Areas of historical interest: Women’s history, 20th Century
Meghan is from East Michigan, but currently lives in Dorchester, right by the UMass campus. She graduated from Grand Valley State University in Michigan in the Spring, where she received her Bachelor of Science in History with a minor in English. Meghan has always had dogs, and has two special pups, Lucy, a chocolate lab, and Bailey, a border collie/ lab mix back home. In her limited free time she enjoys watching movies, especially historical dramas, binge watching TV shows, and baking.
Favorite historical story: A piece of local Michigan history: In the 19th century, a man named James Strang claimed he was appointed the successor to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by Joseph Smith. His faction was classified as the “Strangite” to distinguish it as the Latter Day Saint movement divided. Strang then moved his followers to Beaver Island, a small, relatively inaccessible island in Michigan, and declared himself king under an ecclesiastical monarchy that he established there, despite there having already been Irish immigrants populating the island.
*Note: Effective September 1, 2020, WGBH is known as “GBH” and the Media Library and Archives (MLA) as the “GBH Archives”. The current terminology is used in this blog, though the internship occurred while prior names were in use.*
Located in Boston, GBH is one of the largest public broadcasting stations in the country, offering a variety of TV and radio programs aimed at fostering education, culture, and a diversity of viewpoints. As PBS’s flagship station, GBH produces a substantial amount of all national content, including programs such as Antiques Roadshow, Nova, Frontline, and American Experience. As someone who is passionate about history, culture, and media, I deeply respect and believe in GBH’s mission. The network is my ultimate career goal, offering an opportunity to merge my BA in Film with my graduate studies in History. As such, I am grateful to have interned at GBH last summer as a volunteer, and this summer in a formal capacity.
Last year, my work centered around promotion for the AAPB (American Archive of Public Broadcasting), a repository of video and audio from around the country, including material from over 100 PBS affiliates. This summer, I worked at the GBH Archives, the official repository of internally generated content. The GBH Archive’s focus on preservation and access makes materials available for research, education, and production use. From audio/visual content such as photographs, footage, and full episodes, to paper records such as press kits and production documents, the archive contains a rich collection of the network’s history and programming.
Interning during Covid presented unanticipated challenges. The office was tentatively scheduled to reopen by summer but unfortunately, this was not the case. As such, the lack of on-site access to systems and materials was a hindrance. It is to my manager’s credit that she came up with a work plan on the fly which provided a meaningful and enjoyable internship experience.
My duties centered around the classic GBH series, Masterpiece (originally known as Masterpiece Theatre.) First aired in 1971, the program offers sophisticated and acclaimed dramas, including period pieces and adaptations of classic literature. More specifically, my work was a deep dive into archival metadata.
GBH recently received an NEH Challenge Grant to support reformatting of its most at-risk programs and development of infrastructure to support long-term digital preservation and access to the archive. The grant was supported by a matching donation from a viewer and a fan of Masterpiece. The donor intended this generous sum for digitization of the program’s first 20 seasons (1971 – 1992), specifically those hosted by the estimable Alistair Cooke. This process will result in program metadata records which are searchable, with digitized program clips presented on the GBH Archive’s “Open Vault”, including the introduction and conclusion monologues delivered by Mr. Cooke for each episode. Open Vault is an online platform where archival content can be accessed, viewed, and searched.
The Linda and Andrew Egendorf Masterpiece Theatre Alistair Cooke Collection on GBH’s Open Vault website. Credit: Courtesy of GBH Archives.
Unfortunately, the metadata pertaining to Masterpiece assets was both voluminous and messy, having been entered over many years, utilizing different standards at different times, and input by various parties such as prior interns. The data needed substantial vetting and editing to accompany this important project, coinciding with the series’ 50th anniversary in 2021. My work would establish reliable and robust metadata for these newly digitized programs, both to accompany clips on Open Vault and for internal reference.
Without access to the GBH Archive’s internal systems due to Covid, metadata was uploaded into a spreadsheet on Google Drive to be edited and then fed back into the database. This spreadsheet was my primary workspace. Encompassing approximately 850 line items, each corresponding to a miniseries or episode record, the data included fields such as air dates, display titles, episode descriptions, asset types, and internal reference numbers. In all, there were 6,000+ lines of data to be reviewed, edited, and in many cases, populated from scratch.
