From the Field – Page 2 – Public History at UMass Boston

October 11, 2018Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Alumni Spotlight: Joan Ilacqua

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 1^st, 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!

May 9, 2018Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Remembering Jim Green and the Boston’s Working Peoples Heritage Trail

By: Madison Vlass and Adam Derington

On a quintessential fall day this past October, the UMass Boston Labor Resource Center held a memorial lecture in honor of the late Dr. James Green. Dr. Green, the celebrated historian, author, and activist, was a beloved member of the UMass Boston faculty and the Boston labor community. The event featured Professor Patricia Reeve of Suffolk University, who spoke to an enthusiastic audience about the contemporary labor landscape in Boston and Jim’s legacy in the field. As first-year public history MA students, we responded to the Labor Resource Center’s call for volunteers to lead a labor history walking tour in downtown Boston. This was also an opportunity for us to learn about Jim Green’s work and legacies as a movement historian.

As a scholar of new labor history, Jim brought together scholarship and his commitments as a public historian. He brought a people’s history lens to Boston’s historical landscape in 2001, when he planned and wrote the “Working Peoples’ Heritage Trail,” a driving tour of Boston’s labor history sites from colonial times right up to the present. In 2017, a recent Harvard PhD, Cristina V. Groeger, revised and updated the tour. Her project resulted in digital access to the sites, facilitated by an easy to follow google map, both of which can be found here. Groeger spoke briefly at the memorial event about the creation of the website and then handed the microphone over to us to introduce our tours.

We were a bit intimidated, as neither of us are labor historians or active in the labor movement. We knew we would be talking to experts in the field, leaders in the community, and people connected to Jim’s legacy. But as aspiring public historians, we enthusiastically embraced the challenge. In planning our tours, we divided up the sites, so we offered the participants two different experiences. Adam (having only lived in Boston for a grand total of a two months) kept his group focused around the Common. This part of the tour brought the group to well-known Boston landmarks, but interpreted them through a labor lens. Heading in the opposite direction, Madison took her group down through the theater district, Chinatown, and the old Garment District. Her tour had very few extant buildings, but brought people to lesser known sites and illuminated their hidden histories.

Despite the anxiety of keeping groups together through construction sites, yelling over jack hammers, and illustrations blowing away in the wind, both tours were successful and rewarding. Our groups were engaged in the information we presented, and excited to see Boston through a new lens. Madison’s audience loved hearing about the time that Amelia Earhart, a short-term employee of Denison House, a social settlement on Tyler Street, flew over Boston scattering leaflets about a Denison House event. They were also very curious about the development of Chinatown as a center of labor, and the community’s efforts to preserve their unique culture. Many of the participants were involved in the labor movement themselves, so when we were not able to answer specific questions, we deferred it to the group at large. This encouraged dialogue and critical thinking, and generally led to rich group discussion.

“Soiling of Old Glory” depicting Joseph Rakes assaulting Ted Landsmark, a civil rights activist and lawyer, at Boston City Hall. Photo credit to Stanley Forman/Boston Herald.

Adam’s group enjoyed finding the exact place of the famous photo, “Soiling of Old Glory” in Government Center. They discussed the

Remarkable riot picture taken on Boston Common during one of the most severe crisis known to Boston in history, the Boston Police Strike of 1919. The Boston Public Library,
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:b8515n66f

ways in which Boston’s busing crisis is remembered, or not, as the case may be, through public displays and in our collective consciousness. We also considered the complicated history of African American struggles and contributions to Boston’s historical landscape. These conversations with our tour participants reflected their deep interest in thinking about how to complicate our narratives and tell hard truths.

We are pleased that the Labor Resource Center has offered us the opportunity to lead tours again in July 2018. We are delighted that our continued participation in this project gives us the opportunity to continue developing our skills as public historians while keeping Jim’s legacy alive.

In his many writings, Dr. Green called for scholars to be stewards of historical knowledge and make history accessible in causes for social justice. We have taken those ideas to heart. It was a distinct pleasure to learn about his perspective on history and to experience the challenges to personal and popular narratives of history, posed by a people’s history tour. The entire experience provided a lesson on how each individual and community shapes their own histories, and the importance of the contributions and agency of those relatively invisible in the historical record as the true agents of important historical moments. As historians, we play a role in shaping these narratives, and Jim’s work reminds and challenges us to live up to our responsibilities to and the promise of collaborating with our communities.

