Internships Blog

My internship at the Historical Society of Western Virginia/ O. Winston Link Museum has not been your average internship in the common sense. Early on in the semester I made the decision to move home because being alone on campus, in the world of COVID was just not the right fit for me. My mentor and curator at the museum, Ashley Webb, was very understanding of my decision and we both agreed that I could participate in a hybrid internship because I believed that a remote internship is not as rewarding as being there in person. I was willing to come to Roanoke practically every other weekend starting in October to fulfill my intern duties, but at home I still had internship work to do. Throughout the semester I have been researching the Saponi Indians, the group that resided here in the Roanoke Valley pre-contact with the European settlers. Through this research I have been redesigning the Native American exhibit within the museum to complete in person during my last long weekend at the museum.

I found that the redesigning process is much different than what I have been doing in this internship and even in my past internships. When redesigning the exhibit I had to come up with a concept that could easily be understood by the visitors and clearly be described through labels. I also wanted an interactive part of the exhibit because a lot of people will interact more with an exhibit if they can touch something pertaining to it. You also want to research objects so that you are providing visitors with accurate historical information and usage of the objects. To plan out the design- I had to draw it up using accurate measurements of the case and see where I would want to place things within the case to really see it visually altogether. I am very excited to see how the actual case turns out, but I am expecting to come across some challenges in the design and having to switch things around.

 

Below is a picture of my drawing of the exhibit case that I hope to bring to life in the museum with notes around that describe the objects- their catalog numbers and other ideas. (I drew it on my iPad using the Procreate App).

This past week I have spent considerable time working on accessioning a gift of World War One era items such as letters, photos, account books, along with many other types of items. I have continued to conduct research from home regarding interpretive labeling for potential future exhibits, a task I have had a lot of fun doing in fact.

I was given a spreadsheet list of rifles, all originating from around the general area, one of the rifles belongs to the collection of the Historical Society of Western Virginia in fact. I have been taking the time to provide aspects such as the name of the object, its year of origin, as well as the donor who provided the object as well. This has given me a unique opportunity to gain insight into objects pertaining to the local history of the Botetourt region.

In working with the Salem Museum this semester I have learned a lot about what goes into keeping a small local museum running. I have also sharped my skills in Exhibition Design, learning how to make a visual composition with text and image. There are so many drafts when it comes to making an exhibit its honestly mind boggling, but I have enjoyed every last minute of my experience. I hope that the skills that I have built with exhibition design and accessing objects will help me for future internships and even employment after graduation.  This internship has helped me discover what I enjoy about working at a museum, in order to better help me understand what I would like to do after Roanoke College.

I really enjoyed creating this exhibit for Grace Smyth, including the little QR code for a bit of digital interaction.

11/9

After putting all of the objects from the Gen. Guy Denit exhibit back into the archives. I started my work on object placement and adjusting the size for the signage. Nothing is set in stone yet but I am liking the current progress in these photos. I am looking into some digital interaction as well although on a very small scale. Not only am I working on this exhibit but I also made a video with Mr. Alex Burke for the Salem Museum’s White Glove Wednesday where I got to talk about Flapper Dresses in the 1920s and how they are a fashion choice based on new social and economic reforms for women. I was very nervous of the idea that my face would be on the museums Facebook page for all to see, but it helped me with communication and oral presentation, so there’s a silver lining to that.

11/11

The Grace Smyth Exhibit is almost complete, finishing up the signage and getting everything onto the wall properly is all that’s really left. I am pretty proud in how this turned out. Although I had two weeks to complete this one rather than nearly two months, I really wanted to show off everything Grace Smyth has done for Salem. I feel that she deserves it being an amazing natural artistic and educator for many years, more and more locals have come in telling me brief stories about how they were in her classes.

 

As I lay in bed on this Tuesday night, with my dog Apache at my feet, I reflect on my long weekend spent in Roanoke interning with the Historical Society of Western Virginia/ O. Winston Link Museum. I went this past weekend for my second to last long weekend at the museum, working full days on both Friday and Monday, and four hours on Saturday morning. Over the weekend I was tasked with accessioning a “founding collection” of letters from the 1820’s and 1830’s. These letters are considered a “founding collection” because there is not documented donor of them and are connected to the Watts Family who are one of the earliest settlers in the Roanoke Valley. These letters are of particular interest to the curator because they could be good/ interesting to use in the upcoming 250th Anniversary exhibit of Botetourt County. The letters I accessioned were hard to read or make out due to the cursive being an older style than what I was taught in the second grade, which made it difficult to fully understand the purpose or the message that was being conveyed in each letter. Although, most of the letters I came across were more so “I owe you $34” type of messages. This is because Edward Watts was one of the most well off people in the area so lots of people borrowed money from him or purchased things from him. So those were interesting to look at and go through, especially with letters that are a lot older than what I am used.