To validate the accuracy of existing data, sources of various types were used. To start, my manager provided a book published by GBH on the 20th anniversary of the series, listing information for each season such as air dates, cast, and in some instances, episode titles. This proved to be a valuable research tool but it presented challenges. For example, only a span of air dates was provided for each miniseries while I needed to verify exact dates for all 850+ episodes. Another challenge was missing or inconsistent episode titles. External sources such as Internet Movie Database were helpful but often created more confusion due to conflicting information, such as BBC air dates instead of those from PBS. Conversely, in some instances it was determined the book was incorrect. Research skills and critical thinking were crucial during this process.
Page example from Masterpiece Theatre 20th Anniversary book. Credit: Courtesy of GBH Archives.
Though much of the data was cleaned up using these sources, numerous unresolved items remained. At this point, we turned to internal documents. Had the office been open as initially planned, these primary sources would have been utilized earlier in the process. Due to Covid, they became a last resort. Thankfully, some of these documents had been digitized and were shared in Google Drive, while others were paper files obtained from the office which my manager boxed and I retrieved from the lobby. These documents offered a fascinating look into each production, such as the original Alistair Cooke scripts, production notes, press kits, and photographs. Though much of the material was not relevant to my work, certain key documents helped resolve most of the remaining discrepancies. For example, several miniseries’ had two episodes aired on the same night which was not reflected in the book nor on most websites. These primary sources helped to reliably vet the metadata and resolve these issues.
Internal documents used for research. Credit: Courtesy of GBH Archives.
As the work progressed line by line, data was steadily vetted, corrected, and restored. Several programs were missing from the spreadsheet altogether and these were fully populated. Chronological order of episodes was properly established, with air dates and season numbers reliably entered. Asset types (miniseries vs. episode records) were correctly labeled and internal coding numbers applied to each. One particular challenge involved descriptions which were needed for each miniseries and episode record. Most of these were populated but many had minor typos such as misspellings or grammatical errors. Others were missing or had been merely copied from the miniseries level to each episode. I read each of the 800+ existing descriptions, word by word, to make corrections, then populated those which were missing. Some of these came from internal sources, such as press kits, while others were obtained externally from sites like Internet Movie Database. However, though the latter had been a prior practice, it was determined that potential copyright issues rendered it risky and only internal materials should be used. Our procedure was shifted to reflect this.
Though the work may sound tedious, I found it both interesting and a good fit for my detail-oriented and organizational mind (attributes which led me to consider the archives profession to begin with.) It also offered opportunities for analytical thought as I worked with my manager to dismantle and improve old naming conventions, program number formats, and asset hierarchies. For example, as many programs were licensed from the BBC, their usage of basic terms like “Series” and “Season” had differing meanings and were inconsistently applied over time. The new, official hierarchy we proposed involved multiple layers of asset records and terminology, used for organization and official naming of seasons, series, episodes, parts, etc. We also created a more coherent convention for program numbers which eliminated the potential for duplicates, as was previously the case. These changes were discussed with management from the Masterpiece side of the house and eventually integrated as official practice.
In all, I found my second summer at GBH to be as enjoyable and satisfying as the first, the only downsides being Covid restrictions and the lack of personal connections due to remote work arrangements. This was remedied somewhat by online staff meetings and the fact that I had met most coworkers last summer, having kept in touch with several of them. In contrast to my day job, it was satisfying to simply be working on subject matter that fits my interests and passions, reminding me how deeply I wish to work at GBH someday. The internship offered an opportunity to apply the archival skills and knowledge I’ve learned into practical use. The matter of external descriptions even provided a brief foray into Copyright concerns, a subject I studied independently last semester. I look forward to seeing the results of my work as the project comes to fruition on Open Vault and I wish my colleagues in the GBH Archives the best in their future endeavors.
Garden view of the exterior of The House of the Seven Gables. The house was built in 1668 by John Turner, a wealthy Salem merchant. Courtesy of The House of the Seven Gables website.
The House of the Seven Gables, a non-profit historic site in Salem, Massachusetts, is dedicated to preserving the past and continuing the American story. It is both an international tourist attraction as well as a community resource, particularly for the immigrant population in Salem. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 the historic houses on site are closed to the public and, like many other museums, they are limited to running a few programs virtually in summer 2020. This has made my internship an interesting and challenging experience.
