Internships Blog

In light of 2020, the Salem Museum needed to make some changes as to its presentation of its annual Ghost Walk. Rather than having its normal tour along the cemeteries of Salem the museum decided that it would be safer to have the Ghost Walk in the form of a play. My supervisor Alex Burke, played himself as he introduced local historical figures as if they were ghosts coming up to the world of the living for an annual get together. This year was not only the annual Ghost Walk, but also the 300th Birthday of local Salem celebrate General Andrew Lewis. The overall plot of the performance was the celebration of General Lewis’ birthday by means of other local figures presenting him with gifts as he told his life story. Other “Ghosts” also gave some historical insight to Salem as early as the 1700’s to as recent as the 1930’s.

I helped set up the location and hand out tickets along with other volunteers. A few of my friends even came to the performance and I think overall it was both enjoyable for the audience and a successful event.

 

Even though the exhibit is very small I am still learning a lot about exhibit design. Mr. Burke and I are going back and forth on how objects can be placed and how images can be sized to fit and be laid out properly.Sometimes things are moved around the display case, sometimes things are put in other times things are best removed all together. My signs where textual information is displayed are also being proofread. It is a very interesting experience for sure.  My topic of mourning in both the Victorian Era and the Civil war ties in perfectly with the upcoming Ghost Walk performance. Getting to see images of beautiful black gowns is has been very enjoyably as well as handling various collars, veils and shawls from the archive. To think that one funeral started a majority of western funeral culture and possibly Gothic fashion as a whole.

As an intern, I still get a certain amount of busywork to offset the more fun actives. I can’t complain. I cut up information cards and put them into ornament boxes for this years Christmas ornament about General Andrew Lewis after Ms.Frances looked over them. There were two large boxes and it took the majority of my time today. Sometimes busy work that doesn’t take a lot of brain power can be relaxing to me, so I didn’t mind at all to take out my frustrations out onto info. cards and ornament boxes.

I have chosen to intern at the O. Winston Link Museum/Historical Society of Western Virginia with museum curator and internship supervisor Ashley Webb. As I live close by the school, I am able to go in person three days a week and the occasional weekend day. I also do research and planning from home as a way to get hours. I have conducted research on the Election Day Flood of 1985 for questions to be used in an interview with Tommy Firebaugh, a photographer known for his photos of the Flood.

 

I spend most of my time accessioning objects, photos, as well as maps by using a virtual archive software called PastPerfect. Some of the most interesting items and photos I’ve archived include contracts and agreements, old tools, as well as photos of old Downtown Roanoke and Hollins University. One of the most time consuming tasks I am working on at home for the museum is transcribing the interview between Tommy Firebaugh and Ashley Webb which involves sitting down and listening to the interview while actively typing everything said in the interview. This week I have been taking maps and accessioning them and I will soon begin preparing a Botetourt County exhibit and learn to label exhibits which means I will be writing the information typically seen under the exhibits.

It has been a very insightful experience volunteering at the museum thus far and it will almost certainly assist me in future career expertise.

In working with the Salem Museum both remotely and in person, I have worked on small tasks and  continuing to work on larger scaled projects. I finished up doing research from the 1955 issues of The Roanoke Times , taking my notes on everything I could find and typing them up for Mr. Burke to look over. I also started to work on writing the information card for the Salem Museum’s annual Christmas ornament. The figure represented this year was General Andrew Lewis. Since I am not a Salem local it was interesting to see how he and his family impacted so much of Salem and Virginia history. General Lewis served in both the Revolutionary War and the French and Indian War. His father founded the town of Staunton Virginia and both he and his brother founded what is now Washington and Lee University.

As for larger projects, Mr. Burke is allowing me to make my own small scale-exhibition. This project has really excited me as I am learning for myself how objects are placed and how exhibitions are laid out. Being in ta more spooky mood, I decided to do my exhibition on mourning attire in the Victorian Era to the late Civil War as the museum had some fabrics, accessories and garments to work with. I also thought this exhibit would complement the upcoming Ghost Tour on October 16th. Depending on the choices of space and not overcrowding topics I was thinking about adding information on the local graveyards and ghost stories.

