HIS 440: Public History Practicum Reflection

I really enjoyed having the opportunity to create my own exhibit this semester in HIS 440. While it seemed daunting at first and difficult at times, I am very happy with how this course went and how the exhibit turned out overall. It was also great to learn about what goes into creating an exhibit, and I think that taking HIS 341: Introduction to Public History at the same time was really beneficial.

The readings and course materials used at the beginning of the semester were definitely helpful in building a foundation for the exhibit. Prior to this class and HIS 341, I had never learned about the field of public history in any of my other history courses. I never realized how much thought has to go into creating an exhibit prior to this semester, so the readings from the textbook, as well as the case studies, really helped me understand the process.

Sara Shields

After the introductory readings it was time to get started on the research and writing part of the course. At first, I had no clue what I wanted the topic of the exhibit to be. Knowing that it could be almost anything I wanted, the possibilities were endless. After choosing my topic, I got started on the research. This definitely seemed difficult at first, but once I familiarized myself with my secondary and primary sources, it was really enjoyable. The order in which assignments were due couldn’t have been better. Starting with the annotated bibliography, I used each assignment from the previous week to help me in the next one. By the end of the course, all of my research was laid out in front of me and all I had to do was piece it together for the final exhibit. This helped me realize that when you have a difficult task, you just need to trust the process. When I saw all of the assignments on the syllabus, I thought they would be impossible to complete. However, each assignment I completed made the next one easier.

I thought that every component of the class was great. Even though this semester was different because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it didn’t have much of an effect on this course. We met weekly over Zoom and Dr. Black gave me feedback on all of my assignments very quickly. The feedback I received was extremely helpful and made me think more about the decisions I was making for the exhibit. The only thing that may have gone different if we weren’t currently going through a pandemic was that the exhibit probably would have been in-person and not digital. However, I think that the exhibit still turned out great despite it being digital. Many museums and institutions are doing online tours and exhibits right now because of COVID-19, so I think that it was important to learn about how museums are adapting to this difficult time.

Overall, this course has probably been one of my favorites. It gave me hands-on experience and equipped me with skills that I will need in my future career. As I said previously, taking this class concurrently with HIS 341: Introduction to Public History was very beneficial because each week in HIS 341, I learned new information that was helpful in creating my exhibit. I would recommend this course to anyone who is interested in or wants to know more about the field of public history.

Final Week at AHM

Volunteering at this Anthracite Heritage Museum this semester has been a great experience. While it was different due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I still had the opportunity to learn a lot of useful information that will benefit me in my future career. I am a senior History Major with a specialization in Public History at Misericordia University, and volunteering at AHM helped me learn about what goes on in a museum that visitors don’t see. 

    Throughout the semester, I did a lot of work on the Argus database. It was very interesting to learn about the process of cataloguing new objects and artifacts. I also really enjoyed learning about the accession and deaccessioning process. While volunteering with AHM, I was also taking an introductory course on public history. For a lot of the material we discussed in class, I experienced it first hand at the museum. This was very beneficial for me, because I was learning about it in class and getting hands-on experience at the same time. 

    One of the tasks I had while volunteering with AHM was reading through answers to a questionnaire that was sent out by the Lackawanna County Historical Society concerning the COVID-19 pandemic and how county residents have been affected. I read through the responses and determined keywords that came up often. I really enjoyed this because it is important to document and record exactly what we are experiencing this year. Future students, researchers, and historians will look back and wonder what we struggled with, how we adapted, and how we felt during the year 2020. By documenting the public’s responses, this will help those in the future understand our lives and what we went through this year. 

    Overall, volunteering at AHM was a great experience. I am grateful that I got the opportunity to do it and learn valuable information that will help me after I graduate. 

Weekly Update

This week has been slower than the past few because it was Thanksgiving. However, I still got in plenty of hours and thankfully the mix up at the beginning of the semester won’t effect my hours anymore. I’m on track to finish this semester with 135 volunteer hours at the Anthracite Heritage Museum.