April 2, 2018Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Mass. Memories Road Show: A First-Time Roadie’s Reflection

By: Violet Hurst

On Saturday, October 28, 2017, my phone rang out its shrill, soul-crushing alarm at 7:00 AM. And then 7:05. 7:10.

At 7:45, I dragged myself out of the safety and coziness of my bed, threw on clothes, and placed an On-the-Go Dunkin Donuts order for a large coffee while brushing my teeth.

“Add a turbo shot?” the app asked me. I hit yes and dashed out the door, pulling on my shoes as I ran.

What was I, a twenty-two year-old graduate student, doing waking up so early the morning after a friend’s Halloween party—my first day off in weeks? Driving an hour to volunteer at a public history event, of course!

The Mass Memories Road Show at UMass Boston is an event-based public history project that digitizes family photos and memories shared by the people of Massachusetts. Road Show volunteers work with members of the local community to organize a free public event where residents can contribute their photographs to a digital archive. To date, the project has digitized more than 6,000 photographs and stories from across the state, creating an educational resource of primary sources for future generations. On October 28, 2017, I volunteered at the project’s event in Marshfield. It was my first Road Show, and despite having attended a training session, I had no idea what to expect.

Ventress Memorial Library, Marshfield, MA

Carolyn Goldstein, the Public History and Community Archives Program Manager at UMass Boston’s Archives and Special Collections, greeted me with a smile when I walked through the doors of Marshfield’s Ventress Memorial Library. She directed me to a medium-sized community room, where I saw volunteers of all ages milling around, chatting with one another and setting up their stations. Members of the local community had turned out in force, each excited to take an active role in documenting the history of their community. Several were elders with long memories of Marshfield’s history; some were history buffs; a few were even volunteers from other towns who had volunteered in previous Road Shows. I sat down at my designated station next to an affable woman named Maureen. She and her husband had moved to Marshfield the year before, hoping that a house by the beach would entice their grandchildren to visit more often. She had come to the Road Show because she wanted to become more involved in her new community, and to learn about its history in the process.

As we waited for participants to arrive, Maureen and I went over our responsibilities. Our task was simple: we were to help participants fill out a form for each one of their photographs. We would ask them to title and describe their own photographs and to identify any relevant people, places, and events they captured. We were to allow people to tell their own stories, and to record the meanings that they assigned to each photograph. Our role was to listen, not to shape, suggest, or revise.

Throughout the day, I was privileged to meet and serve many members of the community, and to learn about their diverse experiences as residents of Marshfield. I saw pictures of family homes, children’s weddings, vacations, and old-time local businesses. A woman laid out three pictures before me that comprised six generations of her family. A widow came with her daughter to make sure a photograph of her husband’s old five and dime store made it into the archive. Two of Marshfield’s town historians wanted to scan the cover of their first book. “Don’t worry,” they told me when they learned that I was in a history MA program, “You can make a living doing history—we sure have!”

All day long, I was humbled by the knowledge that participants were allowing me an intimate glimpse into their hearts and minds. They were showing me the people and places that they valued most in the world- memories held so dear that they were worth preserving for future generations. This was, truly, something special.

It is an unfortunate but undeniable reality that archival repositories—digital and not—tend filled with records of the powerful. Their materials disproportionately focus on the lives of white men, the wealthy, the healthy, the well-connected. Those who lack privilege are chronically underrepresented in archival collections, and, too often, that absence leads to an erasure from history. Projects like the Mass. Memories Road Show, which empower people to construct their own archives, tip the balance of power by allowing ordinary people to shape the historical record. They gather together a wealth of material that the historians of the future can draw upon to construct a richer, more complete picture of the past.

And that’s worth getting out of bed on a Saturday morning.

The next Mass. Memories Road Show will be in Amesbury, MA on Saturday, April 21st. A full schedule of Spring events can be found here.

Flyer for the upcoming Road Show in Amesbury, MA.

