Donating Artifacts

Our collecting mission focuses on objects, documents, images, and ephemera owned by or related to Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain, his family, friends, and associates, and his various homes, with special focus on the Hartford home. As we are scrupulous about displaying only authentic period items to help interpret the lives of the Clemens family and their servants, the target date for all of these items is 1881-1891.

Donations added to the museum collection through the generosity of individuals help us fulfill our mission as stewards of Mark Twain’s legacy. If you have an item that you believe would enhance the collections, and you would like to donate it to the museum, please take the time to read our acquisition policies and following our guidelines for proposed donations. This will help make the donation process as smooth as possible for everyone involved.

To help us better assess your proposed donation and how it can contribute to our mission, we ask you to complete and return to us a Donor Information Form, available HERE. Including photographs of the object(s) with your form is also appreciated. Please wait until you hear from us before you bring the item to the museum. The more accurate information you can give us about an item you wish to donate, the better we’ll be able to understand its significance and interpret it for the education of the public.

Please Understand That We Can’t Accept Everything

The museum’s collections deserve the best care we can give them, and yet our resources are limited. We must beware of accepting more objects than we can properly care for. Therefore, we will be most likely to accept your donation for the collection if:

• • it has a clear connection to the museum’s mission,
• • it doesn’t duplicate objects already in the collection; and
• • it is sufficiently well documented that we can interpret it usefully for the public.

Furthermore, not everything we do accept will necessarily go on permanent exhibit. We will not accept donations with exhibition stipulations. Our collections include items used for research and for public education programs, as well as those displayed in the galleries. All of these uses help promote our mission of preservation and education. Finally, all artifact donations must be approved by the Museum’s Collections Committee and then by the Board of Trustees.

Please submit your Donor Information Form and all donation inquiries to Jodi C. DeBruyne, Beatrice Fox Auerbach Director of Collections, at jodi.debruyne@marktwainhouse.org.