I’ve been cataloguing some objects into Argus this week. One collection was a framed lithograph, a photograph, a brass plaque, and then an insurance map. These were all from the Sauquoit Silk Plant in Scranton, PA. When entering these objects into Argus, I first give them an object number. Once they are assigned an object number, I give the object a general description, take note of the condition, then indicate who donated it, and where the object currently is. Giving a description and/or dimensions of objects can sometimes be difficult because I only have pictures to reference. This semester has definitely been different in terms of how we learn and work, but I’m happy to have had the opportunity to volunteer at AHM this semester. Next week is my last week and I will miss the exposure to so many interesting things!

Weekly Update

This week I have been continuing finding keywords among COVID-19 stories from Lackawanna County residents, and I am almost finished with the adult portion of the questionnaires. In addition to the COVID-19 stories, I have also been putting in web descriptions for a large collection at Eckley Miners Village in the Argus database.

In my meeting with John this week we discussed the process that the museum goes through when they receive object donations. When someone wants to donate an object, the museum must decide if it is worth putting in the collection. They must consider if it aligns with their mission statement, if that object would be unique or if they have others that are similar to it, etc. If the museum wants the object, there is a system of checks and balances that the museum must go through. Once this process is completed and the object is approved, the object is assigned an accession number and is entered into the collection.

We also discussed what deaccessioning an artifact is like. Deaccessioning occurs when there is either too many of the same object, if the object poses a threat towards humans, if the object is deteriorating past the point of conservation efforts, or if it is decided that the object no longer aligns with the institution’s mission statement. If the institution decides to deaccession an object, they must contact the donor and let them know, because the museum agreed to care for the object once it was in their possession. Deaccessioning could either lead to the museum donating it to another institution, or, if the object is in bad condition and it is no longer recognizable or functional, it must be destroyed and disposed of. I thought that it was interesting that it needs to be destroyed before being disposed of, but it is to prevent somebody from finding the object and trying to resell it or keep it for personal use.

This semester has gone by so fast but I am very happy that I’ve had the opportunity to volunteer with AHM. I have definitely learned many new things. I still have a couple weeks left with them, so I’m excited to see what else there is to learn!

Weekly Update

For the past week I have been continuing to work on the COVID-19 stories from Lackawanna county. As I mentioned in my last post, this project reminds me a lot of the current project that our public history class has been working on this semester.

For this project, we are looking for community members to contribute to the collection on COVID-19. Contributions such as stories, photos, videos, social media posts, newspaper articles, artwork, and digital/physical objects. These contributions will be put into a collection in the Sister Mary Carmel McGarigle University Archives at Misericordia to document the time that we are living in right now.

As I’ve said in previous posts, it is very important to be documenting our lives at this time. 100 years from now, people will be studying 2020 and will wonder exactly what we did during the pandemic. Did we spend more time with our families? Take up new hobbies? Learn something new? These are the kind of things to consider if you would like to make a contribution.

Personally, once everything shut down in March, I tried learning multiple new hobbies like knitting, sewing, and hand-stitched embroidery. I also took that time to read some new books that I had bought but never had the time to read. While these small events may seem trivial to us now, they will be important to know for those in the future. If you would like to contribute to this collection, go to https://mulocalhistoryprojects.org/pandemic-histories/ for more information!

Weekly Update

While volunteering this week with AHM, I have continued going through the COVID-19 questions & answers for residents in Lackawanna county. As I go through them and determine keywords that appear often, it is clear that many people in Lackawanna county felt similar emotions to one another’s towards the pandemic. Keywords that I’ve been finding are still similar to what I found last week: anxiety, virtual, frustration, etc. Like I said in a previous post, this information is very important to save in a time like this.

This project reminds me of the current project that we are doing in HIS 340: Introduction to Public History. The collecting project that we are doing in HIS 340 focuses on gathering contributions from the Misericordia community so that the university archives can save information about what our community did during the COVID-19 pandemic.

John and I did not have our weekly meeting this week because everything is going smoothly with determining the keywords, so there weren’t many new updates from either of us. Doing this work should take me a couple more weeks to complete, and I’m hoping to get as much done as possible before the semester ends. I’m happy that this project will take a lot of time because of the delay I experienced at the beginning of the semester. I can’t believe that there are only three weeks left of classes already!