March 26, 2018Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Social Activism in the Archives

By: Monica Haberny

In the summer of 2016, volunteers petitioned throughout the state of Massachusetts to put Question 3 on the ballot. The question involved increasing the amount of space farm animals were given in Massachusetts, affected issues of food safety, and passed in a landslide that November.

Some of the flyers and a bumper sticker from the Question 3 campaign.

At the time, I was completing an MA in History and began working as an intern at the Boston City Archives. I used documents I found at the archive to write about women and African Americans who influenced Boston history. The one that stuck out to me the most was Ida M. Hebbard. Hebbard presided over the Housekeepers League during the 1910s and protested the surging prices of basic goods. She held various meetings about public health, worried about the cost of living for struggling families, and advocated for laws which affected food safety and animal welfare. About a hundred years later, the activists petitioning for Question 3 would follow in her footsteps.

Research room/stacks at the MSPCA Archive — Although it looks small, the record room at the MSPCA Archive contains hundreds of documents detailing the history of animal legislation in Massachusetts, throughout the country, and abroad.

Inspired by Hebbard, I initially wanted my capstone project to tell the story of animal welfare organizations in the Boston area and thought about creating an online exhibit. So when Jan Holmquist took me on a tour of the archive at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, I came in with my original idea in mind. However, at end my visit I had already scrapped that idea and decided to make the MSPCA Archive more accessible to researchers by creating a finding aid. Much of the archive was already processed, but a 2008 fire had set back progress. There was also no concrete list of what records the MSPCA had; researchers needed to email Holmquist first to see if what they needed was there or make an appointment and hope that it was. Although there was a lot of work to be done, I was excited to get started.

In 1867, philanthropist and activist, Emily Warren Appleton traveled to New York and met with Henry Bergh. The founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) offered her advice on founding a similar organization in Massachusetts. Upon returning to Boston, she located the men who would become the MSPCA’s first donors and began working on a charter. A year later, George Thorndike Angell published an editorial in response to two horses that were raced to death after traveling a distance of forty miles. Appleton immediately went to Angell’s office after seeing the article, and together they founded the MSPCA. Angell became the first president; during his term, the organization pushed for the passage of multiple anti cruelty laws, published “Our Dumb Animals,” created the first American Band of Mercy, and began the distribution of children’s classics like Black Beauty or Beautiful Joe.

During prohibition, Angell Memorial Hospital needed to apply for a permit to use alcohol in the hospital. This is that application.

Dr. Francis Rowley took Angell’s place as the MSPCA’s second president in 1910 when Angell passed away in 1909. Rowley expanded the influence of the MSPCA. He oversaw the creation of the first MSPCA shelters and Angell Memorial Hospital. The hospital would be at the forefront of new practices in veterinary medicine, like the world’s first veterinary intern training program in 1940 or the first successful feline kidney transplant in 1997. Rowley also helped build the American Fondouk Maintenance Committee in 1929, a humane organization in Fez, Morocco. This event served as the first of many instances where the MSPCA fought for animal welfare abroad.

In the late 1800s, the MSPCA secretary kept a daily log. Researchers can use these logs to find mentions of Emily Warren Appleton, various donors, or typical days at the organization.

Despite the accomplishments of Appleton, Angell, and Rowley, many of their letters and documents may have been lost in the 2008 fire. I began my work at the MSPCA going through Angell’s correspondence and early records. A portion of the letters between Angell and his mother were burnt or missing. However, the correspondence that did survive gives insight into Angell’s upbringing and character. Even rarer, though, are records from Appleton and Rowley in their hand. The MSPCA Archives has a copy of Appleton’s will and she’s mentioned in various record books, but not much else. Only a few of Rowley’s letters survived the fire. It’s impossible to know just how much was lost, because of a lack of a finding aid before the fire.

After surveying early records, I began processing documents that were still disorganized from the fire. In about five boxes, I found records from the American Fondouk, correspondence from MSPCA employees, and many media clippings. The MSPCA Archive had amassed a large collection of newspaper and magazine clippings that mentioned the organization, the hospital, its many shelters, and other organizations that they were connected to. The clippings ranged from the early 1900s to the 2000s, the majority of which were from the 1970s up through 2005. While it would have been great to scan the clippings, as newsprint doesn’t preserve well, I had no means of doing that. So I spent time putting all of these clippings in chronological order and into boxes by decade. I learned a lot about animal welfare history in the 20^th century from these clippings. For example, the MSPCA worked with the Franklin Park Zoo in the late 1970s and early 1980s to upgrade the zoo and improve conditions. I would sometimes separate articles not just chronologically, but by event as well. I did so with articles about the zoo in the 1970s.

