My Project: African American Decoy makers in the Chesapeake Bay Reigon

 

The main project I was working on at the Havre De Grace Decoy Museum was working on the installation of the African American decoy makers exhibit. Up until that exhibit was put in, all of the decoy makers that had specific focus on them were white. We did have decoys made by black carvers, but without much information on them. The exhibit itself was split into two cases: One which focused on black carvers in the Delmarva area from the past, and one which focused on those currently working in the present day. The latter had carvings from Doug Gibson, a highly skilled carver who mainly carves in the Havre de Grace style, though with a unique feature of using woodburning to detail his decoys, and James Johnson, a carver from Chesapeake City who does much simpler carvings in his own style. The carvers on display in the historical case have a very interesting story to them. That mainly holds decoys by Pied and Sherman Jones, a father and son pair. Pied mainly worked in the late nineteenth century, while Sherman’s carvings come from the early twentieth. Sherman specifically worked under a white carver by the name of Llyod Tyler. Due to racism at the time, Sherman was often unable to sell his decoys under his own name, so many of his were signed and sold by Tyler. Today, this fact does make it a bit difficult to identify which decoys are Tyler’s, and which were actually made by Sherman. Mostly this is determined by stylistic differences, though the museum had to work with local collectors who have been studying decoys for years to determine who made what.

When I got to the museum, the bulk of the research and identification for these decoys had been complete. My role was primarily in documenting and accessioning the decoys we received. The Jones decoys were largely either moved to the new exhibit from other places in the museum, or had to be borrowed on loan from local collectors. The Johnson and Gibson decoys, on the other hand, were mostly donations, which we received in large numbers from both the carvers. In documenting these I had to get pictures from multiple angles of each object, attach a catalogue number to each of them, and complete PastPerfect entries for each. Once that was completed, I also got to assist with the arrangement of the display cases. The older collectors and curators were the main ones deciding which objects were actually put on display, but I assisted with laying out the displays, and making sure the objects were organized in a visually appealing way that still gave each decoy full visibility.

 

The Struggles and Difficulties with Oral History

     During my internship with Hope To You Community Church, the main project I had the honor of working on is the collection and writing up of the oral history of the church. The process of the internship included me creating my own questions to ask certain members of the church’s congregation about their experience with Hope To You Community Church and compiling each of the congregation’s statements and creating a coherent narrative. Through this process I had experienced a few difficulties through this project. As with anything that deals with memories there will be issues of information matching as I had experienced with this project. There were three people that I interviewed that were part of the church’s congregation for many years and when I questioned a certain event in the church’s history to each person, all three gave me different years. I was prepared for this sort of issue and had hoped that I could get a clearer answer from interviewing the founding pastor of Hope To You Community Church. However, that particular scheduling was and still is the biggest difficulty I faced with this internship. The founding pastor never got back to me about a good date to do a video call and when I offered to send him a document with the questions he could answer he never answered those messages leaving me to estimate and give an in-between time period for that event. The other difficulty I faced with this project is of course the scheduling of these interviews, since it was during the summer many of these people wanted to go on vacation and I had to schedule around that but the hardest bit was scheduling an interview with a person in the Philippines. Having a twelve hour difference but we were able to find a time that worked. Difficulties and hardships are bound to happen in any form and with resilience and creativity I was able to work around those difficulties even if it was a bit difficult.

Hikes and History: An Adventure in Iceland

Hello! My name is Evan Royston and I’m a senior studying history and political science with a public history minor. This summer I had the incredible opportunity to intern with Global Treks and Adventures, an international travel company that hosts research expeditions and produces travel publications for areas around the world. My research expedition was based in Iceland to help develop a hiking magazine but before I continue with the internship itself, some background on how I discovered the opportunity is necessary. 

Discovering the internship was actually the easiest part of the process as I found it while looking through Handshake for job and internship opportunities. I had been in search of an internship opportunity for a while, knowing that I would need one to complete my public history minor and also to gain real-world experience as I head toward the end of my college career. While finding the opportunity was relatively simple, deciding to apply for it was not. While it seemed like a fantastic opportunity, I wasn’t sure what application, if any, helping develop a hiking magazine would have with public history but as it turns out, there was a very clear place for it since one of the sections of the magazine would focus on Icelandic history and culture. Knowing that there was a clear place for my interests gave me the confidence to apply and it has turned into one of the best decisions I’ve made.             The internship was split into three sections, pre-trip research, the expedition, and the post-trip writing phase. Pre-trip research and post-trip writing were both done remotely with the highlight of the internship coming in the middle phase, the actual expedition to Iceland. The expedition to Iceland was eight days in total during which I lived in an Icelandic research base with the other interns from across the United States and Canada. Each day was different as we went on hikes, explored Reykjavik and other cities, met with locals, and so much more, all to help research our different areas of the publication. Reykjavik was the most helpful area to my research as I was able to explore museums and interesting sites throughout the city to research Icelandic history, but they also had personal value as I was able to get insight into what public history in Iceland was like compared to in the United States. The week in Iceland flew by. Soon it was time to return home where I used the information collected in Iceland along with additional research to develop my sections for the magazine. Over the rest of the summer, I wrote my sections, got edits from the Global Treks team, and sent in my final draft. The process of producing my content was incredibly smooth as we were supported by the Global Treks team when necessary but had large amounts of freedom over our topics and what would be included in our sections. Overall, my time with Global Treks was an incredible experience in which I was able to grow personally and professionally while exploring a beautiful country and I can’t wait to give more details on the experience in future posts!

