HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar S26 – Bryn Mawr College

Cade Fanning, HC ’26

Praxis Course:  HART B420: Museum Studies Praxis Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor:   Monique Scott

Community Partner:   Historic Annapolis   

Praxis Site Supervisor:   Katie Turer

Praxis Poster: 

HART_CadeFanning_compressed

Further Context: 

This semester, I interned at Historic Annapolis, where I researched the free and enslaved Black craftspeople who worked on the James Brice House. James Brice was a wealthy Annapolitan planter, a prominent local politician, and a member of the city’s elite during and after the Revolutionary War. Between 1767 and 1774, he oversaw the construction of his mansion in downtown Annapolis. Historic Annapolis secured the site in 2014, and embarked on a painstaking restoration process in 2016 that continues to this day.

I was tasked with researching the free and enslaved Black craftspeople who built the house in order to create an interactive touchscreen exhibit. Unlike most contemporary American elites, James Brice was a meticulous record-keeper who recorded nearly every transaction in account books and inventories that survive to this day, creating a wealth of primary sources that is further supplemented by the ads he placed in the local newspaper when a bound worker escaped. Much of my research involved sifting through these primary sources and gleaning information about the craftspeople’s work and lives.

I also conducted significant secondary research in order to situate my primary findings within the context of the era. I attended lectures and explored exhibitions, articles, and books on the topics of colonial craftsmanship and enslaved craftspeople. Deepening my understanding of contemporary systems of free and enslaved craftsmanship allowed me to connect the Brice House laborers to the system of social hierarchy and labor in which they operated. Historic Annapolis’s Comprehensive Interpretation Plan for Brice House presented the organization’s goals for the site and the message they wished to share with visitors, and I focused on connecting my research to that plan.

I discovered that apprenticing enslaved laborers to skilled indentured or convict craftspeople was a common practice among wealthy enslavers like James Brice: it increased the enslaved person’s value and allowed their enslaver to rent out their labor and collect their wages. In short, enslavers viewed it as an investment in their property. However, enslaved craftspeople used their skills to develop their craft and redefine themselves as individuals, not as assets to their enslavers. Their skills allowed them to improve their socioeconomic standing, sometimes even obtaining their freedom and establishing generational wealth.

I used my research to develop a plan for an interactive touchscreen exhibit for the Brice House. Allowing visitors to interact with the stories and accomplishments of the free and enslaved Black craftspeople who built the house reflects the core tenets of the participatory museum—it transforms the museum space from a place of presentation to a place of dialogue. The interactive exhibit involves visitors in their stories and connects them to the history of not just the house, but also to the people who built it.

Ingrid Layman, HC ’27

Praxis Course: Museum Studies Praxis Seminar   

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Professor Monique Scott   

Community Partner: Wexler Gallery

Praxis Site Supervisor: Maeve Daly

  Praxis Poster:

HART_IngridLayman

Further Context:

My work this semester at Wexler Gallery was largely behind-the-scenes as I performed database maintenance, an area the Gallery needed support in since their team is small! Wexler Gallery is one of many art galleries in Philadelphia focused on interior design (furniture, painting, sculpture, mirrors, etc.). The gallery is located in Fishtown, a neighborhood known for its arts, culture, and food scene, although Wexler also maintains a showroom at the New York Design Center in New York City. Wexler Gallery exclusively represents 30 artists from around the world working in almost every medium imaginable.

My main projects at Wexler were to update client files, add new art pieces into ArtBase, and update already-existing inventory records. These were done on a weekly basis, but I also sat in on meetings with artists to discuss forthcoming work, helped host an exhibit opening of Malcolm Mobutu Smith’s ceramics, uploaded object information in PDF form to the gallery website, and drafted communication highlighting new artists and exhibits to be sent to the gallery’s client list. I also worked with the online platform1stDibs to help list the gallery’s pieces for online purchase.

I enjoyed the regular routine of database work and never knew what to expect when I arrived at the gallery, since the day-to-day was always changing. Sometimes it would be me and the salesperson; other times the whole office was there, including the Sales and Marketing person, who is located in New York. The projects were also always changing, so my work was varied and allowed me to interact with all sides of the gallery’s work.

Some of my favorite aspects of my time at Wexler Gallery were getting to know my supervisor and the other gallery staff. They really made me feel like a member of the team and provided me with a much richer understanding of galleries’ roles in the art world than I had previously. I now understand how artist relationships are fostered, how much a gallery can do to advocate for the artist when museums and private collectors inquire, and how everchanging the art landscape really is. I recognize the importance of exposure to currently-working contemporary artists, and the role of the gallery in increasing their recognition by private sales and museum acquisition.

