Winterthur builds upon the vision of Henry Francis du Pont to inspire and educate through its collections, estate, and academic programs by engaging diverse audiences in the study, preservation, and interpretation of American material culture, art, design, and history.
Have no fear! Winterthur’s Conservation team is here!
Winterthur’s Conservation staff has figured out that some bookcloth from the mid-1800s was colored with an extremely toxic arsenic-based inorganic pigment. Known as “Emerald Green,” this pigment was very popular in the United States and England during the Victorian era. It was widely used to color textiles for home decoration and apparel, wallpaper, and toys, but we need to know more about how much it was used in coloring bookcloth because it can be toxic for book readers!
These mass-produced Victorian bookbindings can be found in libraries and private book collections all over the world. Winterthur’s conservator for library materials, Dr. Melissa Tedone, and her team are creating a database of dangerous books and providing tips for how to make them safe for people to handle them. Information about the growing Poison Book Project database is publicly available online, but we want to get the word out to any libraries or individuals who may own these dangerous emerald green beauties. With your generous support, we can print bookmarks to mail around the world showing folks how to identify these toxic bindings. Any additional funds will be used to hire a conservation technician to continue testing even more books for other dangerous pigments because “Emerald Green” isn’t the only one; there’s a potentially toxic rainbow of Victorian hues!
$1,000 will cover the cost of printing bookmarks for libraries for one year.
$10,000 will cover the cost of a semester-long internship for an early-career conservation technician to continue XRF scanning which books are unsafe for book lovers around the world.
Supporters who contribute $20 or more will receive a Poison Book Project bookmark.
Thank you for helping us make the world safer for bibliophiles!
Mission: Winterthur builds upon the vision of Henry Francis du Pont to inspire and educate through its collections, estate, and academic programs by engaging diverse audiences in the study, preservation, and interpretation of American material culture, art, design, and history.
Winterthur's Mansion
Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library is an American estate and museum located in Winterthur, Delaware. It was the former home of Henry Francis (H.F.) du Pont, a renowned horticulturist and collector. Born at Winterthur as a member of Delaware’s prominent du Pont family, H.F. studied at the Bussey Institute, Harvard University’s college of practical agriculture and horticulture. He spent the rest of his life managing Winterthur’s estate and its farm, perfecting his gardens, and amassing one of the most significant collections of American decorative arts in the world. He ultimately transformed his magnificent 175-room mansion to display nearly 90,000 objects made or used in America since 1640.
Two graduate degree programs and a highly regarded research library make Winterthur an important center for the study of American art and culture. The Winterthur Library includes more than 87,000 volumes and approximately 500,000 manuscripts and images, mostly related to American history, decorative arts, and architecture. Winterthur, in partnership with the University of Delaware, sponsors the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture and the Winterthur/UD Program in Arts Conservation.
Winterthur is situated on 1,000 acres of protected meadows, woodlands, ponds, and waterways. H.F. was an adherent to the concept of a “naturalistic garden,” a plant-driven approach to landscape design first written about in William Robinson’s The Wild Garden in 1870. Today, the 60-acre garden he designed is among America’s best, with magnificent plantings and stunning displays of color throughout the year.
Winterthur garden steps
Recent donors
James Kelleher
$10
Jimmy Moore
(in honor of Elizabeth Palms)
$5
Kathryn Blake
$25
PJ Carlino
(in honor of POISON BOOKS! project of Melissa Tedone)
$25
Billie Holbrook
(in honor of Emily Guthrie)
$10
Ed Palms
$50
Stephanie Bennett
(in honor of In honor of the hard-working conservators out there!)
Anonymous
$20
Margaret Frick
(in honor of Nancy Hubbard Baird)
Eric Vandemortel
$25
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