Civil War Intership

Internships are an important part of the growing experience for an individual; they can help determine what one would like to pursue for a future career, and what one would not like to do. My time interning with the National Museum of Civil War Medicine was overall an amazing experience. I now possess an overall understanding of the tasks of a collection manager must deal with on a day-to-day basis. I tackled a multitude of projects while working with Kate McDaniel, the projects consisted of dealing with loan documents, photographing artifacts, designing and creating two display cases, and researching non-accessioned objects. Through this variety of tasks, I have enjoyed some more than others and know how small non-profit museum differ from the larger ones. I loved interning at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, I met amazing individual and learned an immense amount about the field of curation, which I original knew very little about.
My first project when working with Kate was to organize and print labels for loan documents.
This was my least favorite project, I worked through over 70 files and it took about three to four weeks to complete. I organized the loan documents and scanned them so Kate could attach them to the corresponding objects within the collections catalog. When I arrived there, I was not expecting my first few weeks to be like the typical intern stereotype of scanning documents all day. I did enjoy looking through the various kinds of objects that the museum loaned, and what would be loaned to them. Some of the more interesting artifacts where a wheelchair, amputated arm, and a verity of artillery. Once I finished organizing the files into alphabetical order, I was on to the next project, that was creating two small display
cases.
Creating display cases was much more work then I imagined it to be, I had to come up with themes, then research objects for the themes, then research those objects, then create a proposal to show Kate, then write labels, then write on overarching narrative for the theme, and finally put the objects inside the cases. This project took the majority of the time of my internship, during this project I also took part in a side project. That project was to take photographs of objects that were missing pictures within the online catalog. I took pictures from everything ranging from textiles, to wallpaper, to newspaper. It was a nice simple side project, even though some of the paper material could of potential used lead paint, I used gloves and a mask so I did not have a problem dealing with the task. As I continued with my display case project I conducted hours of research, in the end I chose the themes of folk medicine and dentistry. After looking through the collections room I chose artifacts that would be suited to the themes. More and more hours of research on the individual artifacts took place. I personal do not enjoy graphic imagery of surgery and things pertaining to that mater, so researching some of the tools used in dentistry during the time of the Civil War was slightly nauseating, however, I did enjoy studying the artifacts and all the latest information I learned about the Civil War. Once I finished typing up all the labels and panels for the cases, Kate read over them and tweaked them slightly. I then moved on to designing the cases and placing the objects inside them, this was probably my favorite part of the whole internship. I am extremely proud of the final product, even more proud that I am able to educate the public. My concluding project was to conduct research on about eleven non-accession and accessioned objects. This was a particularly interesting project because of the wide variety of objects I was dealing with. The few that were my favorite were, 1900’s tortoise shell hearing aids, medical staff ceremonial sword, medals from a surgeon in Connecticut, and scarificator cube. Some artifacts were easier to research then others since deducing the use of the object was simple. On the other hand, some objects like for example a wooden hair brush, with no maker stamp or any engravings I found absolutely nothing on it. Most of the artifacts had nothing to do with the Civil War or Medicine, let alone both. I did enjoy conducting the research even though I did come up empty handed on a few of them.
The National Museum of Civil War Medicine is an interesting place to work, though my time of my internship I have acquired an immense amount of knowledge on the Civil War. Prior to this internship, I did not know Civil War history well, nor did I care to learn about it. However, after spending several months with the Civil War medicine museum and spending time with different parts of the staff, I can say I now do enjoy learning about the Civil War. My time working alongside with Kate was an amazing experience and helped to grow my museum experience. This internship aided me in determining what work force I would like to pursue. I am very grateful for this opportunity to expand my knowledge of the variety of museum work.