grchannell

The last two weeks of my internship were quite a whirlwind.  As previously mentioned, two of the permanent exhibits were being completely redone over the last few weeks, which meant my final days were filled with lots of heaving lifting.  Since my time was winding down, I wrapped up my final research on Andrew Lewis championships and focused on being helpful wherever I could.  I moved a lot of items for the Lakeside exhibit, including pulling out and filing away/putting away items in the archives.  On my final day I was assigned to work with one of my favorite things: old books.  It was only fitting that after researching for the champions gallery all summer, on my last day I began taking out the exhibit it is replacing.  So my final assignment was to take the items out of the center display case in the Seven Lives Exhibit and put the items away in the archives.  For me it was the perfect note to end on, because half of the case housed antique books, and I got to spend my last day in the archives, which is where I enjoy working the most.  Overall I had a wonderful experience at the museum and I have loved every minute of my internship.

 

There is a lot happening at The Salem Museum right now.  The other interns are face lifting two of the permanent exhibits and I am up to my elbows in research.  I have been researching Andrew Lewis Track teams and working on new drafts of my older write-ups for the last couple of weeks, but only when I am not busy helping with the other exhibits.  The interns have been busy with everything from moving display cases and furniture to figuring out floor and wall placement of signs, cases, etc.

I had one of my coolest experiences during this time though.  On Fridays, the museum’s research library is open to the public and there is a group of volunteers who work in there all day.  This particular Friday we had a visitor from Ohio who had a relative that was stationed at a local POW Camp near Salem.  During World War II they held German soldiers at a local camp between Salem and Catawba.  The Germans would create furniture and wooden artwork, and they would paint paintings while at the camp.  This visitor had a wooden box made by one of the prisoners and a wooden handled knife decorated by another prisoner, which the library workers took photos of for our collection.  He donated two paintings he had that the Germans made depicting fruits.  He also brought his relative’s photo album that we were allowed to scan pictures from.  This is what I helped with, I got to scan all of these old photos while the gentleman and the workers discussed different stories from this camp that I did not know existed before that day.  It was a very unique experience and I am so glad I was included in their conversation and project.

I made my own exhibit!  We have a display case by the entrance that is typically used for temporary exhibits relating to an upcoming event/holiday/etc.  When I began my internship it was set up for D-Day, but since that anniversary had passed it was time to switch it out.  So the first week I spent time on PastPerfect trying to find various collections that I could possibly make a display from.  Originally I found a lot of political campaign pins, posters, and memorabilia.  Unfortunately, many of the items were too large to fit into the display case and there were not enough small items to make into a whole exhibit.  So I looked online for upcoming holidays and anniversaries and found that Aviation Day is in mid August.  From this I found out that Salem has had multiple pilots and a long history of aviation.

In between the two weeks there was another Saturday event here at the museum.  We had a Living History Day with colonial era historical reenactors that drew a very large crowd.  We had about 150 people come to see the actors and the museum.  It was a great day and it was really interesting talking to the reenactors, especially about how they got into the hobby.

The second week I did a little more research then I started pulling items.  We had far more information and artifacts than I could hope to put into the display case so I had to practice downsizing what I had pulled.  Once the artifacts were arranged in the case I began working on the signs.  These took a couple of edits and reformatting, but I got them up just a day or so later.  Overall I am very proud to have completed my first exhibit at a museum!

This summer I am interning at The Salem Museum from June to August.  My internship got off to a great start!  It began on a big Saturday event celebrating the opening of a new exhibit.  The exhibit commemorates the history of firefighting in Salem.  We had over 250 people attend the event, which is an amazing number for a small museum.

After that I began my normal week schedule.  Over my first two weeks I was doing a lot of various projects, just trying to learn the layout of the museum.  I had volunteered at the museum in the past, but many things had changed since then and so I had to learn what was new.  This was accomplished through a lot of small assignments.  From rearranging exhibit artifacts to pulling things from the archives, I spent these first two weeks learning the finer details of the museum.  I learned how to accession items and how to use the museum’s archival system, PastPerfect.  During these two weeks I also began to research Andrew Lewis Football history for an upcoming permanent exhibit.  It was a fast two weeks and they have caused me to be very excited for the remainder of the summer!