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.
