Internships Blog

Blog Post #5

Back to Field Trips!

These past few weeks we have started back up the field trips to the Virginia Transportation Museum.  Every Kindergarten class in Roanoke City is coming for their field trips.  Much like the 4^th grade field trips, the students rotate through five stations learning about transportation in Virginia.  However, the activities are very different in each rotation.  For example, instead of comparing car tires to years, the kindergartners are learning what a car and tire are by using rhyming words.  Recently, I was assigned the rotation “Past and Perfect.” This activity ties into their SOL of learning to differentiate objects from the past and present.  While the concept might be easy, teaching squirmy and giggly five years old is no easy task! Items for comparison include VHS, DVD, wheel, wagon wheel, milk jug, and glass milk bottles.  I have enjoyed seeing how different age groups interact with history at museums.  Moreover, I have written the instructions for the “Past Perfect” activity.  Many of the rotations/ activities done at the museum have written directions. Yet, many of the Kindergarten activities do not have written instructions.  I really had fun showing of my ability to write instructions on an activity that I teach so that other volunteers can do the same. As I begin to wrap up my time at the museum, I have nothing but respect for museum volunteers and staff!

Also, here a picture of my favorite item from the museum! It is the Jupiter Rocket sent into space in 1959 with two primates called Able and Baker.  It proved that living humans could return to Earth safely!

These past couple weeks I have been jumping around from helping at collections over at the Center in the Square location to helping with exhibits over at Link. While being at collections I’ve been accessioning items that have been donated and I’ve been able to see a few gems. For example, there where a bottle of whiskey donated that super fascinating because of the back story. On the very top of the bottle it has written on it, “made spring 1912, bottled spring 1918” In the donor’s letter they said that the man who bought this whiskey bought it the night before the Prohibition law was in place and he never opened the bottle.

Another day while accessioning in collections I found a donation that had “postcards” in it, but Ashley decided that these were not postcards, but they are instead just hand tinted pictures. The one I found is a picture of the incline that used to be at Mill Mountain. My mom told me when I was younger that there used to be an incline machine that would take you all the way to the top of the mountain, I used to think it was the coolest thing ever but could never picture what it would have looked like.

While working at Link one morning, I was told to inventory the items that were in exhibits, so I had to look for accession numbers on every little thing. In the one exhibit that is suppose to be about areas around Roanoke from 1840 to 1858. I came across a letter that was from a man named E.L. Stuart dated January 2^nd, 1854. In the letter Staurt talks about how he is willing to sell this man his slaves for $150 because another man had not responded back about the offer he gave him.

I’m excited to see what else I can find in the museum!

So far, I have been able to catalog 4,346 photographs of houses in the Roanoke Valley. It is really cool being able to see this project start out at only 100 or so done and seeing it at over four thousand cataloged at this point. This project is very unique to the local area and will be utilized by many in the future. The Virginia Room boasts many displays and artifacts that are important to the local history and the people that have lived here throughout the past few hundred years. My favorite display is the one pictured below titled “Obsolete Technology.” It has several pieces of older equipment for entertainment purposes and explains how each one was used and when. Unfortunately, these pieces of history have become simple trinkets over the years due to the advent of the technological age and more ‘modern’ products.

The camera on the top-left shelf is something I remember my grandfather having when I was a child, which was only about 15 years ago. However, over that somewhat short period of time a camera has evolved into something that can fit into the palm of your hand. While the older camera in the display probably works and is usable, it is still considered obsolete because there is no longer a demand for it. The technology market has somehow been able to create demand for new products while simultaneously replacing other items altogether. Thank goodness for places such as the Virginia Room, because otherwise we wouldn’t have these ‘obsolete’ things that marked major milestones in American technological history.

