Internships Blog

This week, while I was waiting to hear back from oral history candidates, I helped take down part of the temporary exhibit and begin the process of putting up a new exhibit. It was interesting to see what really goes on in the creation of exhibits.

 

Putting back all of the different artifacts took the most time. The artifacts had to be replaced either to either the permanent exhibit or one of the storage facilities. With the artifacts from the permanent exhibit, I got the chance to learn more about organizing and placing artifacts in exhibits.

I was also able to go into Mercer Museum’s storage facilities. The Museum has two different off-site storage buildings. It was amazing to see the many different artifacts that are not normally on display. Many of the artifacts were simply repeats of things displayed in the permanent exhibit, others (such as the fire truck) were from prior temporary exhibits. While I was not able to take pictures, it was still really interesting to see how many just how many artifacts the museum owns.

 

The biggest storage facility is climate controlled and it is home to the larger artifacts (including a fire truck from the 1800’s), the textile and portrait collections, as well as other sensitive objects. It is also where much of the work for exhibits is done, and it is where I helped prepare for the upcoming American flag temporary exhibit.

My main job in the preparation process was making the labels for the new exhibit. Labels are not something you ever really think about when you walk through a museum, and yet they are essential in helping people understand what is going on in the exhibit.

I’m proud of the work that I put into this exhibit and I am excited to see how the final product comes together.

The Natural History Museum at the Gray Fossil Site realistically has four section that all work together to fuel a cohesive unit. The first is operations (which I did my first week with the museum), the second is lab and field work which really fuels the whole operation because without fossils the site would not exist, the third is the education section that really helps connect with the community, and the third is collections which are where the bones are stored for future research. This past week I really dug into the meat of the museum. Shawn Haugrud manages both the field and lab sections of the museum. He is extremely passionate about his work and really took the time to teach me more about the exciting things happening out in the field. Being a history and literature person, I don’t have an extensive knowledge of paleontology but I learned more than I could have imagined this week. The first half of the week was out in the field digging and water screening. Water screening is an extensive process that the grad students (whom I shadowed) take part in every day from 9-12.

While in the field in the black sediment, the paleontologists in training put every spec of dirt they chip away into yellow bags to eventually water screen for micro-fossils. This process is long and an extremely intense arm workout but leads to many new species being discovered in the lab. Let me just tell you, my arms were worn out after this experience a few days in a row. After a lunch break the team then heads out to the pit to start the search for fossils.

 

Luckily the museum supplied tents which keep the summer heat extremely manageable or I would have melted in the sun. From 12:30-5 (with a short popsicle break around 3) the group dug carefully for fossils. I found a few unrecognizable pieces but the coolest find was an arm bone from a tapir. I realized that I don’t exactly have the patience for this kind of work but I really have a deep respect for those who are passionate about it. On a side note, if you are looking for D&D Masters, look no farther than paleontologists because over half of this group was certified. After being outside in the sweltering heat, Shawn let me go into the lab to see what the preservation and microfossil picking was all about.

The picture on the left is one of the volunteers picking/identifying bone fragments while the picture above on the right is a progress picture of my baby that I worked on for my whole time in the lab. I cleaned a huge chunk of mastodon tusk in preparation to seal and preserve it. In the lab, I also learned how to make the special glue that they use to both bond fossils and seal them. While the field part was very fast paced, I really enjoyed the lab because of all the specific skills that I acquired. Without these two functions of the museum, there would be no need for the rest of the building or employees. Every single day the grad students are finding major pieces of bones that will be studied for years and years. It was very satisfying to be part of this section for the week and I have a newfound respect for paleontologists and museum volunteers alike.

I just completed my first two weeks at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum; it’s an entire museum dedicated to my favorite things in my absolute favorite place in the world: New Orleans. On my first day, I realized I had gotten myself involved in something really special. My coworkers are bubbling over with warmth, enthusiasm, and passion. They want to talk to you about 19^th century privies, brothels, and the origins of whiskey. They can’t wait to tell you where to get the best po-boy, snowball, and chargrilled oysters. And, they’re eager to help you with your research.

So, where do I fit in? I’m one of five curatorial interns. My task is to research Southern Jewish foodways and create an exhibit by the end of the summer. Not only am I digging around databases compiling my own research, but I’m also gathering up artifacts, talking to local scholars, and curating my own space.

In the short time that I’ve been with the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, I’ve met with the President of the museum, Elizabeth Williams, schmoozed with Jordan Katz, an expert on Jewish history and PhD candidate at Columbia University in New York, and started to uncover the rich history surrounding southern food and Jewish culinary traditions.