Diana Escobar, BMC ’27

Praxis Course: Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Professor Monique Scott

Community Partner: Public Trust

Praxis Site Supervisor: Aaron Levy

Praxis Poster:

HART_DianaEscobar

Further Context:

Having grown up in Philadelphia, a city considered the birthplace of American museums, the role museums play in communities and how they interact with the public has always been part of my interests. Being interested in the field, I sought out experiences to understand how larger institutions work. After in a various number of museums in the city, I had not experienced what it was like to be in a smaller, more intimate cultural nonprofit until my praxis this Spring with Public Trust. Located between the University of Pennsylvania and West Philadelphia on 40th Street and Walnut, Public Trust offers free programs on health, education, and ecology. It collaborates with artists, thinkers, and community members through public conversations and film screenings to foster dialogue around everyday issues. Taking a W.E.B. Du Bois approach of finding hope in times of hopelessness, its mission is to restore trust in collectivity and the
common good. Through this experience, I saw both the daily operations behind the organization and how care and reciprocity shape its community building.

During my time at Public Trust, I worked on a range of projects under Executive and Artistic Director Aaron Levy and Executive Assistant Jabriya Calabrese. One major project was the planning of a multi part installation by artist Daniel Faust, Presidents, featuring photographs of wax figurines of American presidents from museums in the United States and Europe. The exhibition will take up four walls in the front gallery. My role included measuring the gallery walls and sharing dimensions with the artist to ensure the prints fit, along with contributing to conversations about layout and adjustments. As plans developed, we had to balance the artist’s vision with practical concerns like accessibility. For installation, we explored alternatives to drilling into masonry walls, including using magnets. We also connected with installers who had worked with the Institute of Contemporary Art. Although the installation is still upcoming, the process required ongoing coordination and patience to prepare for a smooth install.

Another project I worked on was the book Curating Engagement, based on a 2025 retreat about engagement in cultural institutions. I helped finalize the manuscript for publication by reviewing the full text and editing for grammar, clarity, and formatting. Working closely with Aaron Levy and Jabriya Calabrese, we completed revisions under a tight deadline and sent the book to print. The release included an opening reception in Chicago, along with an excerpt published on Hyperallergic for outreach.

Alongside these larger projects, I supported day to day operations. This included drafting language for grant proposals such as those for the Warhol Foundation, helping build a bookshop section for the website, preparing technology and setup for public programs, and packaging and shipping books. These tasks showed me how essential this work is to keeping the continuation of Public Trust’s core and reach. They form the backbone of the organization, and through them I saw how much care and coordination goes into sustaining Public Trust’s mission.

Carrie Tananbaum, BMC ’27

Praxis Course: Museum Studies Praxis Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Monique Scott

Community Partner: Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History

Praxis Site Supervisor: Claire Pingel

Praxis Poster:

HART_CarrieTananbaum

Further Context:

This semester I worked at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in their curatorial and collections departments. I got the opportunity to work closely on their exhibition for the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, The First Salute: An Untold Story of the American Revolution. My main job was to complete condition reports for incoming loans for the exhibition. Condition reports are written records of the physical state of an artifact at a given time. These reports are extremely comprehensive and note every little detail about the object. They are written to hold the museum accountable so that the object does not get damaged
while on loan. I was lucky enough to handle many artifacts, from a copy of The Declaration of Independence to a 18th century Hanukkah lamp. It was super interesting to get to work with these artifacts as they truly brought history alive.

My time at the museum this past semester has been really fulfilling. I learned a lot about what it actually takes to have a career in the museum field. It was super interesting to see how collaborative it is to create and install a major exhibition. There were teams from all over the world working together on this one project. People had even been working on this exhibition for over a year. I was very fortunate to see all the hard work of so many people come to fruition. This experience was one that will last me a lifetime.

Laurel Gabbard, BMC ’26

Praxis Course: HART B420 Museum Studies Fieldwork

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Monique Scott   

Community Partner: The Fabric Workshop and Museum

Praxis Site Supervisor: Justin Hall

Praxis Poster:

HART_LaurelGabbard

Further Context:

This semester, I have been interning as an Archives and Collections Intern at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. FWM is a small contemporary art museum, founded in 1977, originally operating as a print workshop for artists. It officially became a museum in 1996. The museum has incredible rotating art exhibitions, while also priding themself on their artist-in-residence program and their extensive community programming.

In my time there, I have been working primarily in the archives on a couple different projects. We began the semester working on photography of banners held in FWM collections, primarily from artist residencies. I then worked to upload items to the CollectionSpace database, and finally, these images were uploaded to the FWM website so the public can better access what is held in these collections. I have also been photographing and recording items held in Artist Boxes, which are filled with items from these artist residencies, in order to catalogue what is held in the museum. In these past few weeks, I have also been assisting in exhibition installation and de-installation. I helped de-install a Moki Cherry exhibit and have since helped with condition reports and installation for other upcoming shows.

