Getting to know the Harley-Davidson Museum for Ask an Archivist Day

Harley-Davidson Museum^™ Bike Night regulars got the chance to #AskAnArchivist and find out more about their work to preserve the Motor Company’s history

Words by Kristina McGuirk, Senior Archivist at the Harley-Davidson Museum

Celebrated annually in October in the US, Ask an Archivist Day is about raising awareness around the work and importance of archives and archivists. For the Harley-Davidson Museum™, it’s a fantastic opportunity to find out what interests people about the collection and we love hearing from the public.

The museum participates in a variety of ways, including via Facebook, X, Instagram and internal employee channels. This year, however, we were also excited to host an in-person event. Dedicated attendees who’ve been to every event in the Thursday Bike Night concert series at the museum this year were invited into the archives for a live question and answer session with the whole archives team.

The session started with a formal introduction to us, our work and the history of the collection, then we welcomed questions from the floor. Naturally, hosting a session in motorcycle storage prompted a lot of questions about the bikes – including the most popular question we get: “What’s your favourite bike?” Our answers to that are always changing, but in the spirit of the day, we’ll share some of the other questions (and answers) posed by our curious guests.

Do the bikes in the archives ever go on display in the museum?
Yes! Although we believe that our most impressive bikes are already on display, we do have temporary exhibits that rotate after a few years, and even our permanent exhibits have seen refreshes every now and then.

When did tyres switch from white to black?
In the 1910s, tyres started to switch from milky white to black because of the addition of carbon black. Prior to this, tyres were naturally white – the colour of gum rubber. They began adding carbon black to their tyre compounds to improve durability, and tyres became black. That’s why you see our oldest models, like Serial One, with white tyres.

Does Hollywood ever contact you?
Sure, they reach out to the company – but that doesn’t mean we’ll loan them anything! Jokes aside, our goal as archivists is to protect the collection for future use by the Motor Company and future enjoyment by museum guests. Because of this, we take loaning items very seriously, and we more easily share photographs and information if it can be helpful. We recently supported the Bessie Stringfield documentary  by identifying bikes and eras of photographs, plus providing contextual information. Besides, there are entire businesses who support Hollywood productions with these kinds of requests. When it comes to our collection, we do occasionally acquire bikes offered from various movie and TV productions.

Would your collection ever go online?
This is a great question, and something we get asked a lot by international museum guests. The short answer is, maybe! We love the idea of making Harley-Davidson history more accessible, which is why we embrace opportunities like Google Arts and Culture to reach broader audiences with our stories and artefacts. Sharing the entire H-D archives online wouldn’t be possible, but we are currently investigating ways to bring parts of the collection online for the public to view.

Do the bikes run?
The majority of the bikes in the collection would run if oil and fuel were added to them. However, part of the conservation process involves removing batteries, fuel and oil because over time these components can break down. It’s also safer to remove these elements for storage. Our goal is long-term preservation, so we do not typically run the motorcycles in the collection.

What if you run out of room?
We have enough motorcycle rack space to house 349 motorcycles; we currently have 325 in storage… so we hopefully have quite a few years left before we’re going to run out space. The allure of the bikes is impossible to ignore, so after a while we invited guests to look (never touch!) and ask questions about what they could see on the bike racks, or whatever else might come to mind.

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