Our November Curator Profile features Chelsey Knyff, the head curator at The Windham Mill Museum in Willimantic, Connecticut. After volunteering with the Mill Museum for five years, Chelsey has now been employed as head curator for over a year and a half. Before her time with the Mill Museum, Chelsey was a film and theater costumer. Frequent work on period productions highlighted her natural knack for understanding historical dress. To further understand her craft, Chelsey began to study the histories of the garment she was making. “I found myself falling in love with history,” Chelsey expands. “It was a surprise!” As her knowledge grew, so did her opportunities. She found herself participating in talks and lectures about the clothing reproductions she made for museums. Her love of historical textiles led her to volunteer with the Windham Mill Museum, stepping in during COVID. She has since gone back to school to get her BA in history and is now pursuing a master’s degree in history and an MS in library sciences and archives from Simmons University.

     Growing up in the town next door, Chelsey has had a lifelong connection with the Windham Mill Museum. “I grew up with this particular museum so it’s a part of my personal community heritage,” Chelsey explains, “so to be able to take what the museum gave to me as a child and give that back to them means a lot.” Her professional relationship with the museum looks quite different from the one she had as a child. Rather than touring the facility by day, now she roams the museum’s halls at night. She works in the evenings, skirting around museum tours and her other job. Working mostly by herself, she gets her work done on the third floor. The space is also a library just as it was at its origins, when it served as a library for Windham Linen Co. and American Thread Co employees.

     She and her co-curator, Jaky Ray, spent the last year clearing donations. In fact, going through accessions is the first step to beginning her work. In addition to that responsibility, Chelsey works on digitizing the museum’s collection. She is currently working on 20th century catalogs, but she looks forward to digitizing the museum’s costume collection, which includes both clothing and accessories. The majority of the Windham Mill Museum’s collection includes women’s clothing from the late 19th century, which reflects the museum’s tie to the Industrial Revolution, to the 20th-century. While the museum is currently transitioning between exhibitions, the museum’s permanent collection is always on display. It also offers several online programs for people interested in becoming members. Some of Chelsey’s favorite objects include a jacquard loom she hopes to get working for presentations and a late 1890s dress. Of the dress, Chelsey excitedly notes, “It has built-in pockets!” In addition to the collection’s textiles, Chelsey also keeps up with the Mill Museum’s collection of sewing machines for demonstrations for visitors.

     This sharing of the past with the public is her favorite aspect of the job. To Chelsey, “the most rewarding part is being able to take my knowledge in historical costuming and put it out and actually educate people.” As such, she loves planning exhibitions and giving tours. The position’s most unique aspect is trying to strategize the best way to handle their small archive. Her work involves figuring out ways to properly preserve and display artifacts and garments on a small budget as a small historical museum. Despite its struggles, including COVID, the Windham Mill Museum has continued to stay afloat. New accessions, limited staff, and part-time hours amplify the challenging aspects of the Mill Museum, creating a constant game of catch-up. However, Chelsey, like the museum itself, continues her work, successfully taking on challenges.

     When asked to advise her younger self, Chelsey would tell her “nothing.” “Our mistakes, our challenges make us who we are,” Chelsey explains. “If you change even one mistake of your past, you are completely different… So I am happy with who I am.”

    Chelsey will be featured in a Dress & Drinks webinar on November 24, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. EDT. Stay tuned for more information!

     In November 2021, Chelsey was featured in a Dress & Drinks webinar that can be seen on our YouTube channel. You can check out all of our Curator Profiles by clicking here.


~Profile written by Stephanie Ray

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