This internship isn’t just some placeholder on my resume. These topics—Jewish history, women’s history, southern history, and food traditions—really resonate with me. While I may be uncovering fun facts for a museum exhibit, I’m also gaining a better understanding of my heritage and my place in this world. It’s absolutely fascinating to read about how Jewish immigrants adapted to their new Southern homes, and it’s even more amazing when you realize that these people are your ancestors. Trust me, history is very much alive.

Since my last post, I’ve been primarily working with the same major project as I mentioned before among other smaller things.The cataloging, conditioning, and process of moving the collection of O. Winston Link negatives into cold storage  has progressed smoothly for the most part, with minor hiccups so far. In order to properly package and store the boxes of negatives into cold storage, it requires careful packing and materials specific to archival work.

The first step is packing the box completely with Ethafoam, so that no air can escape. Then, the box must be very tightly wrapped in a barrier film bag, followed by a static shielding bag. This ensures that moisture doesn’t enter the package, causing issues with the humidity level.

 

Above is an example of a completed box ready to enter cold storage. However, there was a problem that arose with this process. After being stored for longer than 24 hours, the humidity identifier card on the bottom right rose to an improper humidity. So, and it’s fairly evident just from the picture, the package was not packed tightly enough. The next step will be to un-wrap the boxes and work with new ways to wrap it so that the humidity remains at an acceptable level.

Other than the main cold storage project, I’ve also continued cataloging and conditioning the collection of O. Winston Link negatives, and am now over half way through about 2,300 individual photos. The most common problem, if any, on any given negative is discoloration. This manifests usually as fading around the edges in minor cases, to a completely faded and un-distinguishable picture in more serious cases. Below is a picture of my favorite tool used to assess the condition of negatives, the light box. It creates much better visibility to examine negatives.

 

 

Also, my museum work so far hasn’t been limited to archival related activities! The gift shop within the museum recently got a face-lift and rearranging in which I helped assemble and place some new furniture and items. This is just another task that pertains to museum work, as there’s a lot of minor tasks that go into making sure the museum experience is satisfying for every visitor. The shelving unit below is an example of one of the new pieces going into the gift shop that was (painstakingly) assembled by staff, volunteers, and myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I began my time at the Salem Museum on the 1st and I have been enjoying every moment.  Since I’ve began I have not really started any major projects although I have begun minor ones.  I have been working on creating spreadsheets for a collection of papers of former Virginia Speaker of the House J. Sinclair Brown as well as beginning to transcribe an old civil war diary.  Other than that I generally help with setting up the displays.

I really enjoying working here as it is my first experience in public history.  While I have always had an interest in museums my course load has made it difficult for me to explore these interests the previous three years; this serves as an excellent opportunity.  While I am currently working on the projects I’ve described above i also have a few more potential projects to work on; as well as a summer camp to aid the museum with.  I look forward to what the future holds.

Week two at the Natural History Museum marks the beginning of field work. This week I will be outside digging for bones (and other fossils) in the heat. To begin the week of sweat and slow work, I signed up to be part of the dig in Saltville, VA.

This particular site is an Ice Age site, full of fun creatures from mastodons to mammoths with a particular emphasis this summer on bear teeth. The Saltville site is situated off of a walking path in the middle of the small town.

The site is one of the oldest in America and even Thomas Jefferson had ties to the Saltville site. For approximately three weeks every summer the Gray Fossil Site team (made up mostly of graduate students) treks the hour and a half to dig in the mud. It is a mud pit that has to be drained out every morning before the digging can begin.

I arrived around 8:00 am to the site and the pump was already hard at work. The four other people on the dig were two graduate students, one recently named “official” paleontologist, and a software engineer that has a knack for digs. I was the only one with zero experience so they gave me a crash course in how to effectively dig for hours. Which is what we proceeded to do for the rest of the day, five people working in a mud pit slowly chipping away at the site. After three and a half hours of work one of the graduate students found the first and only find of the day- a tooth. The lead paleontologist, who was not there today, is the one who received funding for the project and has decided that our focus is bear teeth so that he can being to experiment with DNA testing. The work was slow and very detail oriented and I do not see this for the rest of my future but I am excited to see if there is more to be found at the Gray Fossil Site.

The Mercer Museum was originally founded by Henry Mercer in 1904. Mercer was an anthropologist who was interested in preserving the history and art of American tools and crafts prior to the Industrial Revolution. Many of the artifacts in the museum focus on what everyday life was like for Americans working and living in the 18th and 19th centuries. Mercer himself organized the permanent exhibit, and the unique layout has remained relatively untouched since Mercer’s death.

The Museum also has its own research library, which is where I will be spending most of my time this summer. I will be researching an exhibit for the Museum’s temporary exhibit space. The exhibit is scheduled to premiere in the summer of 2018 and it is about racing. Specifically, it will look at the history of foot, bike, auto, and horse racing. It will look at the different ways people race and the different reasons why people are inspired to race.  The Museum is also very focused on local history, so this new exhibit will be sure to highlight racing in Bucks County.

