Today was my last day at the History Museum/Historical Society of Western Virginia at O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke, VA. This internship has taught me a lot about the various activities that a curator can be called upon to keep a museum up and going. My duties ranged from accessioning new items to organizing items we had had for decades. I helped with the move of the items within Collections from the storage at Center in the Square to the O. Winston Link Museum. I made shelf lists to mark where items were being placed. I have learned a great deal since I have started this internship in January. I have learned how to properly store different materials and why certain materials are better for archival purposes than others.
Internships Blog
Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation #5
In the last few days I have continued to learn new skills from my internship experience with the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation, as I recently have embarked on the search for grants that the Foundation could use for a preservation project. This specific project will provide markers and signage for two unmarked cemeteries within Virginia. These two cemeteries are the McClanahan and Persinger cemeteries, both however are in need of these markers as the care for these locations has been lost. In my search for these grants I have found that there are a plethora of different grants available for non-profit organizations such as the Foundation, but I have also found that these grants can be very specific as to what the funds can be used for.
Lastly I hope that I will be able to help the foundation with the creation of a website that would educate fellow preservation historians about these forgotten areas. Although graduation is only mere days away I can say that I hope I can continue to help the foundation in their progress, but also I would like to say how thankful I am for the skills that this experience has given me. Such skills as researching, writing, and networking are all skills that I believe will ever so help me in my future career.
Salem Museum: I made and exhibit
My final project at the museum was to make my own exhibit, mine was about cookbooks. Exciting, I know. But when we got an old cookbook, The New Dixie Cook-Book, I felt connected to (who as far as we know) the original owner. I came with recipes written on scrap paper and newspaper clippings of recipes from columnist Mrs. Dull. After picking my theme I was given an older version in the Dixie Cook-Book series, The Unrivaled Dixie Cook-Book. I researched both books and Mrs. Dull, transcribed one of the hand written recipes, one of Mrs. Dull’s recipes, and a recipe from each of the books. I printed out copies of the later three for people to take with them to try and cook at home.
I made signs for each book with a brief description of both and a sign about Mrs. Dull. To make the table more pleasing I also used old cooking utensils and put a table cloth down that fit with the southern home cooking theme of the exhibit. To show the viewers what made the cookbook interesting to me in the first place I hung the hand written recipes and newspaper recipes on the wall. I named my exhibit “Southern Home Cooking.”
Historical Society of Western Virginia Post Four
Today I was working on a new accession for the museum. We have received several photos and sheets of film from an anonymous donor that needed to be added to our files. The image above is of a archival folder and another archival folder that has been cut down to a smaller size that will fit into a small archival box. This smaller folder is to hold individual pieces of film.
Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation #4
In the past month I have continued to work and finish my projects with the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation. I have now compiled the information on the existing Rosenwald schools that I referred to in my last post into a major powerpoint that for the majority has a picture and the info on the style of school. This powerpoint will be used by the foundation to show fellow preservation historians the important sites that are around Southwest Virginia, that either existed at one point or are still standing.
I also have finished the newsletter that will be sent out by the foundation on the work of Julius Rosenwald and the schools that he helped create. This newsletter gives the important background that made the famous philanthropist who he was, as well as information on how he created the network of schools that were so influential in the thousands of poverty stricken African-American children in the American South.
Both of these projects helped me continue to develop my skills in my college career, as I had to compile the information into a document that gave merit to the famous philanthropist, but also give information as to why preservation historians should place great importance into the preservation of these historic landmarks.
Transcribing Letters
A box of letters from the 1918 were donated to the museum. My job was to go read them and pull out certain ones that were interesting. The letters originally belonged to the Whitescarver family; a family native to Salem. Their son Rob was stationed in France during WWI. During his time away from home he wrote letters to his mother, father, and three sisters. He died shortly before the war ended, but his friends in his unit continued to write his family and inform them, as much as they could, about Rob’s accident. Some of the boys even formed close friendships with Rob’s mother. So I read all of the letters and put them into multiple different groups (as you can see in the picture below). I pulled aside letters Rob wrote to his parents, letters Rob’s friends wrote to his mother, letters the army sent to the Whitescarver family, and letters of condolence sent to the family after Rob’s death.
The letter will be transcribed by another person, who can read cursive better than I can, and will be used in a future exhibit in the museum. I really did enjoy going through the letters and getting a superficial connection to this family. I felt a lot of different emotions while reading the letters that I didn’t expect. Especially after reading the army letters describing how Rob died and after I did further research on Rob and the rest of the Whitescarver family; he was so close to coming home and was the first of fifteen Salem boys to die during the war.