The global pandemic greatly influenced and shaped my internship, both in content and practice. I was tasked with evaluating remote museum education programs during COVID-19, and to use this data to propose redesign of a Gables face-to-face school program–Naumkeag Settlers to Salem Shippers—as a virtual program.
Some of the items used in the on-site Naumkeag Settlers to Salem Shippers program, including a cone of sugar. Courtesy of The House of the Seven Gables website.
Naumkeag Settlers to Salem Shippers is a school program for grades two through five that is designed to engage students in learning about colonial life during a visit to The House of the Seven Gables. Traditionally, this program begins by introducing three 17th century children: Jehoden Palfrey, the daughter of one of the original colonists of Salem, John Turner II, who was the son of a wealthy Salem merchant, and an Irish indentured servant named Joan Sullivan. The students are then divided into groups to do activities, directed by historical interpreters, around the historic site. These activities include a brief tour of The House of the Seven Gables, a wool carding activity, learning about colonial food, and lastly, playing with colonial toys. Once the students have gone through all the activities they regroup for a concluding discussion. The entire program is very hands-on and makes use of the entire site to accommodate large groups of children. My job was to propose a way to make this hands-on, face-to-face program into an engaging virtual experience.
To do this I needed to become more informed about the current state of the museum education field and learn about remote school programming. First, I reached out to the museum education community to see how other sites were adjusting their programs in response to COVID-19. I contacted eleven different museums and historic institutions, including Historic Beverly, Salem Maritime National Historic Site, and the USS Constitution Museum, and asked if they would be willing to share how they are doing programming during COVID-19. I received enthusiastic responses and quickly arranged meetings over Zoom or phone with everyone who was available.
In these meetings, I posed four questions:
What programs did you run before COVID-19?
Have you changed any of these programs to make them accessible during the pandemic?
What feedback have you received about these programs?
Did your institution work with teachers when making changes to their education programs?
Everyone was planning different ways to engage with their visitors of all ages. Most programs were geared toward students and families, but a few have been for the general public. Since my focus was on school programs, I tried to keep the conversation on those, but I was excited to hear everyone’s plans.
Every professional colleague had imaginative ideas on how to reach out to their community. These conversations helped me envision the program I wanted to build. Discussions on how to present content in an engaging way while on the other side of a screen, or which platform has worked best for connecting with students, were helpful in determining which way my project went.
Undertaking my internship during COVID-19 was challenging, but it offered me unexpected and rewarding opportunities. I had not expected making such broad connections with professionals in the field during an internship—I came to look forward to each of these meetings not only because it was a chance to talk to someone in the midst of quarantine, but because of the opportunities for professional development and building a network of colleagues.
I also learned the importance of flexibility. To communicate with colleagues and my site supervisor, I had to make sure that my schedule was as flexible as possible to accommodate the different forms of communication and time boundaries of multiple hectic schedules. With the weekly, if not daily, change in regulations surrounding COVID-19, many museums, including The House of the Seven Gables, have had to change guidelines without much notice. This can drastically alter staff schedules and limit contact time. I have learned two other crucial lessons from this internship: the importance of patience, with people and technology, and time management, because you never know what will come next during this pandemic. I am looking forward to hopefully implementing my proposal for a virtual Naumkeag Settlers to Salem Shippers program and the potential for other remote programs that result from this experience.
Rose Nichols (on the far left) and Marian Nichols (on the far right) pictured with the Baroness Marianne Von Ergelet, during their visit to Salzburg, Austria. Credit: Courtesy of Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Additional Papers of the Nichols-Shurtleff Family, 1758-2006, 1880-1960
While women
have participated in the preservation of historic homes since Anne Pamela
Cunningham purchased and restored George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in
1858, rarely have women had the opportunity to preserve women’s narratives.
Most historic house tours in the United States narrate the histories of men,
especially the “great men” who are usually white leaders of political, economic, or
military stature. In the past decade, there has been a movement – not
necessarily to replace these narratives – but to explore and embrace other
avenues. Historic homes, such as the Molly Brown House Museum in Denver,
Colorado, and the Bradford House in Duxbury, Massachusetts, are two out of a
few examples of historic homes that have reconstructed their tours to focus on
the women of the house. In the past few months, I have been working as an
intern at the Nichols House Museum to plan and implement a tour that focuses
solely on the three sisters who once resided there.