 

Although I may be on campus this semester, there are certainly some changes due to COVID-19. Everyone in the museum is required to wear masks and socially distance. Roughly two weeks into my internship, a friend of mine had to go into quarantine for two weeks since they were suspected for being in contact with someone who was positive. Since the staff of the Salem Museum is relatively small, I decided it would be best for me to work remotely for two weeks as a precaution. Then a week after returning someone I worked with started to show covid symptoms and I continued to work remotely for another week as they waited for their test results. Luckily neither one of them tested positive for corona virus but I am happy that everyone is taking preventive measures to keep students and staff safe. Working remotely did not give me as much hands on experience but it did give me the skills to be flexible in my work.

This semester I am interning with the O. Winston Link Museum/ Historical Society of Western Virginia with Curator Ashley Webb. Although I started off the semester on campus being able to go to my internship in person, I made the decision to continue the rest of the semester at home in Richmond. Because of this decision, my internship has become hybrid. I go into the Museum about two long weekends a month and spend the rest of the time doing research and planning a redesign of one of the already existing exhibits in the museum. This past weekend I was able to physically go into the museum.

During my internship, I mostly participate on accessioning new objects received via donations and gifts, cataloging objects that have not made it into PastPerfect, and working on exhibits whether it be planning, labeling, or designing. This past weekend (Friday, Saturday, Monday) I spent cataloging a Virginia College yearbook from 1927 and accessioning a gift concerning the Deyerle Family. The Virginia College yearbook, “The Ole Virginny” was interesting to look through. It was fascinating to see the different styles women wore, whether it be their dress or hair, and how they interacted with one another at the school. As some may not know, Virginia College was an all women’s college located in Southern Roanoke, but due to the depression it closed its doors for good in 1929. This yearbook exemplified the many traditions the college had, their students, and the lifestyles of those students. Although the yearbook was dip in the past, the Deyerle family accession sparked my interest the most. The Deyerles were one of the first families to settle in the Roanoke Valley in the late 18th century, early 19th century. The name “Deyerle” became particularly well known through Benjamin Deyerle, who built houses throughout the Roanoke Valley in his Greek revival styles. One of his well known homes sits right on the Roanoke College campus, the Monterey House. Benjamin Deyerle also built six other well known homes in the Roanoke Valley, which include Lone Oaks (his family home), Mount Airy, Montvale, Belle Air, Pleasant Grove, and White Corners. The Deyerle family is tremendous in size and often have family reunions in Roanoke where a house tour is included.

So far with this internship I have been able to dive deeper into archival and collections work, gaining a breadth of experience with handling, marking, cataloging, and accessioning objects into a database. This helps me realize the greater work that goes on behind the scenes of a museum, especially one the size of the O. Winston Link Museum/Historical Society of Western Virginia with a staff of just two people. With that, one gains a newfound appreciation for the work put into the exhibits and into the museum as a hold.

 

In learning the ins and outs of how a museum is run there is something that most people outside the industry forget, the sorting, storing and classification of objects,photos and other sources within the museum. I assisted in putting away antiquities from an older instillation. Each object is given a code that is put into the software known as Past Perfect so that they can be found for future exhibits and properly stored. I found this to be very interesting as I know these codes vary from various museums.  These codes vary but in the case of the Salem museum each object or photograph is sorted based on the donor, the number of item in which the item was donated. If a donor donated multiple items each item is given its own number. Finally the object is given its final number based on the date in which the object was donated. I found this probably more interesting than most interns would but I really enjoyed doing a reverse scavenger hunt in putting all of the materials back into their correct boxes and shelves.

I also did some research for the museum by looking into a 1955 local newspaper and getting various information depending on the topics I was instructed to gather information about. It felt overwhelming at first to dive into an actual book of newspapers from such a long time ago, I kept wondering if the individuals who were not much younger than myself then were alive today. I imagined talking to them as I went through the various months, wondering what it was like to be a high school senior in 1955. I also continued to look at the various newspaper adds as I continued researching and I found many quite funny compared to the adds of today.