Basic research had already been done on the subjects of bike racing and auto racing, so in my first few days at the museum I was responsible for getting caught up on the pre-existing information. The pre-existing information was pretty broad and not very specific.The oral histories that I collect will be used to gather further information and they will possibly be used as multimedia elements in the future exhibit.

A key part of the exhibit is also focused on local history and how racing has been a part of the Bucks County community, so all of my oral history interviews will be centered around people who are a part of the local community. We are looking to interview people from the community who either raced in the past, or who had connections to someone who raced. By interviewing local people we will be able to get information that is much more specific and personal.

Welcome to the Miocene, a time when East Tennessee was full of alligators, red pandas, and elephants. The Miocene dates back to 4.5 million years ago and the landscape would have been unrecognizable to the current inhabitants. Back in 2000, road construction began in the space right next to Daniel Boone High School to try and stop some of the accidents that were occurring regularly. Soon into the new road project, TDOT workers found the jawbone of what was thought to be part of a mammoth. Since the mammoth is Ice Age era, the state of Tennessee was going to continue with construction because of the plethora of Ice Age information paleontologists already have. Luckily, they did decide to dig for a few more days until the skull of an alligator was found. This was huge news for the site because the alligator obviously did not come from the Ice Age, but actually predated the era. Through relative dating, paleontologists (led by my now boss- Dr. Stephen Wallace) determined the site to be a part of the Miocene. Evidence has also shown the team and volunteers that behind the museum use to be a huge watering hole that drew all sorts of animals. The site is so abundant that every single day there are new fossils uncovered. Seven years after the initial discovery the Natural History Museum at the Gray Fossil Site was founded as a branch of the ETSU newly founded Paleontology Department.

For the month of June, I will be taking part of all different elements of the museum. Since the museum is ultimately half an active dig site and half a traditional museum, I believe this will be an interesting immersion into the world of paleontology. The first three days of my internship were labeled by my boss as “Operations” but I have ultimately been sitting at the front desk reading about the history of the museum. Since the museum also likes to give a tour every hour on the hour, but only have one employee that has the time and experience to do them, I am also being trained to be a tour guide. Every day so far we have had summer camp groups come through to see the site.

The kids have been excited about learning and ask a lot of questions about why there are no dinosaurs on our site. Ultimately, the tour route is interesting and I am excited to be set on my own to lead a tour group next week! This first week of work has been challenging but extremely informative. The employees are open to teach me about the museum and I can not wait to see where this experience will take me.

The O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke, Virginia exhibits work from its namesake, O. Winston Link. Link was an American commercial photographer most well known for his extensive work shooting steam locomotives in the late 1950’s. He also pioneered night photography, as he was constantly finding new ways to utilize flash photography.

Link’s primary photography project was working along the Norfolk and Western rail line, which snakes through much of Southwest Virginia and into West Virginia. As such, the Roanoke station along the line became one of Link’s favorite spots to do work. The museum is situated in an original passenger rail station that was remodeled to house both the museum and the Roanoke visitor’s center.

My first day at the museum involved a full tour of the museum and run-down on O Winston Link’s work and life, learning some of the basic procedures of museum work in the process. Every exhibition is crafted carefully, and a lot of thought is put into which photos are used and where they are put on display. Each section of the exhibition rooms have to flow visually to create the right experience.

I also realized very quickly how essential volunteers are to the museum’s operation. It’s a rather small museum, with only three staff members, so volunteers are necessary to keep everything running smoothly. One of the many responsibilities of the staff, among many other organizational tasks, is to make sure volunteers are scheduled and productive each week.

My major project for the length of the internship is archival, however. The OWL museum was given a very large collection of O. Winston Link’s personal negative photos (about 2,200 total) that have yet to be digitally cataloged and stored. It’s my job to go through as many of these negatives as possible in the museum’s archive and catalog, condition, and prepare them to go into the museum’s new cold storage facility.

This process involves looking at each photo individually, with the help of some photography tools, and recording a description and condition of the negative. This is because negatives can deteriorate after a certain shelf life in the incorrect humidity. These are running out of time at about 60 years old, which is where my project comes into play.

Prior to moving the negatives into cold storage, they have to be properly packaged which is a rather thorough process that involves a lot of archival equipment. They are stored at very low temperatures with a controlled humidity to ensure that the negatives aren’t damaged.

 

Greetings! This is an experiment.

We are starting an “Internships Blog” for Roanoke College public history interns.

Our interns work near and far, spring, summer, and fall, in semester-long internships at museums, historic sites, government agencies, and beyond.

Each intern will be posting approximately biweekly about their internship experiences: what they are doing; what they are learning; what challenges they face; and how they plan to overcome these challenges.

Stay tuned as the blog is set to begin in late May / early June.