Currently, the historic house interprets the life of Rose Standish Nichols, a pacifist, suffragist, and landscape gardener, and her family, who lived on Beacon Hill from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. The museum offers visitors a unique glimpse into upper-class domestic life during this time. It aims to inspire the public through innovative programs that embrace the social concerns of the Nichols family that are still relevant today.
Exterior of the Nichols House. Charles Bulfinch designed the townhouse in the Federalist style; it was built in 1804. Courtesy Nichols House Museum.
Fortunately, my internship term coincided with the museum’s initiative to improve and update its interpretive plan. The museum currently provides one tour that focuses on the typical day-to-day running of the house – providing details on Rose’s and her family’s interests. The three girls spent the majority of their young lives in the home, and Rose, as the oldest daughter, took over the running of the house when her mother died in 1935. Rose specifically left the house with intentions for it as a museum, and as a result, her life and achievements take precedent on the tour.
My research on the three sisters’ activities, however, has revealed exciting details about their political activism and achievements. The first half of the new tour will explore how the three sisters used their home to make social and political advancements. The young women used this domestic space very differently than their mother. Their mother, Elizabeth Homer Nichols, as a Victorian upper-class woman, attempted to create her home as a perfect private sphere for raising her children, looking after her husband, and on occasion, hosting charity events and social evenings. In contrast, the sisters hosted tea parties, lectures, and balls, to not only create a space where women and men could exchange political views but in their capacities as members of the Boston Equal Suffrage Society, Cornish Equal Suffrage League, and The Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom. The second half of the tour will focus on the years after suffrage and how the vote allowed the Nichols sisters to move more fully out of the vicinities of their own homes to contribute to society and local politics in new ways; these themes were previously unacceptable.
The Nichols House library. Once used as an office by Arthur Nichols, it was turned into a personal library by Rose Nichols after her father’s death in 1923. Courtesy Nichols House Museum
This thematic focus will help me identify valuable primary sources to build the narrative and share it with visitors. For example, I have found considerable archival details about the youngest sister, Margaret Shurtleff-Nichols, who currently receives the least attention during the general house tour. Margaret was involved in publicly protesting the hearings of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, anarchist immigrants from Italy on trial for murder. The trial occurred during the Red Scare of 1919-1920, a period of widespread fear of radicalism and anarchism. Margaret attended every public hearing, along with Woodrow Wilson’s daughter Jessie Wilson Sayre, and she visited Sacco in jail several times. It has been exciting to give Margaret a voice on the tour by uncovering such archival information.
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of creating this tour has been linking such research to the house and its furnishings. To ensure an audience is fully engaged, it is essential to connect the dialogue given by the tour guide to the visual elements of the house that reinforce or narrate this history. Although I am trying to shift the role of the house to the setting for the exciting lives of the sisters, it is still vital to link such information to the house and other interpretive objects. Visiting other sites similar to the Nichols House has vastly expanded my understanding of the different ways to relate particular objects and architectural features of the house to specific dialogue that might not be directly relatable to particular objects. One method requires a three step process. This begins by introducing an object, relating it in one way or another to the subject, and then linking it to a broader theme. For example, the chairs in the library of the Nichols House were designed and carved by Rose. She, along with her sisters, learned such skills from attending Mrs. Shaw’s school, one of the first American schools to teach girls subjects traditionally only offered to boys, like woodworking. Such relates to the fact that from a young age, the girls were exposed to progressive ideas, especially as the school’s founder, Pauline Agassiz Shaw, was the president of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government.
My experience at the museum has also introduced me to the challenges that face historic house staff in their work. Although the three full-time staff members at the museum are incredibly skilled and experienced in the public history world, their work exceeds their job descriptions and requirements. This has been extraordinarily valuable to my understanding of the day to day work environment attributed to small museums and has given me a new respect for both the full-time staff and the volunteers who give up so much of their time and effort to narrate history both objectively and accurately.
You
may think you already know all there is to know about Lexington, Massachusetts.
Most people do. Throughout my internship with the Lexington Historical Society,
I have been working to uncover stories that will change that perspective.