This is just a small look at some of the newspaper articles I organized in the fall of 2017.

When going through the records of the MSPCA and creating the finding aid, I not only learned a lot about animal welfare history, but I also realized how a collection can take a toll on the archivist processing it. Sometimes the subjects presented can hit close to home, and this was especially true with how big animal welfare had become in my life. The records at the MSPCA mentioned various issues like donkey basketball, greyhound racing, and instances of animal rescue during natural disasters. In addition to records of successful legislation and uplifting stories, there were also images of animal cruelty. Around the 1950s, employees at the MSPCA wrote to various companies which sold humane stunners and pistols asking for brochures. I also had to process articles on different methods of euthanasia. This aspect of the collection, while important to preserve, was particularly hard for me to look at.

Child's Membership, 1877. — Since its inception, the MSPCA has offered membership for those who wanted to support animal welfare in the state. Here’s a child’s membership from 1877.

Coming into this project, I was extremely attached to the subject matter. I wanted to list every single record I came across. My finding aid would include everything from documents and photographs to audiovisual material and medals. In the middle of my project, my advisor, Dr. Marilyn Morgan, confronted me with reality. She told me that processing and recording everything at the MSPCA was impossible if I wanted to graduate in December. She also made me realize that my time at the archive wouldn’t have to end when I submitted my finding aid. With her guidance, I focused on what I could actually get done within the time I had. I began selectively processing and recording things. I listed all of the boxes on the finding aid, but not all of the folders inside of them. For example, I didn’t list all of the folders for the many boxes of publications. I knew that any researcher looking for a newsletter or magazine could find what they needed in the labeled boxes and all the folders within them were in alphabetical order. My finding aid ended up focusing entirely on the documents and a small portion of the books. The photographs, audiovisual items, oversized materials, and ephemera needed to be left for another time.

Since the late 1800s, the MSPCA has published annual reports detailing the major accomplishments of the past year. These reports are readily available for researchers.

That time came less than two months after I submitted my finding aid and graduated. I became a consultant in February. I work a few hours a week helping Jan Holmquist keep up with the archive. This includes processing new materials, adding to the finding aid, researching the history of the MSPCA, and finally being able to go through all the materials I missed last time around. The project I’m most excited about is going to various archives and learning more about Emily Warren Appleton.

Animal welfare activism has grown in the last decade, and while Massachusetts has been on the forefront of this issue since 1641, the history isn’t too readily available yet. I know that my work will change that. The past will become more accessible to researchers and activists will be able to learn about how far animal welfare has come in almost four hundred years.

March 5, 2018Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Pilgrim’s Progress: An Interview with Rebecca Griffith

By: Molly Liolios

Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, MA. Photograph by Giorgio Galeotti

Hidden in the lower levels of Pilgrim Hall Museum and camouflaged among the exhibit of the Pilgrim journey is a door leading to the archives. There is a series of makeshift offices, built of plywood and filing cabinets. This is where curator and archivist Rebecca Griffith spends her days.

Museums have held a place in Becca’s heart for the majority of her life. As a child, her family would often vacation in areas of historic interest, attending museums of various collections. There, Griffith would spend hours analyzing the artifacts, taking in every detail, carefully reading the descriptions and that sparked the start of her fascination with material culture. “I had always loved books and reading, and of course history,” she said with a smile. She credits and her undergraduate internship for solidifying the idea of archives as a career.

“I cataloged a book collection in this weird place in Philadelphia, it’s called Fonthill Castle, and it’s this very eccentric bachelor who built this concrete castle in the suburbs of Philadelphia,” she remembered fondly. There was an assortment of tiles he made from his business as well as his collection of incredible rare volumes form the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was these books that started Becca on the road towards becoming an archivist and inspired her to pursue graduate school.