 

On Friday we took a short field trip over to the Taubman Museum to view all the exhibits they have on display. The Taubman had a wide array of exhibits including photography, contemporary art, folk art, and a jewels. My favorite exhibit was the Latinx exhibit. The art in the showroom covered various mediums, but they all had strong message behind them. Also in this exhibit all of the labels were in both English and Spanish, which has been more commonly used throughout the museum world. Taking the time to view what other museums are doing, whether it be their format, labeling, resources, or programs is critical to the role of museum professionals, especially curators. Museums are there for one to view and to learn from, in every aspect. Viewing other museums may spark an idea to incorporate a certain aspect in another. So, in a sense, museums inspire other museums and the cycle keeps repeating itself because our society is ever changing. I predict there will be more bilingual labels in museums in the future and more technological interactions because we are in a technical era. Overall, the museum was fantastic and I had a fun weekend at the Historical Society taking in a larger scope of material than what I normally would.

 

After finishing my small exhibit on Victorian mourning attire, Mr. Burke wanted me to gain more experience in exhibition design, since it seemed to interest me as a future career. I was told that I could really chose any topic I wanted, and after volunteering for the annual Ghost Tour, I decided to present my topic on Grace Smyth. Grace Smyth was a local artist, naturalist and education who taught children from her own home as one of Salem’s first museums. I felt that she was someone who deserved more recognition for her talents and kind deeds for the city of Salem. Her art mainly focuses around nature in the form of paintings, sketches and sculptures.

As a student who is interested in Art History and Public History, I found that it was a great way to practice some of my skills in sort of both ways. I also know that her home being Salem’s first museum is also as important to Salem’s History, although not too much is known about her outside of her art and education backgrounds, the more I learn the more of a interesting women she seemed to be. I wish that I had the chance to meet such a person, sadly I was nowhere to being born in 1994.

 

I have been hard at work for the past few weeks conducting researching from home information related to the French & Indian War and how it impacted Botetourt County and the surrounding local area.

During the days I have been able to attend the internship in person, I have mostly been continuing accessioning items as well as helping Ashley move items to and from the museum’s storage unit. A highlight of the past few weeks was being able to oversee on altering an existing exhibit and making my own changes to it which was very nice. I learned today how to assign object numbers to tailored objects through sewing as well which was enjoyable.

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Long weekends come and go, but the experiences you gain from an internship stay with you forever. One thing about internship experiences, is that your experience is unique to you and you only. This past weekend I traveled to Roanoke to do the in-person part of my internship, interning all day Friday and Monday, and half a day on Saturday. This past weekend was a little different compared to other times interning. I was tasked to add to the accession records donations from 2011 that had been put away to be dealt with at a later date after the Museum moved from Center in the Square. While tasked with this job, I found it difficult to really decide on which items should stay or go- because it either fit within the museum’s scope or it did not, or it was a question if the specific item would add to any narrative that the museum may present. For the two boxes I went through of donations from 2011, almost everything was kept and added into the accession register, although some items were missing as it was expected since it is nine years after the fact.

My other tasks this weekend was going through and cataloging letters between a mother and daughter, for whom the mother resided in Roanoke, between 1929-1932 and photographing a large donation of China from the Lewis-Gale family. The letters between the mother and daughter pair are interesting in that they offer insight on what life was like in Roanoke back in the girth of the Great Depression and the most pressing problems and worries families faced during that time. Some commonalities of the letters included family updates and recollections of life back home, who was sick, who was have the most difficulties, weddings, babies, etc. Earlier this month, the Lewis-Gale family had donated a plethora of China that was owned by the family throughout the years, with the oldest pieces being dated back to the late 1800’s/early 1900’s. The china was in superb shape and you can see how the different styles of china and the designs/colors used on the porcelain changed with the trends of the 20th century. Although I am not at my internship weekly, I am very thankful with the flexibility and willingness of my mentor, Ashley Webb, during this time. I am truly enjoying the different things I am tasked to do and the variety of objects I get to handle.

 

In working with the Salem Museum I have come to appreciate everything I have been working on both big and small. After completing my exhibit, Mr. Burke is allowing me to put in some recently donated objects into the Past Perfect database for listing accession numbers, writing descriptions and other necessary information into the software and sorting things in the archives. Luckily of me my first group of items were art related. The donor gave us some artwork by Grace Smyth, a local Salem artist. We were given a few paintings and small animal sculptures, my personal favorite being the larger frog sculpture.  It just amazes me how someone can transform clay into something so lifelike. I hope to learn more about her as the semester progresses and to maybe do some personal research around her art.  I have a very love-hate relationship with Past Perfect as the software is defiantly useful but also very slow, becoming more and more slow as new artifacts are add to the database. I wish that were able to add more photographs but to my understanding that would make the software run even less efficiently. Some people might not be as fond of this process as I am but I find it fairly enjoyable.

 

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.