When Joan Ilacqua graduated from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington with a bachelor’s degree in American History and Studio Art: Sculpture, she wanted to contribute to history in a hands-on way. She sought and earned jobs and internships at several national parks, including Yosemite National Park and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. However, having graduated during the Recession, Ilacqua decided that seasonal jobs weren’t sustainable. She began looking for graduate programs in the Boston area.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 07 April 2007. Image is in the public domain.
“I got advice that I could either go to the ‘big name’ program and use that name as I was job hunting, or the ‘little name’ program and do as much as work as possible to network myself,” she recalls. “I chose UMass because it gave me the opportunity to make connections, to work with other young professionals, and to learn from other experts in the field all at a public university. I gained experience from both archives and public history classes that I continue to use in my outreach work today.”
When she entered UMass, Ilacqua initially focused on archives, but soon switched to public history. While in the program, she made good on her decision to make as many connections in the field as possible, working at the JFK Library, UMass Boston University Archives and Special Collections, and the Center for the History of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She also interned at The History Project: Documenting LGBTQ Boston “because I had an interest in queer history but also because I wanted to volunteer for an organization that could not afford to pay an intern.”
Joan started at The History Project in 2013, and she remains involved with the organization five years later as co-chair of its Board of Directors. “I find it so fulfilling as a queer archivist to be able to contribute to documenting, preserving, and sharing LGBTQ history,” Ilacqua says, “and I’ve gained a wealth of management, fundraising, outreach, and events experience.”
Joan Ilacqua and other volunteers for The History Project: Documenting LGBTQ Boston
In addition to sustaining the connections she made at The History Project, Ilacqua now works a the Center for the History of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an institution she first worked for as a graduate student. The Center “serves to enable the history of medicine to inform contemporary medicine and deepens our understanding of the society in which medicine is embedded.” Ilacqua’s initial role at the Center was as an oral historian, leading efforts to collect stories and other artifacts about the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. After the project ended, she continued to work on other oral history and outreach projects for the Center, including the history of diversity and inclusion.
Joan Ilacqua, Archivist for Diversity and Inclusion at the Center for the History of Medicine, 2018.
In June of 2015, Ilacqua was promoted to Archivist for Women in Medicine. Just last week, on October 1st, the Center expanded the program’s mission to include documenting all people underrepresented in medicine, changing Ilacqua’s title to Archivist for Diversity and Inclusion. Among her many duties in this role, she will advocate for donations of archival materials crated by underrepresented leaders in medicine, establish new collections and acquire accruals to existing collections, build new relationships with potential donors, and promote the inclusion of underrepresented people in medicine through social media, lectures, exhibits, and events. Currently, she is working on an exhibit on the history of diversity and inclusion at Harvard Medical School in collaboration with the school’s Office for Diversity Inclusion & Community Partnership, which is the culmination of an extensive oral history project. The exhibit will be entirely digital in order to promote access throughout the campus community.
Of her position, Ilacqua says, “I find it incredibly rewarding that I get to help cement [records creators’] place in history by making sure that their stories and experiences are documented. Without original documents, and without representation, how can historians write history? I get to make sure that these stories and experiences are preserved.”
The Center for the History of Medicine preserves a diversity of voices in its archival holdings. Notable among its collections are the Miriam F. Menkin papers, 1919-2003 and the Equal Access Oral History Project records. Menkin was a laboratory assistant to John Rock, the scientist who performed the first in vitro fertilization of a human egg in 1944. Her collection only exists because her files were included in the Rock papers, and were separated out once the Center’s processing archivist realized that she was the creator of the records. Menkin’s contributions to the understanding of human fertility wouldn’t be known if her collection hadn’t been saved. The Equal Access Oral History Project began as an attempt to collect the story of affirmative action at Harvard Medical School and grew to include the perspectives and experiences of faculty, students, and alumni about diversity and inclusion at HMS. This project is particularly poignant because these stories aren’t represented anywhere else in the Center’s collections.
The Countway Library of Medicine, home of the Center for the History of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, 1965.
Ilacqua’s passion for diversity and inclusion extends beyond the workplace. As mentioned, she continues to volunteer for The History Project. She is also currently serving a term on the New England Archivists’ Inclusion and Diversity Committee. She hopes that her work on that committee will “help build and maintain an inclusive environment at NEA…in a field that is overworked, underpaid, and often does not create pathways for diversity.”
Through her work at the Center for the History of Medicine, The History Project, and professional organizations, Joan Ilacqua has put her passions for public history, archives, and diversity and inclusion to good use.
Her advice to students seeking to break into in field?
Make as many connections as you can while you are a student. Go to conferences, present at conferences, go to networking events (Drinking at Museums is a great way to meet people and NEA regularly holds networking events), volunteer, get involved with museum and archivist Twitter, read archivist and public historian blogs, do informational interviews. People want to help students, so don’t hesitate to reach out to alumni or to professionals that you admire – the worst thing that can happen is that they say no.
To learn more about the Center for the History of Medicine, its collections, and upcoming events, please click here. Many thanks to Joan Ilacqua for her participation in our Alumni Spotlight series!
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