La Tanya Autry

Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, Summer 2008

I interned in the Public Programs Department at Winterthur Museum and Country Estate in Wilmington, Delaware. Through my participation in an intensive two-week docent training course, I learned how to guide tours and manage a volunteer guide program. Giving tours helped me to improve my interpersonal skills and abilities in oral communication. I also learned how to produce interpretive training materials for the museum guides. I developed a tour study manual containing a tour route, list of objects, reading list, and object reports from a collection management database. Preparing interpretative training materials encouraged me to think independently and collaboratively.

Lindsey Baker

University of Delaware, Special Collections, Summer 2007

I completed an Internship in the Special Collections Department, located within the Morris Library at the University of Delaware. While there, I participated in a number of projects, which expanded my understanding of work in a museum environment. These projects not only allowed me to gain familiarity with accessioning, processing, and description, but also gave me a point of reference for understanding the different roles museums and special collections play in service to the public. During this internship, I created web-based records for a number of different collections, finding aids and accessioned collections. One of my projects was to create Encoded Archival Description (EAD) records for a set of recipe books. These recipe books were considered a subset of the Diaries, Journals, Ships Logs Collections in the Manuscript Collection and had previously had only brief description on accession sheets. By creating EAD records, I had the opportunity to greatly increase the recipe books accessibility. Furthermore, I was able to do background research into the cultural importance of recipe books, a matter that drew from my history background. In describing the manuscripts, I was able to learn about access terms and the processes archives use for description. Perhaps more importantly, I was about to use xml encoding and become actively involved in the process of creating the website in which the information was used.

Kevin Brown

Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, Registrar, Summer 2008

By interning in Winterthur’s registrar’s office, I was able to gain a better knowledge of and appreciation of the registration department which is the nerve center of activity for the heavily used museum collections. As such, I did not want to focus on just one project, but rather be involved in as much of the day-to-day activities as possible. Throughout my time I became assimilated into the staff, working full 35 hour work weeks, attending regular staff meetings and working with a variety of people on a variety of tasks. Just a few of the many jobs I performed included learning the KE Emu database and performing object updates; moving objects of various media, sizes, complexity and condition throughout the collection; assisting with crate storage, inventory and disposal; inventorying object storage locations; condition reporting; numbering objects; packing objects for transport; working with conservators to begin treating objects; working with curators for installing/de-installing tours in the mansion; performing security tie downs of small objects on display in the period rooms; and many fun-filled hours searching for wayward objects that fell through the cracks of the computer database. This internship has provided me with invaluable experience and opportunity that will serve me well in any institution. Most importantly, this internship is allowing me to show on my resume the successful completion of an internship, which led directly into a paid position as I have been hired to assist registration at least through the end of 2008.

Kate Lichota

Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Summer 2007

My work as an intern at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum afforded me both the opportunity of working at a cutting-edge and expanding museum and the satisfaction of knowing that the research I accomplished during my time there would be put to use in future interpretations of the history of immigrant experiences in New York City. My internship was initially focused on expanding the body of research the Tenement Museum has done on the lives of residents of their main interpreted building, 97 Orchard Street; a designated National Historic Landmark, but later shifted to focus on beginning new research on another building, constructed in 1888, which will be the site of Museum’s Visitor Center in the future. I used primary source documents such as Census records, Telephone Directories, and Municipal Court Dockets to identify over one-thousand former residents of this building. I also used City Building Records to uncover changes made to the original structure over its life. The structure one sees today has gone though immense changes over the course of its existence, owing to the dynamic nature of the Lower East Side’s population as well as built environment. This body of research will form a core of information that the staff of the Tenement Museum will use in the future to develop new interpretation and programming to expand their already impressive offerings. The history of immigration touches the lives of so many, and the Tenement Museum provides a unique opportunity to engage with these stories in a truly authentic historic space, and I feel lucky to have been able to contribute to this important work.

Keith Minsinger

Chester County Historical Society, Summer 2008

This summer, I worked at the Chester County Historical Society, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. I helped in many capacities, but worked primarily on the exhibit Discovering Dollhouses. I researched the objects to be displayed in the exhibit and outlined the major themes present. I helped to identify some of the distinguishing features of the dollhouses we were to use and place them in context of the era. I also prepared the stands, cases and panels to be used in the exhibit and designed and hung lighting for the exhibit. This exhibit was unique, as we primarily used objects temporarily donated by local collectors and enthusiasts, thus involving the community to a great degree. My other tasks were helping photograph the objects from the collection for an upcoming exhibit catalogue and researching and developing themes for upcoming exhibits to commemorate the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth and the changing landscape of Chester County. My other major task was to research, catalogue, photograph and house a large collection of toys that had been donated to museums. I often also found myself helping a painter conservator in moving and minor conservation work in paintings and frames. This summer allowed me to wear many different hats and work with many great people and gain a wide variety of skills in curatorial work, collections management, and conservation.

Tabitha Pryor

Smithsonian National Museum of American History and Sewall Belmont House and Museum, Summer 2008

For my internship experience, I decided to split my time between two institutions in Washington D.C. One was the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the other was the Sewall Belmont House and Museum. At the Smithsonian, I worked in the graphic arts department, which specializes in the history of printing and printmaking. Most of my time was spent on cataloging older accessions in the Smithsonian’s database, Mimsy XG. My major project was to catalog the department’s comic art collection, interleaf it, and find proper storage. This collection contained over 500 pieces of comic art dating from 1900 to 1968. The Sewall-Belmont is a small women’s history museum located on Captiol Hill and is the former headquarters of the National Woman’s Party (NWP). Throughout the summer, I helped with the installation of an art exhibit as well as events, one of which honored Katie Couric. My overall project was to design and install two small exhibits that would enhance the interpretation of the NWP in the house. The first was on Adelaide Johnson’s controversial Portrait Monument Sculpture, which currently resides in the Capitol Building. The second exhibit was about the NWP’s international work, including their involvement in Puerto Rican women’s enfranchisement and lobbying the UN for gender equality language in the UN Charter. Even though my internship is over, I have had opportunities to return to the Sewall-Belmont on occasion to do paid cataloging work.