of America, the failed nation that white Southerners wanted to make permanent (along with slavery, states' rights and low tariffs).

Opened in 1896 in the Confederate White House, the museum has been a presence in Richmond ever since, even as the city became predominantly black, even as the civil rights era rendered the museum's unabashed cheerleading for the cause obsolete. A new attitude came with the adjacent new building in 1976, built with private donations. Tourism peaked at 91,000 visitors per year in the early 1990s.

But the museum did not conduct a capital campaign for years, and when gate receipts dropped off precipitously (it now averages about 50,000 visitors per year), income plummeted. Previous administrators used the museum's endowment to pay routine operating expenses, the peer review reported, which masked the crisis while worsening the facility's financial health.

The lack of parking and the rising hospital complex aggravated problems. But when the museum began talking to the city about help or potential partnerships, it seemed "arrogant and isolationist. . . . MOC leadership has misjudged its power and leverage with the city and the state," the peer review concluded last October.

Rawls, brought on board in 2004, rolled out a drastic plan to not only move the museum but also pick up the White House and move it, which outraged just about everyone.

Fighting hard for his institution's new image, Rawls wants it made clear that these aren't just neo-Confederates coming to pay homage to Great-Grandpappy So-and-So.

"We get more people from California than we do from Richmond proper," he says. "We get more people from the United Kingdom than all but six U.S. states. All those people aren't coming to look up something about their great-granddaddy."

A couple of years ago, Rawls put an end to the Bonnie Blue Ball, a gala down by the river, for which people dressed up in hoop skirts and antebellum costumes. It was one of the cash-strapped museum's biggest image problems.

"There's a public perception that this is still the home of the 'lost cause,' " he says. "It was founded to be that, yes, but it changed in the 1970s. Look at our record for the past 20 years. We did a special exhibit on slavery back in 1991. It was a Nixon-to-China moment for us, our most popular exhibit ever, and part of a pretty long record of objective and dispassionate display of history."

Rawls was giving this sort of advertising pitch recently at a public meeting in Lexington, a picturesque town of 6,000 about 135 miles away, to which the museum may relocate. He mentioned during the meeting, as proof of its racial bona fides, that the museum had featured Theodore DeLaney, a history professor (who is black) at Washington and Lee University, right there in Lexington, on a panel.

Sitting in the audience, not amused, was Theodore DeLaney.

"It was a miserable experience," he says of his afternoon on the panel, the key part of which turned on the subject of Confederate monuments in city parks. DeLaney posited that black people are Southerners, too, and they might not want such monuments.

People "lined up to chastise me for my views after the discussion," DeLaney recalls. "They didn't line up to talk to the other three speakers. I got tongue-lashed by everyone."

DeLaney, who makes it clear that he is speaking only for himself, thinks the museum presents a divisive image, and he does not want it in Lexington, his home town. He's not alone, but others in town do want the museum as a tourist attraction. After all, supporters say, Lee and Confederate hero Stonewall Jackson are buried there, and Jackson's home is already a museum. This is the predicament Rawls faces: To make the Confederacy museum palatable to the wider world (most of whom are never going to visit), he needs to make visible changes to the museum, either its name or its public image. This would, however, alienate the museum's grass-roots supporters, who don't have the financial wherewithal to sustain the museum on their own.

"Mr. Rawls has lost a lot of support from the heritage community because he has, at least to us, endangered the integrity of the museum itself," says Darryl Starnes, chief of heritage defense for the national chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a position that has him defending the flying of the Confederate flag and the like. "He's talking about removing the name 'Confederate' or stopping flying the flag out front, in order to appease people who don't approve. But the museum is unique."

It isn't at all clear what will happen next.

Rawls is meeting with officials in towns like Lexington (no other possible sites have been made public) who may want to give the museum a new home. Richmond government, tourism and history officials -- Mayor L. Douglas Wilder; Jack Berry Jr., president and CEO of the Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau; Charles Bryan, president of the Virginia Historical Society -- all say they want the Confederacy museum to stay.

