Internships Blog

Week two: again this week I primarily been working on transcriptions of the Whitescarver documents which has been more than a little bit monotonous. However I must admit, this week I was rewarded for my efforts when the Whitescarver family came in to see the product of the transcriptions and I was able to relate with them about what I’d learned from the World War I correspondence that they have so generously donated to the museum.

Week three this week is been a lot more pleasant been able to get a break from doing the transcriptions for the Whitescarver family. What I have been doing as of this week has been not only working on research in order to for ride foundation for the World War I exhibit which Alex Burke putting together. I have to say that this was a job that was really pretty enjoyable because I got to research a lot of the units in the American expeditionary force that drew from this region of the country through volunteers and draftees.

Today was a fun day: so today Alex Burke and I went to go visit a gentleman who has been involved with the acquisition and collection of military artifacts and specifically in this instance a wide variety of artifacts from World War I. This was a great treat for me because I’ve always been a big fan of military history and I’m also a bit of a firearms enthusiast so it was really cool getting to work with his collection and inventory it for the museum in preparation for our World War I.

Week four: well I must admit that it has been a sort of bittersweet or and I climactic last week for my internship. I only say this because with the hours and hours of work that Alex and I have put in to this World War I exhibit of the last month is a little disappointing to know that I’m not can it actually get to see the exhibit and all of its glory we managed to start groundwork with putting the of the exhibits this week I did everything from stuffing some fake sandbags to intaking the serials that will be be on display, and even putting up posters around Salem help with the promotion side of things.

I have liked the initial training here at the museum, and it seems pretty straightforward; I only really think that the difficult part of the job will be cataloguing new materials and items that the museum is intaking at and then categorizing them within the museum’s archives. Over the course of this week the majority of what I have been working on have been the transcriptions of the Whitescarver’s family notes and correspondence from a soldier in World War I to and from his family and friends back here in the Salem area, while this has definatly tested my ability to read cursive and different people’s handwritings, I have found the work enjoyable although at some stages it has been a little bit monotonous.

Last week was the ‘final’ week as an intern at the memorial and it was more than I could ask for. I have given several field trips and tours at this time of the semester but Thursday was my absolute best day ever. We had Curtis Baptist Middle School from Augusta, Georgia come and take my tour. The kids were engaged, were intelligent, and went through what ended up being a two hour tour! I had such a fantastic time walking them through the tracks of history and allowing them to critically think about the content I was laying out. The parents were just as excited and intrigued. This trip was the first time many of them had been to the memorial and they were all so willing to learn and discuss World War II and D Day at large. At the end of the tour something very unexpected happened: they gave me a 100 dollar tip. Of course I did not accept the tip, but they were so ecstatic to have a college kid ‘paying it forward’ and ‘keeping the flame’. I never thought of my internship that way. Keeping the flame. I love it! Most of the tour guides there are rather old and they will not be around forever but very few tour guides around my age exist for the memorial other than the occasional intern. Etching in stone the history you want repeated does no good if there is no one to read it. Perhaps my purpose in life is to etch my own stone while reading those of the past. Is that not every historians job and purpose? I am so glad to have done this internship even if it wasn’t what I expected. I will be continuing my work at the memorial in the years to come and will hopefully inspire that next young kid to read my etched stone.

As my internship comes to a close, I think a lot about what I have learned as well as everything I want to continue learning. My last day is just like any other, except much quieter. I realize just how much I’ve grown through this internship, as I sit at the Youth Services desk and don’t have a knot in my stomach each time a patron approaches. I have spent much of today poking around on the SIRSI system trying to gain a better understanding of it. I intend to continue my work in the world of public libraries, so I want to make sure I can enter a library job knowing how to use the system. I have become used to knowing when to get up and clean the children’s area, and when to restock the displays. I think about all of the projects, big and small I wish I had completed while I was here including doing a true reorganizing and fixing of the easy juvenile section, all the way up to getting traction to begin a history and literature program for teens and young adults. Each moment here has been an experience, most of them overwhelmingly positive and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me in the public library sector.

 

For two weeks, I was farmed out to two different branches in order to learn how the experiences differ from that of the Main library. I spent a week at Melrose Library, and then the following week I was at Raleigh Court Library. The experiences were as different from each other as they are from the Main library. Melrose is in a rather poor part of the city, and the library reflects that with the resources they are able to provide. The staff was easy to work with, but the work itself was different from what I have been used to at Main. The children and youth section had their own half of the library yet the collection of books was smaller and there were far fewer available activities for kids to work with. Regardless, the patrons were very familiar with the staff and it was obvious how important the library is to the community.

Raleigh Court library is almost as large as Main with plenty of resources but not nearly as much staff. There were usually three people maximum working, so they were very grateful to have an intern to help with everything. I did a lot of shelving and cleaning up shelves just so the librarians could stay at the desk and check in all of the books and movies that come in. The circulation at Raleigh Court seems to be so much more than at Main, perhaps because it’s all done in one place as opposed to in several sections. However it was a fun and dynamic experience, one I would be happy to repeat if they ever need assistance.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.