Museum & Institutional Partnerships
Over 50+ years of trusted relationships with the most important museums and historical institutions in America and abroad. These partnerships reflect a shared commitment to preserving history for future generations.
Gary Hendershott has served as a trusted consultant to more than 20 major museums and historical institutions. His role encompasses acquisition advisory, collection evaluation, authentication services, and the facilitation of important donations and sales.
These institutional relationships are built on decades of demonstrated expertise, integrity, and a shared conviction that important collections belong where they can be preserved, studied, and appreciated by the public. Gary's emphasis on keeping significant collections intact — rather than dispersing them at auction — aligns with the missions of institutions that understand the irreplaceable value of related artifacts held together.
Museum & Institutional Partners
Army Heritage and Education Center
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
The Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC) is far more than a conventional army museum. Situated in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the Center serves as a military history, education, and cultural campus dedicated to honoring the service and sacrifice of soldiers and their families by sharing their personal stories. AHEC preserves and makes publicly available an extensive collection of artifacts and archival materials, while educating and inspiring visitors through exhibitions and programs.
Visit WebsiteAtlanta History Center
Atlanta, Georgia
Today one of the Southeast's largest history museums, the Atlanta History Center occupies 33 acres in the heart of Atlanta's Buckhead district. The campus includes a major history museum, a research library and archives serving more than 10,000 patrons annually, two historic houses illustrating over a century of Atlanta's past, the Margaret Mitchell House & Museum on a two-acre midtown campus, and a series of gardens unique in both design and horticultural presentation in the metropolitan area.
Visit WebsiteBattle Abbey (Virginia Historical Society)
Richmond, Virginia
The neoclassical structure that houses the library and headquarters of the Virginia Historical Society was constructed in six stages between 1912 and 2006. The first section, completed in 1913, was built by the Confederate Memorial Association as a shrine to the Confederate dead and a repository for records of the Lost Cause. Officially designated the Confederate Memorial Institute, the building became popularly known as "Battle Abbey" after an 1897 fundraising effort featuring a piece of sheet music entitled The Broadway Rouss Two-Step. Charles Broadway Rouss, a Virginia veteran who later made his fortune in New York, contributed $100,000 toward construction; the remainder came in small contributions from veterans' camps, school children, and ladies' organizations throughout the South.
Visit WebsiteBuffalo Bill Museum
Cody, Wyoming
Five museums under one roof, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West examines both the personal and public lives of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody in the context of the history and mythology of the American West. The Whitney Gallery of Western Art presents masterworks from the early 19th century to today. The Plains Indian Museum features one of the country's largest and finest collections of Plains Indian art and artifacts, representing the Arapaho, Crow, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, Blackfeet, Sioux, Gros Ventre, Shoshone, and Pawnee peoples. The Cody Firearms Museum contains the world's most comprehensive assemblage of American arms, as well as European arms dating to the 16th century. The Draper Museum of Natural History interprets the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and the Harold McCracken Research Library advances the study of the American West.
Visit WebsiteCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Bentonville, Arkansas
Founded by Alice Walton, Crystal Bridges is a premier national art institution dedicated to American art and artists. Located in Bentonville, Arkansas, the museum complex encompasses approximately 100,000 square feet of gallery, library, meeting, and office space, a 250-seat indoor auditorium, areas for outdoor concerts and public events, sculpture gardens, and walking trails. The permanent collection is composed of paintings and sculptures by American artists from the Colonial period through the modern era, representing the richness and diversity of the American experience, alongside galleries dedicated to regional art and Native American art.
Visit WebsiteCuster Battlefield Museum
Garryowen, Montana
Situated on the former site of Sitting Bull's camp at the famous Garryowen bend of the Little Bighorn River, this museum occupies a traditional summer hunting campsite that in late June 1876 witnessed one of the largest Native American gatherings ever recorded in North America. Several key locations of the Battle of the Little Bighorn are visible from the site, including Reno's hilltop defense position, Weir Point, Last Stand Hill, and the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Exhibits include Little Wolf's Golden Eagle Tail Feathered War Bonnet, the contract for Sitting Bull's appearance in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show bearing the only known attested signature of Sitting Bull, Crow Dog's rifle, Tom Custer's Kerr revolver, and over 100 photographs by renowned frontier photographer David F. Barry.
Visit WebsiteHistoric Arkansas Museum
Little Rock, Arkansas
The Historic Arkansas Museum is a historic site museum of Arkansas's frontier era. Five pre-Civil War houses, preserved on their original block, are restored to antebellum appearances, offering guided tours with costumed actors portraying original residents. The museum center features an outstanding collection of Arkansas-made decorative, mechanical, and fine arts objects displayed across six galleries, along with a museum store, living history theater, and educational areas.
Visit WebsiteHistoric New Orleans Collection
New Orleans, Louisiana
The Historic New Orleans Collection is a museum, research center, and publisher dedicated to the study and preservation of the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf South region. Established in 1966 by General and Mrs. L. Kemper Williams, the institution occupies a complex of historic French Quarter buildings at 533 Royal Street. It includes the Williams Gallery for changing exhibitions, ten Louisiana History Galleries tracing the state's multifaceted past, and the Williams Residence house museum. The Williams Research Center at 410 Chartres Street holds approximately 35,000 library items, more than two miles of documents and manuscripts, and roughly 350,000 photographs, prints, drawings, paintings, and other artifacts.
Visit WebsiteLibrary of Congress
Washington, D.C.
The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps, and manuscripts in its collections. The Library's mission is to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations.