I also included a picture of an archived street sign. It is a really interesting piece of local history that the Virginia Room keeps on regular display.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our work with the service station in Bassett is coming to a close. We are hard at work applying mud to the outside of the building, creating an even surface on which we may apply stucco. The “mud” that we are smoothing onto the walls is a mixture of mortar, sand and water. I was surprised that it was not more complicated than that, which lead to an interesting conversation on the history of masonry with James, our lead brick mason. These building techniques have changed little since they were first developed in ancient Rome based on Greek, Egyptian and north African Phoenician building techniques. It is very satisfying for myself that I can work in a trade that has such a vast history and heritage. It really feels like I am taking part in an eons-old trade.
As we are finishing up the roughing-in of the finished masonry, we just have to finish the stucco well enough for the painters to be able to get to work. The finished building is going to be finished white with green trim and a green roof, according to the last conversation the client had with my boss. This is the first in a long list of potential sites in Bassett that can be worked on. The grant money that is coming in from the state applies to the entire main street, which includes at least another dozen buildings including an old train station. One local was especially enthusiastic about the renovations coming to the downtown area. An older gentleman and presumably his grandson, pulled up to our job site the other day in a red pick up. I talked with him for a while about what we were doing, and he told me about the memories that he had of the service shop going back to his childhood sixty years earlier. He expressed his excitement for the restoration that we were doing, especially because we are restoring it to the original appearance that the station had in its height, some sixty years earlier.
A few lessons that I have learned working with Southwest Restoration beyond how to lay mortar or tap masonry nails or set up scaffolding have been helpful and in retrospect, common sense. First, anticipate, anticipate, anticipate. If there is a guy fifteen feet above you that is laying mortar on brick as fast as possible, stand by with towels, more mortar and a bucket of water. If those things are needed, they are needed right then. If you are walking around with scaffolding bucks and braces, watch where you are going and carry it from place to place in order. There is nothing more aggravating than having the wrong pieces of scaffolding in odd places around the job site. The second lesson is, if you work slower, you go faster. This seems counter-intuitive but when it came to spreading mortar on the inside of a garage door fifteen feet above the ground on a ladder, this was unbearably true. You will spend more time fixing mistakes you make from rushing than you will ever save by working quickly. If its done right the first time, you can get done before 3:30 and maybe leave early. Lastly, clean up as you go. There is nothing worse than having piles of refuse and construction scraps laying around the job site at the end of the day when you may have a cut on your thumb, a pulled back muscle and maybe a little sore from hauling mortar. These lessons were integral to making peace with the more difficult aspects of my internship, and fortunately they were fairly easy and straight-forward lessons to grasp.

Blog Post #4

The past couple of weeks have been amazing! At the museum we wrapped up field trips, for now, and started working on Kindergarten activities for their field trips.  We started preparing the coal buckets and the past v. present activities.  Moreover, in the afternoons I worked in collections recording new information and donations.  I learned how to use Past Perfect and actually like the process.  Much like my job at admissions, there is a process that is followed for different types of scenarios.  For example, when books arrive, we catalog and look to see if they have been received previously and enter their accession number, ISBN, etc.  Overall, I have enjoyed work in the collections, but will be excited for the next round of field trips starting at the end of March.

Recently, I had a wonderful opportunity to work at an evening event.  The Virginia Association of Museums was hosted in the Roanoke Valley for the first time in many years.  I was asked to be the hostess and greet guests and the toured museums in downtown Roanoke.  Upon arrival, I helped with set up and flower placements.  We had many activities planned such as train rides, a ballet dance, and tours.  The place was full of guests in the range of 120-200 people.  I was introduced to many Virginia museum workers and directors.  The experience was amazing and very busy.  It is events like this, that show me another side to museum work and my internship.  I was so lucky to have this opportunity and cannot wait to assist at the next evening event.

Blog Post #3

Welcome to the Museum Life!

So far, I still love this internship.  I work with students, staff, and volunteers every day! Last week we worked on taking down an exhibit. I had no idea how hard it was to take down an exhibit.  Moreover, last week was our last school groups for a while so now my job will be changing a little bit.  I will be working the archives collection room organizing artifacts and information.  I should be starting this within the next couple of weeks!  In the meantime, I have been working on creating a new packet for teachers and sharpening a lot of pencils.  Usually schools forget to send students with pencils so normally we provide them with pencils or pens.  Thus, the intern of course gets to re-sharpen all of them after they leave around 12:15pm.  Recently I had the opportunity to walk around the museum and learn a little more about the items and exhibits in the museum.  Therefore, I have found out a lot more about Roanoke’s transportation history! I had no idea that the founder of the Tuskegee Airmen was from Roanoke.  Nor, did I know that Roanoke College used to have a flight school back in the 1920s!

Next, I have also been taking new pictures of updated exhibits for the website and teaching documents to hand out to schools as a type of advertising.  This job has shown me that museums are constantly changing to keep up with new technology and information.  For example, several years ago the Aviation gallery only had one plane and hang glider.  Now, we have a piece of a Jet, planes, and an exhibit about Roanoke aviation history.  Moreover, we now have computers where visitors can explore through interactive videos and images.   In the coming weeks, I look forward to working in collections! Below are several pictures I have taken around the museum!

Blog Post #2

Hello!

Recently at the Virginia Museum of Transportation I have been very busy with field trips.  Since my last blog post, I have begun to take on more responsibilities while students are here at the museum.  I can now instruct at three of the four exhibit activities.  These include the Auto Gallery “Travel through Time,” “Railways and Regions of Virginia,” “Model Trains and More.”  My favorite exhibit to teach in is the Auto Gallery.  First, we look at four pictures from the same angle and location in Dumfries Virginia.  Each picture sports a car from a different decade showing the transformation of roads, cars, and tires.  Then, as a class we explore the gallery and look at the all the cars while trying to match the pictured tires to the tires in the museum.  I specifically enjoy this teaching opportunity because the students have the opportunity to explore and ask questions during a kinesthetic activity.