Desk Duty: Solo
My internship so far has presented me with multiple challenges and opportunities: working in the Roanoke City Law Library, assisting with major events, transcribing hundreds of Early Education surveys, as well as interacting with the public. However, none of these were as daunting as my first day working the Youth Services desk on my own. It was a Saturday afternoon, and I expected to be at the desk assisting as I’ve done a couple of times a week. When I arrived, I learned that the entire staff was either at a conference or at a branch assisting the branch managers. The Main library Youth Services department was left in the hands of work study students and interns, myself included. I had been in the Law Library all week so I was unaware of the conference. As I arrived, another intern was leaving and informed that the work study student of the day was at lunch and would return an hour later. For an hour, it was just me, the desk, and a fair amount of apprehension.
As I hadn’t manned the desk on my own before, I hadn’t had the opportunity to familiarize myself much with the system. Of course within ten minutes of my arrival, a call came in from a branch with a hold request for a book. So I had to not only answer the phone to represent the department, I had to use the system to find a book and see if we had it available. It doesn’t sound terribly difficult in theory, but in practice there was a tremendous amount of pressure for me to do it quickly and correctly. I ended up having to check fines, attempt to figure out the limit of fines before a user was restricted from checking out new books, logging users onto computers, and attempting to keep an eye on seven to ten small children who were running around without much supervision. Thankfully it all went smoothly for the most part, but it was quite eye opening and I learned that being a librarian is much harder than it appears.
Historical Society of Western Virginia Post Three
It’s been a while since I have made a post. I’ve been busy helping my supervisor with various tasks involved in moving the Collections storage for the Historical Society Museum of Western VA. The two pictures involved in this post are of some film for photos that I found while sorting photos. The task I had been given was to help empty several file cabinets full of photos that had all been sorted categorically. It is more helpful for the photos to be sorted by their accession numbers, so the move has opened the opportunity to properly sort many of our items.
The picture to the left shows 3 archival boxes full of photos and multiple stacks of photos with no accession number, meaning that we will have to go through at a later date and find each photo’s individual number. The photos at the top are of photographic film in mylar plastic envelopes that have been labeled with archival ink on top of acryloid. Each photograph or piece of film needs to be put in its own mylar, placed in a labeled archival folder, and put into the box that corresponds with the year of the accession record.
The Blossoms Bloom and the Water Falls- Internship Blog #4
For the past several months I have heard nonstop about how amazing the memorial looks in the spring when the cherry trees bloom and the water comes back in late March. I did not completely believe the tales spread by volunteers and faculty alike, but the rumors are more than true. Driving up to see the majestic glade of pink reminded me of why I was interning there. The past few weeks have been rather slow for me as I have been busy and Maggie has been away, so my office times have not been consistent. I have put together many upon many teacher bags that contain children activity books as well as activities that Maggie has made, as well as a nicely placed coffee mug. I finished my first attempt at Living History Scripts and she liked them so much she decided that we don’t need another draft of them after all. I completed a blog post for the memorial to be used on their website. In the coming weeks I will be engaging more directly with tour groups and school field trips! Through the weeks I think that I have come to the conclusion that perhaps I am not cut out for memorial/museum work. I love working with the activities and seeing the faces of engaged kids but something has been missing for me. Perhaps its because I haven’t had that glade of pink and running water to remind me of why I myself was there. I have long pondered why other people are there, but not myself. Why is that? Finally I find myself placed upon the mountain of remembrance and reverence for the men and women that made not just D Day successful, but all of World War II. It has been a way for me to claim my own space within history and education and allowed me to converse more readily about how we teach history. I look forward to finishing my internship project in the next two weeks.
Matt Myers
Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation #3
The past weeks within my internship with the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation, I have continued to work at the tasks presented before me. I have what I believe to have finished the list of public history groups within the Roanoke Valley, but with this I have also marked which groups possibly have a historical location or building that the Foundation could sell a marker to. These plaques indicate how long the building has been there as well as a endorsement from the Foundation.
Another task that I have begun is creating a powerpoint on all existing Rosenwald schools around Southwest Virginia. The Rosenwald schools as I have mentioned earlier, were established all around the United States for African American students during the early 20th century. Many of these schools are still standing, for the purpose of the Foundation I plan to compile any know pictures of the schools within Southwest Virginia. After researching the area schools I plan to also write an article for the Foundations newsletter on the life of Julius Rosenwald and the schools he created.
The skills that I have learned thus far in my internship have been closely related with organization as well as time management as I have continued work on the individual projects at an even pace. I believe that my research skills have also been strengthened from my work with the Rosenwald Schools.