What is the Scottish Tartans Museum?

[M. A. C. Newsome]

As the Scottish Tartans Museum is somewhat unique among the other advertisers on this forum, inasmuch as we are a non-profit heritage organization funded by gift shop revenue, I thought I would post a little information about the museum so that people can get a feeling for what their purchases go to support. Thanks for reading!

The Scottish Tartans Museum is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, governed by a volunteer Board of Trustees, dedicated to the history and traditions of Scottish Highland Dress.

Our museum was founded by The Scottish Tartans Society (STS), which was established in Scotland in 1963 to maintain a worldwide membership and museums in Scotland and abroad, to create and maintain the Register of All Publicly Known Tartans, encourage research into Highland Dress, and to provide a design service for new tartans.

The Scottish Tartans Museum was established in the United States by the STS to be a center for reliable information on Scottish Highland Dress traditions for the large Scottish-American heritage community. Originally established in Highlands, NC, in 1988, the museum has been in Franklin since 1994 where we have both educated about tartan and Highland Dress as well as served as a general Scottish Heritage Center for the region.

The STS no longer exists as an organization, but the Scottish Tartans Museum it established in the USA continues to work hard to promote the cloth that has become so iconic of Scotland's cultural identity. We continue to maintain close ties with tartan resources in Scotland, largely through a friendship with the Scottish Tartans Authority.

Our museum is open year-round, six days a week (except for major holidays). Our gallery is regularly visited by school groups, researchers, families and interested individuals. Volunteers are often available to provide guided tours, and staff is always on hand to answer questions and help with basic tartan research.

Our museum gallery features kilts dating back to c. 1800, and tartan specimens to c. 1725. Over 500 tartan samples are on display, including tartans for clans, families, districts, and other organizations. Our computer database, courtesy of the Scottish Tartans Authority, contains thousands of unique tartan designs, both historic and modern.


Here I am showing a group of students through our museum gallery.

Our museum staff and volunteers are routinely invited into area schools, from elementary school to the university, to give presentations on Scottish heritage and Highland dress.

We also attend a number of regional Scottish Festivals and Highland Games throughout the year to provide a tartan information service to festival visitors. So if you are attending a festival in the southeastern US, be on the lookout for our tent!

I have been involved with the museum since 1997, hired first as a part time employee while I was still in college. Upon my graduation in 1999 I was named full time curator, and eventually named the director of the museum, which is the position I currently hold. In that time I have seen the museum grow and expand.

When the museum first opened in Highlands in 1988 it consisted of a small gallery, no gift shop, and relied upon donations and volunteers. When it moved to Franklin in 1994 it had a larger gallery, a small gift shop, and thanks to some financial support from the town, could hire full time staff.

The financial support the museum received from the town was on a decreasing scale (receiving less every year), and by the time I was hired three years later the museum was well on its way to financial independence.

In 1999 we moved out of the town building we were housed in (which is now Town Hall) and into our current location, an historic building at 86 E Main St, which gave us a larger museum gallery, and a much larger gift shop area (four times the size that we had), which we have since expanded even further.

Our general operating budget for the museum has for some time been generated entirely from gift shop sales. Purchases made in our store and on line allow us to pay our staff, pay rent, insurance, keep the lights on, etc.

We are very grateful for this. However, our gift shop revenue does not allow for the funding of special projects, and so for those we must seek after grants and donations. We are currently seeking donations to help underwrite a complete renovation of our museum gallery, which is long overdue. It is a major undertaking, and if you are interested in helping, please click here to read more.

I'd like to personally thank the X Marks community for being such strong supporters of the Scottish Tartans Museum and our efforts to promote and preserve this important aspect of Scotland's rich cultural tradition.