Cleaning wallpaper

I am a graduate student in Historic Preservation at the University
of Oregon. I am currently assisting the director of a historic house
museum with several projects, one of which is cleaning the 1920s era
wallpaper in two rooms.  The wallpaper is machine produced, with a
green ivy pattern on a white ground.  There is generalized dirt,
water staining, and soot on many areas of the paper.

I have done test patches to determine which method would best clean
the paper, including document cleaning pads and plastic erasers,
neither of which was satisfactory.  The product I found to remove
the most grime from the sample were gray kneaded erasers.  However,
from a conservation standpoint, I have reservations about using this
product.  Could anyone please provide me with more information
regarding the conservation issues involved with kneaded erasers or
recommend alternatives?  I read about a product called Absorene, but
the source was somewhat dated.  Is this still used to clean
wallpaper?  Any experiences or suggestions you could share with me
would be greatly appreciated.

Dawn Mankowski
Historic Preservation
University of Oregon

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:71
                 Distributed: Wednesday, March 3, 1999
                       Message Id: cdl-12-71-016
                                  ***