Internships Blog

Over the past two weeks finally got in contact with two more oral history candidates to interview and I had two very different interviews.

The first interview was with a man named Joe who never actually raced himself, but instead he was an avid spectator at one of the local racetracks. However, even though he had never raced Joe was incredibly passionate about racing. Joe had been going to races since he was very young and he had lots to say about the track and the drivers who raced there. In fact, Joe had so much to say that the interview ended up being nearly two hours long. I only needed to imply a question and Joe would talk for ten minutes about the subject, and within that ten minutes, he would answer questions that I hadn’t even asked yet. He was willing to open up and share personal stories about himself, other spectators, and the drivers. It was very easy to have a conversation with him, and that conversation turned into a great oral history with plenty of material that will be easy to place in the future exhibit.

The other interview I had did not go as well. This interview was with an older man named Stover, who raced bicycles when he was younger. Instead of the easy conversation found in my previous interview, asking Stover questions was a lot more like pulling teeth. I would ask him a question that got previous interviewees excited or talking a lot (like how did you get into racing? Or why does racing matter to you?), and he would answer in only a few words or sentences. While I was able to get material that will help with the exhibit, the interview itself was much shorter and it flowed less well.

I think part of the problem is that Stover went into the interview with a much different attitude than Joe. Whereas Joe was enthusiastic about sharing his experiences and memories with others, Stover was much more reticent and would stop himself from getting very personal. I also contributed to the problem because I came into Stover’s interview a little less prepared with background knowledge than with Joe. I had already done two other interviews about automobile racing by the time I interviewed Joe, but Stover was my first bicycle interview.

It’s been a very busy time the past few weeks here at the Salem Museum: we premiered a new exhibit, we held a camp for young historians, and I’ve also began and completed a couple of projects!

The premiere for the Grace Smyth exhibit was a great success.  We had a huge turnout and everyone enjoyed her art and what it meant to them.  Many of the people present personally knew Ms. Smyth and spent the night talking about the great times they had with her.  Apparently she was a great influence in the community by getting kids involved in the arts as well as using her travels, she enjoyed travelling the world, to educate people on other cultures.

After this we held a Young Historian’s camp for the week.  From Monday until Friday we taught twelve kids some of the basics of being a historian as well as other fun activities.  We were also lucky enough to have some Civil War reenactors come down and teach the kids about the life of a soldier.  The kids also learned skills that I didn’t even learn until college.  We taught them the difference between primary and secondary sources as well as how to write with a quill pen.  The kids even brought in some personal belongings in order to to create their own museum exhibit; unfortunately I forgot to snap a picture of it.  It was a great experience for the kids and the museum and hopefully the camp will continue next year.

Other than that I have been assisting with various things around the museum.  I have cataloged various newsletters that the museum has received, deconstructed and labelled old picture frames, and several other small tasks.  Overall I am extremely happy to be interning with the museum.

After about two months since beginning my major project at the O. Winston Link Museum, I’ve finally completed it. I’ve cataloged and conditioned over 2,400 original O. Winston Link negative photos on a digital database. I then prepared and packaged them in order to be placed into cold storage for longevity. I’ve seen thousands of pictures of trains and noticed patterns, successes, and his perceived failures (usually having to do with his attempts at perfecting lighting) among Link’s brilliant photography. The most challenging aspect of this project has been working with the various materials used for cold storage, and trying to find an efficient and effective way of packaging to maintain the correct humidity needed for the collection. I’ve certainly learned a lot of helpful measures for archival work though. The process of cataloging and conditioning a larger collection is daunting, but certainly satisfying. The seven boxes of negatives that are wrapped in their primary barrier film bag are pictured below.

 

My next minor task after I completed the negative collection was to find museums of a similar size and email their curators to inquire about how often they rotate exhibits. This provided a good outlet to get some experience researching other small museums and contacting curators for ideas and comparisons.

I also plan to assist in the archives further by helping organize some larger prints. The organization is needed to sort of free up some space in the archives since the museum has a lot of un-cataloged donations that pertain to Mr. Link. Below is an example of the prints that are currently in the archives.

 

Finally, I’m also planning on spending time over at the History Museum of Western Virginia across the tracks at Center in the Square to get some experience with the program, PastPerfect. This program is software intended for collection management so it’s extremely effective in organizing and maintaining archives, and it’s very helpful to have experience with the program if working in a historical archive. This museum also has some collections that are Link related, so I’m going to be working with those and hopefully getting valuable experience working with PastPerfect!

 

It may be hard to believe, but my time with SoFAB is more than halfway done. When I realized that last week, I freaked out. I thought of all the people I still needed to contact, the captions I needed to write, and the artifacts I had yet to collect. So, in a caffeine-induced panic, I sent out (what felt like) a million emails to museums, archives, restaurants, and historians.

However, after talking to my colleagues, we realized that we were all in the same boat. So, like all good interns do, we raided the fridge in the demonstration kitchen and took an extra-long lunch break. As we sat around munching on leftover tres leche cake and macaroons, we started to talk about current events.