Weekly Update

This week I finished catalogue worksheets for a collection at the Anthracite Museum that included items that relate to the current pandemic. For these worksheets, I had to write general descriptions and report the condition of the items. Some of the items included a box of face masks, toilet paper, and bottles of sanitizer. There are important to have in a collection relating to COVID-19 because, at the beginning of the pandemic, it could be difficult to find some of these items in stores. I remember when the pandemic first became serious in the U.S., I could not find toilet paper, hand sanitizer, paper towels, and other items. While it may seem silly to save some of these items, it exhibits the experiences that we went through during this time.

Once I finished the catalogue worksheets, I moved onto a new project. I am currently going through stories/answers from Lackawanna County residents about how this pandemic has affected them. Some of the questions they were asked include: What did you do today? What would you have done today pre-COVID-19? When did you first notice the discussion of COVID-19? What emotions have you experienced during this time? Many of the responses to these questions are similar. Residents have been experiencing many of the same emotions such as anxiety, sadness, and frustration. However, some have also reported that they have been grateful and happy to be able to spend more time with their families.

While going through these answers, I am determining keywords that come up often in the residents’ responses. Some keywords that I have found so far include: virtually, anxiety, walk, family and friends, work, social distancing, and grocery store. These responses were collected throughout April and some during May, so that was right in the middle of when everything was shut down. I think that it would be interesting to see if/how their responses have changed in the past 5-6 months.

Weekly Update

Sara Shields

This week has been good, as I’ve had much more work to do than I have previously. This week I’ve been cataloguing items from two different collections into the state’s online object database, Argus. It consists of assigning the object an object number, stating the source of the object, a brief description, condition report, location of the object, etc. It’s definitely been very useful information to learn.

The objects I’ve been cataloguing are COVID-19 related items from local businesses during the pandemic. Objects include things like masks, hand sanitizer, and signs. Once I finished up on cataloguing these items into Argus, I also wrote up the catalogue worksheets for another collection that has not yet been assigned an accession number in Argus. With these worksheets, it will be easy to put the objects into Argus once these been assigned an accession number because all of the information will be in one location.

I’m excited for this upcoming week because I will be going through local COVID-19 stories and determining key words for each story. It is important to document the state of our current world because in 100 years, people will be studying and reading about 2020 in their history books. Therefore, collecting stories, oral histories, and artifacts right now will help people in the future have a better understanding of what our lives were like this year.

Volunteer Update

Sara Shields

These past couple weeks have been kind of slow with AHM. As I said in my past blog posts, getting my account set up with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (CWOPA) has been a struggle. However, thankfully this week I have successfully been able to have access to my account! This week I went to the museum in order to set up my account, and then I completed multiple web training programs in order to get me prepared to use the state’s online system. Now that I have this account set up, I’ll finally be able to access Argus, which is the database where Pennsylvania Museums catalogue all of their artifacts. I’m very excited to finally be able to do this!

While at the museum this week, I also attended a staff meeting which was conducted over Zoom due to the current pandemic. These staff meetings involve discussing various ways the museum can still reach the public while the doors are closed because of COVID-19, such as online exhibits and lectures.

Overall, I am very excited to get the CWOPA account set up so that I can start working and learning more!

Fall Week 2

This week I have been inventory

Sara Shields

ing different documents, such as maps and pay rate booklets, from the Susquehanna Colliery Company. This has helped me understand the process of cataloguing new materials into collections. Doing this virtually is different than doing this in-person because rather than having all of the documents right in front of me, I have to look at photos. However, it has still definitely been interesting and enlightening.

This week I was also given new material to inventory that has to do with the local community and the COVID-19 pandemic. There are stories and artifacts from community members about their experiences with the pandemic and how it has affected them. This will potentially become part of an online exhibit for the Anthracite Heritage Museum, which I think is a great idea for museums to do in these unprecedented times.

Unfortunately, I still have not been granted access to the state’s database for collections and cataloguing, so I am unable to do everything that John and I hoped I would be doing by now. We hope that by next week I’ll be given my login information so we can get started on other projects.