Fonthill Castle, Doylestown, PA. Unaltered photograph by James Loesch, https://www.flickr.com/photos/jal33/5437285992

Griffith attended Simmons College and earned a degree in Public History, wanting to continue to work with both paper documents and three-dimensional objects. It was there that she learned the skills to be able to interpret history for the public as well as archival and object handling. She put these skills to use with an internship at Pilgrim Hall Museum, which led to a full-time job with the departure of two directors, the curator, and the retirement of their archivist. Her title is Associate-Curator but she does the work of two departments, not only creating exhibits but also performing all duties with the museums archives. She credits good luck with her position as a fairly recent graduate as the competition for jobs in the field is very steep in this area, joking “you just have to be at a place and show that you’re useful so they’ll want you around and eventually they’ll start paying you.”

Rebecca began to remark on her current job at Pilgrim Hall, talking passionately on how she loves what she’s doing, the excitement and the activity never leave her a dull moment. She receives the most enjoyment out of learning about the history of the objects and documents she works with, stating that she learns something new with every acquisition. The Pilgrim Hall archives covers a broad assortment of documents, beginning with seventeenth century documents and ending with current donations from various clubs and organizations around Plymouth. “Archivally, we really took on the role of the Plymouth Historical Society [there isn’t one] and really just collected everything Plymouth related document wise.” She continued with their extensive photograph collection with the majority containing pictures from the 1800s.

Mayflower passenger William Brewster’s copy of the works of Seneca found its way into the collections of the Pilgrim Hall Museum

Wanting to get an insiders opinion, I asked what her favorite item in their possession was, especially as they have such an extensive archival collection. She surprised me with a book not transparently connected to the Pilgrims at all. It is a 1614 edition of the works of Seneca, a Roman naturalist and a favorite of the Pilgrims. However, it wasn’t the subject matter of the book that constituted it as her favorite; it was the clear provenance of the book. The inside front cover catalogued the history of who owned the book previously and exactly how it came to the following owner, which included William Brewster. An artifact such as this is unique to collections as there are usually mysteries surrounding the objects. Griffith noted that although artifacts like this are great for a number of reasons, she enjoys uncovering the history of documents, adding that without it, the job would be very boring. And thankfully, the majority of artifacts in their collection have a mystery to them.

As Pilgrim Hall is the oldest continuously operating museum in the country, they have been collecting items for over two hundred years, and with that have seen a change in museums standards and record keeping. Griffith and her interns have attempted to piece together the history through museum records, combing through boxes to try to and find any information, which was time consuming as their records are not digitized. However, the interns have begun the tedious process of digitizing their photo collection and transcribing museum records for online consumption. There is no current program in place, but Griffith hopes to have it up and running by the fall of 2018.

Currently, Plymouth is gearing up for the 400th anniversary of the landing of Pilgrims which has left Griffith with little time for anything else. Pilgrim Hall Museums is currently in collaboration with Plymouth 400, a committee solely dedicated to the celebration, to create a community needlework tapestry showcasing the history of Plymouth. She hopes that this creation will not only be a commemoration of the event but a tangible artifact that will last for the next hundred years and beyond.

1620 stamp on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth will celebrate its 400th year in 2020.

As the conversation about the upcoming celebration events dwindled, I asked Becca what the greatest advice she was given, hoping that she could pass on this wisdom to this up-and-coming grad student. She began with advice on publishing, saying to find a newsletter, journal, or magazine that will accept your work. “Pick something you’re interested in and get it published…get your name out there.” She said not to be discouraged at failure or rejection, whether it be from a job or journal- that it will happen and that’s okay. With each answer of no there’s a new opportunity waiting in the wings, and to remind yourself that you’re doing what you love to do, closing with the fact that “you’ve picked this particular field for a reason because it’s something that you’re passionate about. Don’t forget that.”

As she led me back through the exhibit and up the stairs we paused to look at her most recent exhibit on wedding dresses from the 1600s through 2010s. She reflected on it fondly, emphasizing the hard work and long days it took to complete it but highlighting the joy and feeling of achievement it gave her. As we said our goodbyes, I found myself replaying the words she had said about passion, clearly reflected in her work, and I felt a new sense of excitement and determination in me in regards to my own path. And who knows, maybe one day I’ll be sitting across from an archival history grad student answering their questions and, hopefully, filling them with a zest for discovery and pride in their work.