We’d all heard about what happened to Alton Sterling two weeks ago, but the recent murder of three police officers in Baton Rouge added to our outrage. It hit me especially hard. I’ve always been proud of the fact that I’m from Baton Rouge; I take pride in football and Mardi Gras, jazz and gumbo. It was hard for all of us to believe that something so horribly violent, racist, and hate-induced could happen so close to home. But we talked about it. We discussed the importance of the Black Lives Matter Movement, criticized the violence within our communities, and brainstormed ways to improve public safety.

Some people may say that public historians shouldn’t discuss current issues—that we have no business talking about police brutality, systemic racism, and violence in our communities. However, I disagree. Public historians may love the past, but we certainly don’t live there. My job is to make history accessible, interesting, and relatable. And the only way we can do that is by discussing current problems, interacting with our communities, and being open to change. So, yes, captions and artifacts and emails are all really important, but so are Alton Sterling and those three police officers who were murdered while trying to serve their community.

So far the most difficult part of the oral history process is getting people to respond with a time that they would like to do the interview. Despite starting this internship at the beginning of June it was only the very last week of June when I finally got to record my first oral histories.

I interviewed Wally Stronski, a drag racer from the 50’s/60’s, and Larry Holbert, whose brother and father were sportscar racers. Overall, the interviews went pretty well and it was really interesting to hear their stories. Both of my interviewees also had several bits of racing memorabilia that would potentially be used for the exhibit.

While I am waiting for more people to respond to my email I have begun the next step of the oral history process—transcription. While transcription is not particularly difficult it requires a lot of concentration and it can get kind of tedious. However, as I was transcribing the recordings I was able to see where I could make improvements in my interview technique.

My goal for these interviews is to make them feel like more like conversations where the interviewee really opens up and talks about the given subject. One way to do this would be to work on my follow-up questions. While I did ask several follow-up questions, at times I jumped too quickly away from something that the interviewee probably would have talked more about.

I definitely want to order my questions a little better because it would be helpful to have a clearer direction instead of jumping around so much. For example, I noticed in one of my interviews that I brought up one specific subject early on in the interview and then came back to the subject with a similar question at the end. I had forgotten about the second question until the end of the interview and if they had been grouped together, it may have helped the interview to flow better.

 

I am happy to have gotten the first set of oral histories done and I hope that the next few go even smoother now that I have had time to analyze my methods.

In the past few weeks, I’ve continued my major project of cataloging and conditioning the collection of O. Winston Link negatives while still trying to nail down a more effective procedure for cold storage. I’ve got the process of cataloging and conditioning down to a routine that has become fairly easy, however the same problems that I mentioned in the last post concerning humidity are still present. We’re working with a few new ways of packaging the boxes of negatives, but the next step, if all else fails, would be to try a new bagging material that makes it harder for air pockets to formulate that allow humidity to increase. I haven’t yet explored those other options, but I’m anxious to make it work, since it can be rather frustrating!

Some things I’ve noticed from looking at over 1,700 of Link’s negatives now are patterns that he followed when taking photographs, as well as some preferred locations and angles in his work. Often times, Link would set up for a photo and then take several editions of the same subject spaced over very short periods of time. He was meticulous in his photography; there have been many negatives in the collection taken of him by his assistant that show his extensive amount of equipment and rigging used to take what appears to be a simple negative of a passing train. He also has a few favorite places that he would visit numerous times to take shots. These include Abingdon, VA, Rural Retreat, VA, and right here in Roanoke just to name a few.

Link was trained and educated as a civil engineer, and all of his photography talents were self-taught, as it became his main hobby and passion. Link’s analytical aptitude for thinking and problem-solving that came from his engineering education, and his extreme creativity and passion that developed out of his love for photography coalesced into the artistry that produced such popular work. This was the critical aspect of Link’s mind and career that set him apart from other photographers.

After quickly dabbling in all of the different departments of the Natural History Museum, I was faced with the one department I was actually dreading. Collections is adjacent to the lab but has a completely different vibe. Imagine a very serious librarian that is in charge of thousands of 4.5 million-year-old bones- yeah, it looked intense. Collections is in charge of the database, labeling all of the bones from the Gray Fossil Site, and labeling all of the bones from the Saltville Site (which I worked on a few weeks ago). The room is very white, quiet, and climate controlled. Needless to say, I was deeply intimidated. There are only two people that work in Collections, a graduate student studying ancient salamanders and the director, Brett. On Tuesday I walked in and immediately the graduate student taught me my job- to label the bones from the Saltville site. Many of the chunks are unidentifiable which is why they are being put into the archives. During my week in Collections, I learned a lot about how bones are labeled and that music is a very valuable resource.

  

The process of labeling the bones consists of five steps that are supposed to take a total of three days to finish.