Next, I volunteered at “Train Lovers Day” last Saturday.  I created a lesson plan and activity for children to use throughout the day.  I made 10 large pink hearts and scattered them across the museum at different exhibits or artifacts.  Next, I made a scavenger hunt worksheet to go with the hearts around the museum.  The children had a wonderful time doing the scavenger hunt and seemed to learn some fun facts.  Throughout “Train Lovers Day” I also worked with children in the exploration room while they played with toy trains and read books.    I loved volunteering for the special event and cannot wait to help with the next.  In the coming weeks, groups will slowly stop coming to the museum until the Kindergarteners come in late March.

*Below are pictures from “Train Lovers Day” and a picture of the hearts I made for the scavenger hunt!

 

This past week at the museum I have continued to accesion new items into the archives. The collection that I have been processing was from a famous Artist/Naturalist from Salem named Grace Smyth. Within this collection there is a plethora of different pieces such as artwork, but also a large amount of rocks and other pieces of nature. However because this collection is so big, the museum is considering the possibility of sending some items to the Museum of Natural History in Roanoke. This collection is important to Salem largely because she would coordinate school programs to come to her house in order to see the rare rocks and other pieces of nature that otherwise most students would never see as there wasn’t a museum that had this in the area as the head director of the museum, Fran has told me.

Another piece that I found quite interesting that has come into the museum, is a set of maps that a map maker from Salem gifted to the Museum. These maps were originally surveyed in 1892 however reprinted in the 1920s, one of the coolest things I found is that you can put them side by side and it will eventually show all of Virginia as a whole and the height and topography of the land. These maps will go into the libraries’s archives but I hope we may work with the older maps once again. As for skills that I have learned this past week I believe it isn’t exactly new to me but more or less a refresher as I haven’t read a map since in high school.

 

 

 

Since I’m local to Roanoke, I decided that over spring break I would continue to work at the museum. One day I came in and Ashley told me that I would be continuing on inputting objects from the inventory excel sheet into Past Perfect. I don’t mind doing this task at all and my view is not that bad either. Even though looking at the computer screen for 3 hours was not that fun, I keep reminding myself that this skill is something that I could put onto a resume.

 

As I have been inputting inventory records into Past Perfect for a couple weeks now, we realized that the majority of the objects had no pictures, this is important for the Past Perfect page. So Ashley decided that it would be a good idea for me to get my hands on learning how to take these clothes from collections and dress them on mannequins. This was quite the task because I was constantly afraid I was going to tear some since the clothes I was working with that day were uniforms from World War 1. So that day consisted of dressing a small girl mannequin in male uniforms then taking pictures of every detail about the items. One box that I pulled off the shelf was a doughboy uniform that had the medals received in an envelope. I got to take a couple pictures of some of these with my phone, I found them to be so fascinating.

 

Another day I got to look at photographs and search for them on Past Perfect to find out where they are supposed to be filed. I got to see so many incredible photos, some were of the old Lakeside amusement park that used to be near Salem. There were tons of Hotel Roanoke from all kinds of years, one of the oldest ones I can remember were from the fire in July of 1898. I was able to take a picture of the photograph that was from the fire. In the photograph you see everyone I assume who had to escape from the fire out in the lawn and then some bystanders underneath a roof pretty far from the hotel. I just thought this photograph was something special simply because of the huge fire. I am not sure what Ashley has planned for me this week but I am excited to find out.

My internship really took off over spring break. I was able to spend a lot more hours delving into the construction and restoration side of the internship with Southwest Restoration. Our project has been to restore an old car service station down in Bassett, VA. Bassett is an old railroad town about an hour and a half south of Salem that is known for its furniture factories. The town itself is rather small, and it is apparent that it has seen better days. This particular service station was built in the 1940’s and is an excellent example of what the main street of Bassett could have looked like in its height.
The old service station has been repurposed into a white water rafting and river tubing business for the Smith River. My main project was to assist our carpenter with window repair around the building. This involved cutting aluminum sheet metal to size, applying it to the sides of the cinder block walls with a gun powder nail gun, and sealing the area with caulking. Afterwards, every metal surface needed to be thoroughly scuffed to ensure that the stucco would adhere to the wall. This metal repair was essential to waterproofing the structure.
In addition, I assisted our stone mason and the rest of the crew with raising a 400 pound steel beam infused concrete beam twelve feet in the air with a forklift. After it was in place, new cinder blocks had to the mortared into the gap above the beam. I spent several hours running up and down a ladder applying mortar to the gaps in the blocks and scraping away the excess.
Our carpenter is working on repairing the roof above the parking lot that once housed the fuel pumps. Once those boards have been replaced and the stucco applied to the walls, the painters can begin work on making it look like new.
It is a very rewarding experience to see the results of my labor right in front of me. It has been great working with our work crew so far and I really look forward to finishing up this project and moving onto the next one.