 

Voices of a Church, an Oral History internship

 Hello. I am Jessica Heckart, a senior with a minor in public history and MEMS. I recently completed an internship that involved taking the Oral History of Hope To You Community Church, a small community church in Bowie, PG County. This internship was independent, with me working by myself and creating the questions, setting up the Oral history interviews, taking notes, and creating a document to organize everything. Even though I was working mostly alone, the head pastor of Hope To You Community Church was my overseer, he and I would check in every other week to check the progress of my work and to see if I needed anything from his end. 

The Oral History internship with Hope To You Community Church was formally conducted from the beginning of June to the beginning of August, so I had three months to complete the interviews of the members of Hope To You. Each of Hope To You members had a significant role in the construction and life of this small community church. The reason why I chose to make an Oral History focused on a small community church is that it sounded unique but it also I was inspired by a project that was and still is happening in Montgomery country called The Immigrant Experience in Montgomery County, which is a online exhibit sharing the experiences and personal story of the immigrants. This is relevant because Hope To You Community Church was originally founded by an immigrant couple from the Philippines for Filipino immigrants and their families. So, this internship was a multi-layered study of the birth and longevity of a community church and the community of immigrants.

The ultimate goal of this internship was to collect the individual stories and memories that correlate with the history of the church and how it had impacted and still impacts the community.

A Summer of Ducks

 

                This summer I did my internship at the Havre de Grace Decoy Museum, a small museum dedicated to the history and craft of duck decoys. These decoys were initially used in hunting, but quickly evolved into their own folk art. They are traditionally made of wood, but many were manufactured out of other materials such as cork or cloth. Today, most decoys are made as decorative pieces, and as a show of skill, rather than for practical use.

The museum itself is primarily dedicated to the decoys produced in the Havre de Grace area, but does also feature decoys from the broader Chesapeake region, as well as a few from further reaches, such as Louisianna. Havre de Grace is located on the Susquehanna Flats, a meeting spot of the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay with a lot of shallow water where lots of water celery used to grow (much of it has since died because of algae blooms), making it a prime stop for migrating ducks. Because of that, it also became a prime spot for duck hunting, and therefore decoy making. The museum is dedicated not only to the display of past and present decoy artists, but to the history of duck hunting in Havre de Grace and beyond. It includes multiple exhibits showing the history and making of decoys, the adaptation of hunting techniques over time, and the works of various decoy makers.

My official title this internship was Curatorial Intern. Though, with a museum this small, the title of “curator” includes a very broad range of responsibilities. Working under the main curators Nathaniel Heasley and Ginny Sanders, I was assisting in a variety of tasks including mailing and filing loan renewals, cataloging and creating digital records for donations and loans we received, setting up, cleaning, and repairing exhibits, and checking in and directing visitors at the front desk. My main job was working in setting up the new exhibit about African American decoy carvers in the Chesapeake region. Overall, I learnt a lot about how museums, especially small scale museums are run, funded, and upkept.

 

The American Civil War and Filipino Yo-Yo Men: A Month at President Street Station Museum

As the end of July nears, I have now completed more than half of my internship at the President Street Station Museum in Baltimore. My last post focused on the relaxed and informal atmosphere of this place in comparison to the other historical sites at which I have worked. These impressions remain unaltered, but there is much more to say about my experience here over the past month.

In the life of working or volunteering at a museum, there is often little to do. How busy one is depends on how the museum’s popularity. If the building attracts a lot of visitors on a particular day, then I can expect to be heavily occupied in telling the story of its history and focus to the people. But on other days, we go hours without a single visitor, and I am left with nothing to do. I frequently use that time to read for my Master’s thesis or to do other random things at my leisure. This happens often.

In the midst of so many hours of inactivity, I have been given something to keep me moderately busy. The director of the Friends of President Street Station, Robert Reyes, is of part-Filipino ancestry. His father, Thomas Reyes, was one of several businessmen, many of whom were also of Filipino origin, who popularized the yo-yo, which was originally a Filipino toy, in the United States. They did so primarily from the 1930s into the 1950s. Robert is working on a project in conjunction with several museums in the United States, the most notable of which probably being the Filipino American National Historical Society Museum in Stockton, California, to uncover more about the origins and lives of these “yo-yo men.” At his behest, I have been combing online records, primarily in Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com, searching for the names that he has given me in an effort to learn more about them. The matters of primary focus are whether or not they came from the Philippines and the dates in which they were active. I was given 40 names, and have thus far confirmed the Filipino origins of about half of them, in addition to finding information about a few of the others.

When we were first discussing the details of what I would do at the President Street Station Museum, Robert told me that I might be given a research project to conduct, but he was vague on the details. Out of all of the possibilities, I would have never guessed that I would be assigned to research 20th century yo-yo men. When I volunteered to work at a museum dedicated to the history of Baltimore in the American Civil War, this was certainly not what I had signed up for. I have enjoyed it nonetheless. Any opportunity for someone to expand their knowledge and research experience should be welcomed, even if the nature of it is odd or unexpected. There have been other benefits. Having access to Ancestry.com has allowed me to find records of my own family history. Additionally, my uncle lives in the Philippines, and his wife and daughter were born there. I have learned a reasonable amount about the country’s history from listening to them. The project therefore happens to be of some personal significance.

Although I have found aspects of this work to be a little unorthodox, I have nonetheless enjoyed my time at President Street Station. I have earned more public history experience and more familiarity with genealogical and newspaper research, and that is certainly not a bad thing.

William Plesser

 

President Street Station Museum - Post 1

William Plesser