1. Use a Q-tip to smear on a layer of glue (Butvar 78) on a flat area of the fossil.
2. Paint a small white square onto the glue
3. Paint over the small white square with more paint
4. Take a fine point collections pin and write the ETMNH # on the white square
5. Finally, take another bit of the Butvar to seal up the whole process

  

The process is time-consuming but the result is a label that will not be worn away by time or humidity. The attitude that everyone has towards the fossils is really inspiring to be around. I loved the passion that everyone had in each department that helped teach me a ton about paleontology. For a field that I had little to no interaction with beforehand, I have found a deeper appreciation for the work. Paleontology is hard work and really requires a variety of people working together to preserve natural history for later generations. While a week working in silence was difficult for a talker like me, I would not trade a moment of it.

Much has happened over the past few weeks at the museum.  Over the course of these two weeks I have helped set up a floors worth of exhibits, learned to catalog items, and assisted in various other tasks for the museum.

The exhibit I helped set up is that of Grace Smyth, a prominent artist born in Salem.  A majority of the works on display were given on loan from various citizens of the town.  We also had quite the break as Ms. Smyth’s niece and her husband drove down from Kentucky in order to drop off several pieces of work.  They brought in several paintings, ceramic sculptures, and even a replica Japanese house.  One of these ceramic sculptures was that of a teenage black girl.  While examining this piece we were able to find the identity of the girl.  While the person whose likeness was used has since passed on we were able to find her younger sister who came into the museum to view it (pictured below).  It was a moving experience to witness someone connect to her past such as this; she even stated that it looked exactly as her sister had.

I also learned how to access and enter information into the museum database.  I never realized how much information is required for even the smallest of objects.  I have also learned to appreciate the organization that the database provides when looking for materials; it beats aimlessly looking for something.

I have also completed other various tasks around the museum: I helped organize costumes for the kids that will be attending the camp that the museum is hosting, I learned how to do minor repairs to picture frames, and I also had the prestigious honor of labeling and filling the envelopes for our monthly newsletter.

Overall I am really enjoying my time at the Salem Museum.  It feels how a town museum should, friendly and warm.  The people who visit museum are also a great part of the experience as they are always friendly.  I am extremely pleased with learning the basics of public history while helping out this great museum.

 

In my first blog post, I outlined the basic timeline for my project at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum, name-dropped a few of my advisors, and briefly mentioned how researching Southern Jewish foodways made me feel more connected to my own heritage.

However, as time progressed and my project evolved, I started to realize how complicated public history can be. First of all, what story should I tell? Secondly, what objects represent that story? And most importantly, why aren’t people responding to my emails?

After completing my initial research, I started to contact different people, organizations, and restaurants that might be willing to donate items for the exhibit. Sending out emails to complete strangers is definitely nerve-racking; but, once you realize that these scholars, chefs, and business owners are just regular people who are also interested in Judaism and food, it gets a little easier.

Essentially, I’m trying to reach out to several people in each of the 15 Southern states and Washington, D.C. I’m looking for cookbooks, family recipes, vintage menus, old signs, and memorabilia—anything that can help me tell this story. While some of my emails seem to vanish in the large internet void, others garner immediate responses. And let me tell you, that feels amazing.

When someone emails me back saying that they want to participate in the project, I get so excited. I don’t really know how to describe it. I just feel very connected to these random people who are scattered across the country. We may be states apart, but we both care about Southern Jewish identity and foodways, and that’s pretty cool.

These past few weeks have definitely pushed me outside of my comfort zone. While I love having the freedom to pursue my project independently, it’s also sort of stressful. I’m used to having a lot more guidance. Even though it’s scary, I think I’m becoming more confident in my abilities as a public historian. I know I can research and write and communicate…and even send a professional email or two.

Last week, I got to discover the educational branch of the Natural History museum. The director of this section is actually a fellow History major and it was cool to see another non-paleontologist in the building. My duties were split between two branches within the educational department. During the summer, the museum always hosts elementary age Paleontology Camp where kids get to dig, plaster cast, and learn about the site. I’ve been looking forward to the camp because kids are right up my alley.

  

The group of 19 kids were really excited to learn and talk even when they weren’t supposed to. College is really the only time in life you can entirely escape children and jumping back into the rhythm of youth education was a little difficult but ultimately rewarding. I taught them a lot of little games to try and burn energy between activities (and I’m really proud that they enjoyed them so much)

  

The top group is playing war while the bottom two kids are playing ultimate Rock Paper Scissors. Seeing how the research that the lab and field are gathering can be applied and taught to children really shows the impact the museum is making. Now for the second half of the education wing, I helped with summer day camp groups that came to tour the site. The general set up for a group is to split the kids (generally a group of 70) into three groups. One group goes on a traditional tour, one group goes through the exhibit, and the final group gets to participate in a picking activity.

   

We had a group come through every day last week and I helped guide them through the activities depending on the group. Generally, the groups were well behaved and apt to learn but some groups were just wild. I really enjoyed participating in this part of the museum as well because the education department really seems to be the branch that makes the work going on in the museum accessible to the public, which I think is endlessly important.