Lexington’s claim to fame is well known. With the destination of Paul Revere’s
ride (and William Dawes’s not-so-famous ride) and the site of the Revolution’s
first bloodshed, histories of Lexington usually begin in 1775, and tell the
triumphant story of a patriot town wholeheartedly dedicated to the
revolutionary values with which we are all so familiar. Lurking beneath the
surface, though, are important stories that complicate this narrative.
The plaque outside of LHS’s Buckman Tavern honoring Prince Estabrook. The plaque was dedicated in 2008 and features the image of reenactor Charles Price. Courtesy of Lexington Historical Society.
What most people do not know about Lexington is that when shots rang out on April 19, 1775, and the town’s legacy was solidified, six enslaved people, and at least one indentured servant of color resided in the town. This number represents a sharp decrease from the two dozen enslaved people who were enumerated in the Massachusetts slaves census of 1754, but these six individuals were nonetheless listed as property among horses, sheep, cows, oxen, and swine on tax valuations from 1775. At least one slave, Prince Estabrook, was wounded in the fighting early that morning, while Eli Burdoo, a black indentured servant and Silas Burdoo, a free man of color and Eli’s cousin also participated in the events on Battle Road. One of the main goals of my internship has been to piece together the stories of these men’s lives and those of other residents of color, in order to present them to the public to both challenge the common narrative surrounding the town, and to paint a more complete picture about revolutionary Lexington. Slavery has a long history in the town of Lexington, but that history has gone largely untold to the public in the society’s interpretation of their historic homes, despite the presence of enslaved people living and working in at least one of these homes. My project seeks to help correct this hole in interpretation.
I am very fortunate to be working with an organization that is extremely dedicated to seeing this project through. As more and more small historical sites and societies—especially in the North—begin to confront their associations with slavery, it will inevitably foster tough conversations and force museum staff to be prepared for difficult questions. Lexington is definitely ready for these challenges. Each new staff member I encounter, from retired volunteer greeters all the way up to the Executive Director tell me how excited they are about the research I am doing and how they can’t wait until my research finds its way into the society’s interpretation of the houses. These have been encouraging conversations, as Lexington has been laying the groundwork for a project like this for a while through public talks and research consultations, but now museum staff and residents alike truly ready to confront the realities of their difficult past.
These findings though, have not come easily. A major challenge of this internship has been locating and mining primary sources. I have scoured tax records, vital records, and muster rolls, which have been very helpful in determining numbers of enslaved individuals, their baptism and death dates, and military service, but this information largely amounts to statistics, and many of these records are incomplete. Further, no period sources go into any narrative detail about people of color in the town, and certainly no sources from the period come from people of color themselves. This makes it exceedingly difficult to do justice to their stories, as it often involves relying on white-written secondary sources and filling in major gaps in timeline with educated conjecture. One exception is Silas Burdoo, who, in applying for a federal pension almost fifty years after the Battle of Lexington, outlined his military service in great detail. This discovery has been of major importance to my project as it is the only surviving first person account from a person of color.
The exterior of the Hancock-Clarke House, home of Reverend John Hancock (grandfather of declaration signer John Hancock). This home was the destination of Paul Revere’s ride in 1775, but had also been home to two enslaved people, Jack and Dinah, in the mid-eighteenth century. Courtesy Lexington Historical Society.
It has also been incredibly enlightening to observe the day-to-day challenges of working at a small historical society. I have worked closest with the Education and Interpretation Manager as well as the Collections Manager, and have found that their tasks go far beyond what their titles suggest. I have seen them dress in full beekeeping suits to remove a bees’ nest from an attic, work hands-on with HVAC workers to fix a critical heating issue in their archives space, and spend months harassing their phone company to fix phone issues in their main visitors’ center. All this while developing and leading school programs, overseeing a move of their historical archives, and managing their committees of staff members and volunteers. These observations have revealed the high level of adaptability and multitasking required of staff at historical societies, but have also shown me that there is never a dull moment. This is the type of work and work environment that I am excited to embrace in the future. I am excited to continue important historical work, but why not spice things up every once in a while by throwing on a beekeeping suit or fixing a furnace? There are unique challenges both historically and professionally in working at a small historical society, but these are challenges I feel prepared to confront as a result of my internship with Lexington Historical Society.
