psmartin

These last few weeks of the internship have been pretty awesome thanks to the fact that I have been able to work on creating and designing a little exhibit of my own. It is about the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918-1919 and some of its worldwide as well as local impacts. The whole process has been a new and informative as well as a fun and engaging experience, from coming up with initial ideas for how to use the space, to writing out the signs and physically arranging all of the objects. It felt really good to finish it up today.

I’m kinda sad that my internship is now over  since it was an experience full of learning, enjoyment, and engagement. I knew next to nothing about museum work or anything that goes into it before I started. Thanks to all of the hands on work I have done at the museum, I have a much better understanding of this kind of work and the museum world in general. This has been my first internship and it has been one of the best educational experiences of my college career. I hope future interns get to find out just how awesome the Salem Museum is. 

 

Something really exciting that I got to do last week at the museum was put up and design part of one of the exhibit cases in the lobby of the museum. This was a really fun and important activity for me as actual exhibit design is one of the most appealing aspects of museum work. Another incredibly interesting thing that has been going on at the museum recently has been the implementation of a new VR or virtual reality program downstairs. I have been lucky enough to test it out and get this new experience. The program puts individuals in a virtual tunnel from WW1 in a town that no longer exists thanks to the war. They are able to experience this space and also listen to narration and see pictures related to the town and its experience in the First World War. Working with VR is an extremely cool thing and I am very grateful to have this opportunity. It has also made me contemplate this technologies possible applications to museums and the field of public history. 

In the last couple of weeks I have continued helping out and learning new things at the museum. I have gotten the chance to do some research and even accession and archive a few things. The biggest and most consuming thing, however, that has been going on recently has been the museum’s annual Ghost Walk. Every year a number of volunteer actors dress up as historical “ghosts” from various points in Salem’s past and people are able to experience these “ghosts” through tours that take place in the museum and mostly in East Hill Cemetery. I didn’t just get to help set up for the Ghost Walk this year, I actually dressed up with some friends to become a “ghost” myself. My friends and I were three World War One soldiers from Salem dressed up in appropriate costumes. I was lucky enough to get to have an actual helmet from the war as well. This was a really awesome opportunity for me as I had never really been involved in reenactments or things of that kind and so this was a new and interesting experience.

 

So far at the Salem Museum I have been introduced to many different and cool things. I have learned about exhibit design and some of the crucial techniques that go into it. I have learned how to catalog and accession items online as well as how to find existing items in the archive room. I have managed to help out in a number of ways. These include cataloging new items and taking inventory of unknown boxes. They also include simply moving tables to another floor and  replacing the filters on air vents.

This may seem like a wide menagerie of things, but it has allowed me to understand various different aspects of museum work. Plus, I get to take some work of off Alex and Fran’s shoulders to make their lives a little easier. Since it has only been a couple of weeks, I know that there are still many new things in store for me as I continue my internship. I am excited to keep gaining this valuable experience.

Today marks the one week anniversary of my time interning at he Salem Museum and Historical Society. Even  though I have spent so little time there so far, I am already extremely excited about spending the rest of the fall semester at this internship. I have always been interested in history museums and all of the different things that go into creating and maintaining them. This is an amazing opportunity to finally learn about and gain a deeper understanding of this topic.

Last week was mostly focused on introducing me to the various exhibits and rooms of the museum while reflecting on how the space has been utilized. Today, however, I finally got to do something more hands on. I got to help take down and put away objects from an exhibit case and replace them with different artifacts centered around a new theme. I was able to search though the archives using a computer program and then physically find the items that looked like they would fit in this exhibit with the new theme. Although the archives seemed very big and daunting at first, I quickly started to get the hang of things and understand the placement and arrangement of artifacts in it. I honestly got pretty enthralled in this little project so much so that I was kind of disappointed to have to return to campus to get lunch and deal with my other classes and responsibilities that lie outside of this fantastic internship.