Bryan thinks the museum's fate is all part of the changing South. A century ago, he points out, nine out of 10 Virginians were born in the state. Today the percentage is about 52 percent, he says, and the new residents don't care as much about the mists of the distant past.

DeLaney agrees. The Old South has been diluted, and the relics of its past, like the Museum of the Confederacy, have lost their mystique.

"Southerners are now Chicanos, they're from the Middle East, they're from the same immigrant groups that have been arriving in the North for 120 years," says DeLaney. "They're Northern whites who want to retire to warmer climes. . . . If white Southerners feel threatened, it's not from blacks. It's from the changing demographics."

It's not, he says, that there's a new antipathy toward the memory of the Confederacy. It's that, to many new Southerners, the Confederacy is irrelevant.

On a recent afternoon, the statue of Stonewall Jackson stands atop his grave, wet and rained upon, in the Lexington Cemetery, a few blocks from the downtown courthouse where the museum wants to relocate.

"Until the day break and the shadows flee away," reads an inscription at the bottom of a nearby Civil War-era tombstone, leaning sideways with the passing of days and days and then more days.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/03/AR2007040301915.html?hpid=features1

Eric

[Dignann]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

Supervisors OK Submitting Bid For Museum

The News-Gazette [Lexington, Va.]
April 9, 2007

A proposal to move the Museum of the Confederacy from Richmond to Lexington remains alive following Monday’s meeting of the Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors.

The supervisors voted 5-0 to approve submitting a proposal to the MOC board for having the museum relocated to Courthouse Square. Lexington City Council is scheduled to take a vote this Thursday, April 12, on whether to endorse the submittal of the proposal.

The proposal calls for the county to donate the courthouse, the old jail, the bank building, north-facing lawyer’s row and an empty lot for the museum. Lexington is being asked to exempt the MOC from paying real estate taxes.

Under the proposal, which was prepared by the Rockbridge Area Tourism Board, a limited liability corporation would take possession of the property for a period of up to five years so that the project could qualify for historic renovation tax credits. The upper two floors of the bank building would be sold to a developer for the purpose of building and selling condominiums.

In asking for the supervisors’ support Monday, Brian Shaw, president of the Rockbridge Area Tourism Board, likened the submittal of the proposal to “putting a bid on a house.” He emphasized that the localities are not committing themselves to the project by submitting the proposal.

The deadline for localities to submit proposals to the MOC board is this Sunday, April 15.

During the citizens comment portion of Monday’s meeting, several people offered their views about having the MOC relocate here. Three expressed opposition to having the MOC move here while two others spoke in favor of the idea.

http://www.thenews-gazette.com/articles/2007/04/09/breaking_news/breaking1.txt

Eric

[Dignann]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

Rebel museum has profit

But the Museum of the Confederacy still plans to relocate its collection

By JANET CAGGIANO

Richmond Times-Dispatch [Richmond, Va.]
June 19, 2007

Things are looking brighter for the Museum of the Confederacy.

For the first time since the early 1990s, the nonprofit will finish this fiscal year, ending June 30, with an operating profit. But the struggling downtown institution still plans on relocating its Civil War collection.

"We've been saying, 'Oh God, oh God, we are going to have to close,'" said Waite Rawls, the museum's president and CEO. "Now we can say we've won an important battle. But the idea is to excel, not just survive."

Rawls won't know the final profit figures for a few months, he said, but even a small amount would be a huge improve- ment. The museum finished last fiscal year with an operating loss of $389,000, forcing cutbacks. Doors were closed on Wednesdays, the magazine was cut from four issues to three, and the annual journal was axed.

But thanks to an emergency fund drive that raised about $1 million, the museum has reopened on Wednesdays, brought back the journal and increased publication of its magazine to four times a year.

"Our members heard the cry and stepped up," Rawls said.