Visit WebsiteMariners' Museum
Newport News, Virginia
One of the largest international maritime history museums in the world, The Mariners' Museum encompasses over 60,000 square feet of gallery space filled with prized artifacts celebrating the spirit of seafaring adventure. Collections include rare figureheads, handcrafted ship models, Civil War ironclad USS Monitor artifacts, paintings, and small craft from around the globe.
Visit WebsiteMemorial Hall Confederate Museum
New Orleans, Louisiana
Confederate veterans of Louisiana founded Memorial Hall in New Orleans in 1891 as a repository for their memorabilia from the Civil War. Veterans and their families have donated more than 90 percent of the artifacts preserved and exhibited today, while 90,000 war-related documents are housed on permanent loan at Tulane University for research purposes. Memorial Hall contains the second largest collection of Confederate memorabilia in the United States and is the oldest continually operating museum in Louisiana. Nestled in New Orleans' historic Warehouse District, it stands within walking distance of the National World War II Museum, the Contemporary Arts Center, the Children's Museum, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.
Visit WebsiteMuseum of the Confederacy
Richmond, Virginia
The Museum of the Confederacy houses one of the most comprehensive collections of civilian and military Civil War artifacts relating to the Confederate States of America, as well as the post-war "Lost Cause" era. This rich collection serves as a valuable resource for studying the role of the Confederacy in the war and in American society. The Museum organizes and sponsors lectures, special events, and public programs inviting visitors to explore American society in the 1800s.
Visit WebsiteNational Civil War Museum
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
The National Civil War Museum portrays the American struggle as a timeline from the issues straining the nation through the war's conclusion at Appomattox Court House. The Museum's collections of artifacts, manuscripts, documents, photographs, and other printed matter exceed 24,000 items. Three-dimensional artifacts comprise about 3,500 items, of which approximately 850 are on display in the permanent galleries. The vast majority of collections were acquired by the City of Harrisburg between 1994 and 1999 under the auspices of Mayor Stephen R. Reed.
Visit WebsiteNational Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C.
The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery tells the stories of America through the individuals who have shaped its culture. Through the visual arts, performing arts, and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives speak to the breadth of American history.
Visit WebsitePamplin Historical Park
Petersburg, Virginia
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated both a Virginia Historic Landmark and a National Historic Landmark, Pamplin Historical Park is recognized as one of America's premier historical attractions and the most innovative Civil War history park in the country. Located on the site of the April 2, 1865 "Breakthrough" battle that ended the Petersburg Campaign and led to the evacuation of the Confederate capital at Richmond, the Park's 422 acres include four award-winning museums, four antebellum homes, living history venues, and shopping and dining facilities. Costumed interpreters conduct demonstrations of military and civilian life, while historians lead guided tours of the battlefield and plantation homes daily.
Visit WebsiteRoyal Armouries Museum
United Kingdom
The Royal Armouries is home to the United Kingdom's national collection of arms and armour, including artillery. As a museum it maintains a duty of care for these objects, studying them and increasing knowledge to pass to future generations. The Royal Armouries actively supports groups committed to the study of arms and armour and its practical applications, offers an enquiry service to the public and the commercial world, and has served as consultants on numerous film and television projects.
Visit WebsiteTennessee State Museum
Nashville, Tennessee
The origins of the Tennessee State Museum trace back to 1817, when portrait artist Ralph E.W. Earl opened a museum on the Nashville public square. In 1937, the General Assembly established a state museum to house World War I mementoes and other collections. Today the Tennessee State Museum occupies three floors covering approximately 120,000 square feet, with more than 60,000 square feet devoted to exhibits spanning the full scope of Tennessee's role in American history.
Visit WebsiteTexas Civil War Museum
Fort Worth, Texas
The Texas Civil War Museum maintains the most comprehensive collection of Civil War artifacts west of the Mississippi River. While best known for its military collections, the museum also holds significant collections of domestic objects, decorative flags, personal furniture, artifacts, and postwar Victorian attire. Object collections total approximately 3,000 items, representing a rare partnership between private collections and a collection in public trust.
Visit WebsiteUC Berkeley Bancroft Library
Berkeley, California
The Bancroft Library moved into its present quarters in 1973, expanding beyond its original scope to encompass a number of special collections, including the former Rare Books Collection. Today The Bancroft Library includes the Mark Twain Papers and Project, the Regional Oral History Office, the University of California Archives, the History of Science and Technology Program, and the Pictorial Collection. It has become one of the largest and busiest special collections libraries in the United States.
Visit WebsiteVirginia Historical Society
Richmond, Virginia
Founded in 1831 as a private organization, the Virginia Historical Society elected Chief Justice John Marshall as its first president and former President James Madison as its first honorary member. During the early decades between 1831 and 1861, the Society acquired valuable books, manuscripts, museum objects, and natural history specimens. It continues to derive virtually all its support from membership and endowment, maintaining one of the most important collections of Virginia and American history.
Visit WebsiteYale Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
New Haven, Connecticut
The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library is Yale University's principal repository for literary papers and for early manuscripts and rare books in the fields of literature, theology, history, and the natural sciences. In addition to its general collection, the library houses the Yale Collection of American Literature, the Yale Collection of German Literature, the Yale Collection of Western Americana, and the Osborn Collection. The Beinecke collections afford opportunities for interdisciplinary research in fields such as medieval, Renaissance, and eighteenth-century studies, art history, photography, American studies, the history of printing, and modernism in art and literature.
Visit WebsiteInstitutional Inquiries Welcome
Museums, libraries, and historical institutions seeking consultation on acquisitions, authentication, or collection development are welcome to contact Gary directly. All institutional inquiries are handled with the professionalism and discretion these relationships require.
Contact for Institutional Inquiry