I have been interning at the Historical Society of Western Virginia for about a month now, and I am definitely learning a lot of new things!
I began my time cataloging photographs from the Korean War into PastPerfect before moving on to transcribing letters that were sent over 100 years ago. The photographs gave me a lot of residual nostalgia for things that happened in the 1950s, and the letters really put my cursive reading ability to the test. Both types of objects let me see and somewhat feel the emotions of people at those time periods, so it has been a really enlightening experience.
Nowadays I have been promoted to cataloging three-dimensional objects like bottles and belt buckles. These get more complex due to the need to measure dimensions as well and take photos of the objects from every possible angle. Next, I will be learning how to archive clothing from the 1800s, and the fashionista within me is very excited 🙂