More good news can be found in membership numbers, which jumped by 1,100 since last year to an all-time high of about 4,000.

But annual visitation is still down, Rawls said, dropping from 48,000 last fiscal year to about 46,000.

"Our mission is not to be a financial success," he said. "It's to educate people about the Civil War."

To gain visitors, the museum is continuing its search for a new home for its collection, the world's largest. Rawls said the board has a list of about 10 possible sites, including Lexington. The goal, he said, is to keep the museum in Richmond, something local history buffs favor.

"Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy," said Brag Bowling, national board member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. "The museum should stay here."

Rawls said he hopes a final decision will be made by fall.

http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/search.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2007-06-19-0071.html

Eric

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

I received a phone call last night from the MoC as they were calling members who let their membership lapse. I was asked to rejoin and I said I would consider it but that I had reasons why I let the membership lapse.

Perhaps the strongest of those reasons was then the debate on moving the White House. I am and was opposed to this and am glad that is off the table. On the other hand, one of the most important items the Museum owns is the house. Moving the Museum outside the Richmond region will permanently mean the end of visiting the Confederate White House. So I said I'll make my final decision when I know what they are going to do.

Anyways, I guess it was nice to hear from them.

[ley74]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

Emmanuel:

Wonderful observation. It would be smart to complete the planning process, then start the calls. Smart, I'd say.

There have been a number of personnel losses recently that may contribute to the excess of revenue over expenses. The largest being the loss of Rebecca Rose as Flag Curator. Rebecca had been with the museum many years and dearly cared for the second greatest asset in the collection, (IMHO) the flags. Damn shame.

Since the article quoted does not explain what fiscal year the $400,000 in support from the Commonwealth of Virginia will be recognized, it is unclear what impact has been garnered from all the who-ha.

Wait (Waite) and see may be the best answer out there.

[dusty27]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

Ley,

I didn't know Rebecca left. Was it her doing?

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

I neglected to add but should have that I was told "Every option in Richmond has yet to pan into reality. We wish for the Museum to remain in Richmond but that is becoming difficult to accomplish." There are still some late 19th and early 20th century warehouse type buildings in Richmond, vacant. Seems to me there is some ample square footage to be used. Obviously one of the issues will be parking and I don't necessarily have the solution to their problem but I work at my own site with our own issues. Still, a move to Lexington will mean no one will visit the Confederate White House.

Anyways, I get off my White House soapbox for now but I do still retain posession of it. :)

[Marc]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

Since the MOC is one of my favorite museums overall about the Civil War and after reading the many comments, being a CPA I thought I would take a look at their latest Form 990 which is the tax returns exempt organizations file annually with the IRS and available to the public. The latest available is for the year ended june 30, 2006.

From a balance sheet standpoint they are in good shape with $4,296,386 of equity among restricted and unrestricted funds and no long term debt.

Of course their big expenses is wages which makes sense for the type of entity it is.

The only thing that has me puzzled is the one time write off of $1,426,055 of "Museum Collections". What is that? Was the collection over valued in the past? Has the collections disappeared? Without financial statements and the required footnotes I do not know the answer.

Interesting also that the correct corporate name is "Confederate Memorial Literary Society"

Hopefully necessary funds on an annual basis will keep this fine museum on going for many years. As to the location or new location what a tough call and from the past postings somewhat political.

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

I don't see a post here from "Tarheel", aka Patrick Reardon of the Lazy Jacks Mess (UK). He is on the Board of the MoC, and might have some firmer idea than the re-hash from the Richmond media of what is going on with all that.

We live in an era when "1st Manassas" is enacted 50 miles away at Cedar Creek, because there is nowhere in the whole Northern VA zip code (apparently) to stage it. Richmond has become part of all that NoVA sprawl, even though it is 110 miles from the District. Fredericksburg used to be the drop dead point, but now it is Richmond. Is it any real wonder that the MoC might not do the next 117 years in Richmond? I'd be more surprised if it stayed. The body politic of Richmond today has become ashamed of their Confederate history, and seeks to minimize if not hide it. A better question: Does Richmond deserve to be the site of the MoC?

