In Preparation for the Big Move

 

In Preparation for the Big Move

A helmet that I previously 

            As I have stated in my previous post, I am currently interning at the Maryland Museum of Military History at the Fifth Regiment Armory in Baltimore, Maryland. I have been interning at this facility for almost a year and have yet to be left with a large project to complete as most of my job includes accomplishing smaller tasks such as cataloguing. However, for the past few months I, along with my coworkers, have been working towards helping the museum accomplish its largest project ever, moving. 

To allow you to understand the large project my coworkers and I are in the process of completing I must first explain the layout of the museum and some problems that we experience in our workplace. To begin, our facility is a three-story building and includes a basement. Our museum and archives are on the first floor in a small room that barely fits all the objects and documents that we have and have not cataloged. In fact, some of the objects and documents are stored in various closets around the building where they are not receiving the treatment they deserve. These conditions have caused my boss, Barbara Taylor, to search for new rooms within the facility so our archives can flourish. A couple of months ago, we found those rooms in the basement, in what are currently known as Classrooms 2 and 4. These two spaces are much larger than our current room, can accommodate our increasing workforce, and will allow room for our new archival storage units.

One of the most important tasks that will support our move is acquiring proper shelving, cabinets, mobile storage cabinets, storage racks, and other items that are needed to help our museum. My boss and I have accomplished this by obtaining archival storage items from Fort Meade, an army base whose archives are no longer in use. After visiting Fort Meade numerous times, we have not only gained the approval of Fort Meade’s previous archives directors but collected a couple of new historical items like panoramas of various troops from the 29th Division. Yes, I did have to catalog those right when got back from those trips. While I did have to store those photos and items in storage closets and tight spaces within the archives, I am relieved by the thought that our facility will soon be upgraded with professional archival storage cabinets. I understand that it may seem like I am fawning over a couple of cabinets, but I cannot emphasize the importance of this agreement and these new archival cabinets. These units provide more space for us workers by consolidating the number of objects on a shelf and creating an area where we can safely store the history of the National Guard. Not only that, but it will allow us to better track the location of each historical object and incorporate that into PastPerfect.

We may have completed other tasks that better prepared us for this move such as painting the classrooms, acquiring proper safety regulations and air conditioning, and obtaining new flooring. Our largest accomplishment for this moves so far is the transfer agreement that helps set our museum on the right path to professionally and safely store our collection.

Interning at the Maryland Museum of Military History

 

For the past year, I have been interning at the Maryland Museum of Military History located at the Fifth Regiment Armory in Baltimore, Maryland. Before I became a paid intern and a graduate at UMBC, I volunteered at this facility during my undergrad at Stevenson University. You could say that I am very familiar with the museum and the historic objects and documents that our archive houses.

As a small museum with around 5 workers, my job as an intern includes completing numerous tasks that not only record the significance of historic objects but also safely store them according to proper archival techniques. In order to accomplish these tasks, I have taken numerous trips to other armories like the Pikesville Armory, which we collected historic objects from to track the history of the 110th Field Artillery Battalion, and the Carlisle Barracks where my coworkers and I learned about new archival and conservation techniques and services. I was even assigned to attend the 2023 Small Museums Association (SMA) Conference in Wilmington, Delaware. This trip has allowed me to build a better social network for both myself and the museum and has provided me with the opportunity to collect numerous resources that our facility can use. In fact, my boss is currently using one of those resources to help create a digital and interactive exhibit that will expand upon the history of the Maryland National Guard’s involvement in various riots and uprisings.

Despite what I have described, traveling to other armories and museums is only a small part of the job, most of the time I am at the museum cataloging documents and objects in our collection on to PastPerfect, a museum software that specializes in collections archiving. In order to fully catalog a historic object such as my most recent object, a World War II helmet, I first researched the specific type of helmet that it is. To do this, I use various reference books that focus on military uniforms and research for similarly designed helmets online. This resulted in the discovery that it was an M1 Helmet from World War II. From there, I incorporated that information into the PastPerfect database as well as including all information related to the history of its design and its significance in the war. Once that was completed, I measured the item, documented its location within the facility, and wrote a detailed description of the helmet’s condition to determine whether it may need future maintenance. Then, I created a list of subjects, a list that is used for recording general subject matter, search terms, a detailed list of terms or words that will be helpful in researching the helmet on the catalog database, and people, the list that is used to identify people associated with the item. For the M1 helmet, I had one individual, Frank Shroeder, who was related to the helmet after his name was discovered on the inside of the helmet. This means I had to take one more step to fully complete the process of cataloging the helmet. I had to create a biography for Shroeder which required me to research his name on various sites like ancestry.com and investigate his involvement in World War II. After finishing the last step to fully cataloging the helmet, I restarted the whole process for other items such as a Bronze Star and a World War I service hat. Although the cataloging process may seem tedious and repetitive, it continues to be one of my favorite tasks within my internship because it allows me the opportunity to interact with various historic objects and helps me expand my knowledge on my favorite field of history, military history.