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.    

Documents, objects, and sites: Considering a moving public history career

Over the past few weeks I’ve been contemplating a question for aspiring public historians: How would you best understand—and feel connected to—a historical figure? For example, you’ve no doubt read extensively about Honest Abe in history books and other popular literature over the years. To more deeply appreciate Lincoln as an individual, however, would you rather see his penmanship on original documents, stand before his famous top hat, or visit the place where he lived as a child? Which would move you the most? Now, beyond your personal preference as a visitor, consider your role in helping the public discover the Lincoln. If you would like to create a moment of inspiration for the public to truly understand him, what tools would you use: documents, artifacts, or sites?

From left to right: Lincoln's boyhood home at Knob Creek, Kentucky, now part of the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park; his July 22, 1862 draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, now held as part of the Robert Todd Lincoln Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress; the top hat he wore to Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, which has been part of the Smithsonian Institution's collections since 1867.

The relative power of these three main mediums of public history seems to be truly personal. Of course, there are many factors that influence how you perceive each encounter, including how clearly the information is presented (whether in person or on paper). Your background, interests, and prior knowledge certainly shape your experience with each as well. As Freeman Tilden reminds us in his classic text Interpreting Our Heritage, visitors respond differently to content and thus interpretation should be customized based on their interests.

It took me 3.5 years of professional experience, a year of graduate school, and a month and a half of interning at the Smithsonian to realize that public historians also have inherently different interests. This is probably a strikingly obvious observation to many, but it’s a new concept for me to articulate. As a consumer of history—someone who loves soaking up history in any form on weekends—I consider museums, historic sites, and archives equally interesting. I certainly believe these three types of history institutions are equally important. However, as an emerging public history professional, it has occurred to me that I do not find documents, artifacts, and sites equally engaging to work with.

Personally, papers do not speak to me in the way objects do. Although Michael Johnson (based on his Denmark Vesey findings published in the William & Mary Quarterly) would likely disagree, I feel that digital facsimiles can sometimes reveal even more than original documents can with the ability to zoom, search, and hyperlink with other rich content. I find sharing a space with original objects that were held, owned, worn, or used by historical actors to be extremely poignant. Objects, however, do not cast the same sense of awe that I feel when visiting a historic building or site. While objects and papers can feasibly be transported, historic sites simply cannot. Instead, they serve as vehicles to transport visitors from the present to the past.

I have long been enamored with visiting battlefields and historic house museums. It recently dawned on me that my attraction stems from the simply matchless power of place. Standing on the very same floorboards as a historic figure almost literally allows you to walk in their shoes. These sites offer an opportunity to become part of where history happened. Historic sites touch all the senses, and they can be deeply affective regardless of age, ability, or language.

Of course, questions of authenticity complicate historic sites. What about buildings that are reconstructed to appear historic or have been significantly modified to come up to code? Structures that have been removed from their original context? Settings that have changed so significantly they would be unrecognizable to the historical actors? Teresa Moyer and Paul Shackel raise all of these questions in their book, The Making of Harper’s Ferry National Historical Park. Although these issues can complicate the interpretation or presentation, I don’t believe they take away from the power of a historic site. The story of a building or site’s preservation can be incorporated into the interpretation to form an engaging and unique narrative. 

Again, these insights are likely obvious to others—but they only clicked with me once I had hands-on experience in each of these main practices of public history. I fully intend to visit archives and museums wearing my “history consumer” (or, graduate student) hat. Moving forward in my career path, however, I will be aware of why my interests lie with historic sites and will seek opportunities that allow me to share my passion for place with the public.