[Dignann]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

Museum considers move to Lexington

Supporters of moving the Museum of the Confederacy to the city say tourists' spending could generate $1 million in tax revenue per year.

By Jay Conley

The Roanoke Times [Roanoke, Va.]
June 21, 2007

Lexington appears to be one step closer to attracting the world's largest Civil War collection.

Officials with the Museum of the Confederacy and Lexington-area tourism industry have confirmed that the city is on a shortened list of localities that museum officials are considering for a relocation site.

The museum announced in October that it wants to move from its cramped quarters in downtown Richmond in order to build a larger facility and avoid further expansion of the neighboring Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.

In April, the museum sought proposals from about 10 localities, asking them what facilities and financial incentives they would be willing to offer to attract the museum and its promise of tourism dollars.

Waite Rawls, the museum's executive director, said Wednesday that the museum's board of directors wants to negotiate an agreement for a new site by the fall.

"At this point in time I'm not prepared to disclose who is on that list, except for Lexington," he said Wednesday.

Lexington is the only locality that has publicly acknowledged an interest in attracting the museum. The other localities have preferred to negotiate privately with the museum.

"They wanted to tell people they were still on the list," Rawls said of Lexington-area officials.

Brian Shaw, chairman of the Rockbridge Area Tourism Board, said he's been told the museum will contact the board soon to discuss the move further.

"What we're waiting for is for them to send us a document that says, 'OK, this is where things stand, and these are what the issues are,' " he said.

Rawls said that process is under way.

"We're now setting up dates to go sit down with each one of them and keep talking," he said.

The tourism board's proposal was approved by both the Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors and the Lexington City Council. It spells out how the museum could locate its collection of 14,000 artifacts to the Old Rockbridge County Courthouse and surrounding buildings on Main Street.

The proposal lays out a scenario for renovating the courthouse and creating a public-private partnership to get tax incentives to attract the museum.

The potential of the museum coming to town has created controversy among Lexington and Rockbridge County officials and residents. Some see the Confederate-themed museum as synonymous with promoting slavery.

Supporters of the museum say Lexington and the Rockbridge area stand to collect an estimated $1 million annually in tax revenue from the tourist spending that the museum is expected to bring with it.

The museum's cramped quarters in Richmond can only display about 10 percent of the collection at a time. A lack of parking and nearby restaurants also has been a concern.

Private donations of about $1 million and a $400,000 contribution from the state this year have helped the museum stave off financial problems caused by low visitation.

Recent figures for the fiscal year show the museum's attendance level at 46,000, down a few thousand from the year before.

"Their visitor numbers are still down," Shaw said. "We know that's one of the reasons why they're considering relocation."

Rawls has said a locality like Lexington could be a good fit for the museum. Plans for a new parking garage have been approved and the city's historic district has several restaurants within walking distance of the courthouse.

"Everybody's interested and a little bit anxious to see what happens next," Shaw said.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/121509

Eric

[ley74]

Re: Museum of the Confederacy is Moving

Dusty:

Information has been darn difficult to come by. Regardless, what a loss. Speculation is that with a "move" many of the long-time staff will be left in the cold. Damn shame.

Others:

Regarding the $1.4 million write down. With museums there are several GAAP methods to measure contributed items. From 1992 to 2005 the MOC tracked the value of contributed material at market and acquired items at cost. Collections are not increased in value to market.

SFAS 116, p 11 - 13 lays out the requirement to track contributed collection items. The FASB did not require a contributed or acquired collection be recognized as an asset. All they required was consistency. This, in concert with SFAS 117, provided options for treatment.

In 2006, the accounting firm recommended that the collection acquired since 1992 be written off. This was to provide consistency with the contributed collection. Nothing was sold, it was just written off.

As one might imagine, the collection is priceless.