I was so very excited that I was able to come to campus in light of the issues surrounding Covid-19 and the possibility of not returning to campus. I consider my self a student who learns best with hands on approaches rather than other forms, Working with the Salem museum was something I was thrilled, to not only work under a Roanoke Alum but also to work in an actual museum and get to experience the inner workings of a museum. I had met Mr.Alex Burke in working on a paper last spring and when I was given the green light to work with him this Fall I was beyond excited.  I have been interested in museum work both from a fine arts and a public history perspective. I have wanted to see what it would be like as both someone doing research in the museum archives and taking that information as an exhibit designer.

On my first day as an intern, Mr. Burke instructed me to look though each exhibit and take notes on how each one was laid out, what I liked about the exhibit, what could be improved upon and any questions I had after my own self tour around the building. I was able to see the various ways they can be handled through object handling, signage and both visual and literary mediums. I enjoyed some exhibits more than others and enjoyed topics more than others. I overall was thankful that it allowed me to see the various ways information could be presented to the public. My favorite exhibit had to be the presentation of local artist Walter Biggs the exhibit looked similar to that of a parlor. There were various works of Biggs and other artists hung up on the walls, cabinets of various antiques and places in which viewers could sit and experience the art on their own time. The museum uses a topic or theme for each exhibit rather than converting the building to a visual timeline which these two ways of presenting material can vary from institution to institution.

 

 

 

My main job so far has been reading the provided books and doing research on Salem. I enjoyed learning about Salem, a place I have been for years but knew next to nothing about. The first book was very in-depth, straight up history. The other was an interesting look at the history of Salem through art depicting the town through the years.

So far this has been the preliminary information gathering. Soon I am supposed to start work on proper curatorial endeavors. It has been challenging to properly participate in this internship online, but I believe I am still getting a lot out of it.

It has been quite the experience working with the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation! I was planning on spending my summer first on May term in Scotland followed by attending a field school in Malta. Obviously, due to COVID I did not get to participate in those plans. That really bummed me out in the beginning of the summer. Finding an internship was the last thing I wanted to do considering that I was supposed to have an amazing summer learning abroad. When I heard about this internship at the foundation I was thankful for the opportunity, especially because I have requirements to fill before I graduate, but I didn’t realize how much the experience would mean to me. I was received by the most supportive supervisor I could have asked for and she made me realize the job I was being asked to do was extremely important and the work I was going to be doing would be appreciated by a lot of people. It was a massive collection but I went into it confident that I could get a huge chunk of it done if not all of it, which was really important for me to do. I had to go into it with a good attitude. My supervisor had jobs of her own to do so she couldn’t be back in the room I was working in inside the library all the time with me going through every document with me. Every time I have ever done a big project I have kind of had someone standing there guiding me along, but she was trusting me to be able to handle and organize an important collection almost on my own. I couldn’t second guess myself every time I was a little unsure. I really ended up learning that I was capable of having good ideas about how to handle the collection and that my supervisor was acting as more of a collaborator than a boss and really listened to the things I said. I finally grew confident that I was making the right organizational choices. Another thing that I really loved about working here over the past month and some is that I learned so so so much about Roanoke. I grew up here and realized I knew so little about the history of the city. I basically started driving around Roanoke and realizing that I had just organized a folder about the building sitting right in front of me at a red light. I started recognizing the names of people who have built up this community. I just in all feel that I know so much more about where I am from and the things that have gone into preserving the most historic aspects of it. That was really cool for me.

 

Before, I mentioned going to field school in Malta for ethnography. I really do want to focus on anthropological studies in the future, but learning what goes into preservation and making sure historians and researchers have access to the past has really opened my eyes. The extreme care that you have to put into preserving just one photograph or one piece of paper is really interesting and having to do that work has definitely made me more appreciative as a historian in general. Archives don’t just appear for me to search. They have to be handled first and taken care of so that people will be able to access important information for a long time. I am very grateful for my time at the foundation, and have really enjoyed helping them finish a major project. I feel very accomplished and having my supervisor be proud of my work meant the world to me.