Giving an object to the museum

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

When the local museum asked for objects from everyday working life, I offered the tin in which my mother had kept her sewing needles. It was dented and held together at one corner with tape. I nearly apologised for its appearance. The curator asked instead how my mother had used it and whether I remembered the sound it made when opened.

The questions altered the object. At home it had been a small inheritance with nowhere obvious to belong; in the museum's record it became evidence of work, repair and habits shared by many households. I was glad, but uneasy too. A label could explain the tin without reproducing the hand that reached for it. I agreed to lend it for the exhibition rather than give it away permanently. Public value and private attachment did not cancel one another, and I needed an arrangement that allowed both to remain true.

Source B: an original letter in a nineteenth-century voice. This is a period-voice simulation, not an archival document.

Sir, I wish to offer the museum a set of tools formerly used in my father's trade. They are worn, and no collector of elegant objects would mistake them for decoration. That is precisely why I hope they may be accepted. The town remembers its prosperous buildings more readily than the labour by which ordinary households were maintained.

I do not ask that the tools be displayed merely because they belonged to my family. Their use should be explained accurately, and I can supply such information as I possess. Once accepted, they ought to serve a history larger than our name. I shall miss seeing them in the cupboard, but preservation at home is uncertain, and their meaning may disappear if nobody records it. Let them be handled by those responsible for their care and placed where a visitor may understand something of the skill they required. Affection can keep an object safe for a time; knowledge may keep it useful for longer.

Refer to the whole of both sources. Compare the writers’ perspectives on placing family objects in a museum and how they convey those perspectives. Support your comparison with evidence from both sources.