I have gotten a lot of great experience in hands-on archival work, and I have loved getting to see so many different aspects of museum work, from digital media and photography to archival organization, to data entry, to exhibit installation and de-installation! I have formed great connections with professionals at FWM and feel very lucky to have had this experience with such a great supervisor! It has been incredibly engaging, and I loved my time here!

Willa Bywater, BMC ’27

Praxis Course: Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Monique Scott

Community Partner: Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Praxis Site Supervisor: Anthony DiGiovanni

Praxis Poster:

HART_WillaBywater_compressed

Further Context:

This semester I worked at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a research library and archive and has one of the nation’s largest collections of American history. While it primarily functions as a research space, it also has exhibits in the lobby which are free to view, and often hosts events for the community or tours for interested local groups.

Although the museum is already in possession of over 600,000 printed materials and 400,000 graphic items (photographs, prints, etc), they’re still collecting new items! One of their recently acquired collections was the Louise G. Saxton Music Collection, donated by a board member in memory of her mother. The collection consists of primarily sheet music, but also a handful of other papers relating to music or church activities. It was my responsibility to start the cataloguing process–I’ve never done cataloguing before, so I learned a lot along the way!

As outlined in the poster, the process was complex, but pretty straightforward once I got it down. My boss would give me the stack of items to be catalogued, and I would go through and run a search in the library’s online catalog, Discover, to make sure we didn’t already have a copy of any of the items. Once I’d confirmed that, I would start the individual cataloguing process. The first step was to use the software OCLC Connexion to look through WorldCat to see whether anyone else had cataloged each item before. I had no idea that WorldCat existed, and it was
pretty incredible to see–it’s a massive database of cataloged items from libraries everywhere from the US to France and Germany and Denmark. It truly gave me an impression of how important sharing resources and information is to library work. Sometimes I would find a catalog for the item I was looking for that had been made in 2019–sometimes I would find one from 1995. One particular library kept popping up because they also had a music collection named for a specific donor who apparently had a lot of the same music taste as Louise G. Saxton!

If a catalog already existed–which usually it did–I would “copy catalog,” taking the existing information and editing whatever I needed to or adding information if it was missing. Often existing catalogues didn’t have a call number, for whatever reason, so I’d have to go search the Library of Congress list of call numbers to find the right one. (Fun fact: the system of records used for cataloguing, called MARC records, include numbered fields for specific information. There’s one field, 050, that’s used for only call numbers assigned by the actual Library of Congress themselves. Everyone else–even if they’re using the LoC system–has to use 090! No touching the Library’s special field!)

If no existing catalog for this item existed, this was very exciting–and scary, because it meant I had to “original catalog” and make it from scratch! Sometimes I wasn’t working entirely from scratch–once or twice there was a catalog for a copy of the item that was just from a different year, or had a different singer featured on the cover, and then I could essentially copy catalog even if I was making a new record. But there were a few times where I truly had to put in all the information by hand, and that took a long time. Either way, once that process was done, I would update the holdings and export the newly copied or created record to Alma, the library system that we used (shared with UPenn). I’d add the call number and location in Alma, release it to discover, and then write the call number down in the physical copy.

It sounds complicated all written out like this, but it was something like 75% copy cataloging, and it got pretty rote after a while. However, working at the Historical Society was never boring! I did all the work I mentioned above while sitting at the front desk with a reference librarian, so whenever a patron came up to us asking for help, I got to listen in. We get a lot of people coming to the Historical Society with questions, ranging from “I know the specific item I want, how do I get it?” to “I want to learn about this very broad topic. Give me everything!” (We can’t.) Generally, step one was to direct people to either our physical catalog or our online catalog, and help them narrow down their search. Once they had some items, we had them fill out a call slip, and then they’d go into the reading room, give the call slip to the person at the desk, and have their item paged for them so they could read it. Sometimes the items they wanted were in “open stacks” (still in the reading room, but accessible to anybody and not needing to be paged), and then they could go in there and read it themselves. I got a feel for this workflow eventually too, and started being able to help pick up the slack when we had multiple visitors wanting help at once. During my time at the reading desk, I helped a man search through our finding aids, helped a man export a scan of microfilm to a thumb drive (I got nervous when he asked for my help, because I knew nothing about microfilm, but thankfully I do know how thumb drives work!), and patiently explained to a very frustrated woman that there are numerous places called Christchurch in Pennsylvania, and if you’re looking for an ancestor buried in Christchurch Cemetery, it would be really helpful if you knew the county. Sometimes the help I could give people wasn’t related to the library at all–we had some elderly siblings come in with a fully fleshed-out genealogy inherited from their grandmother that they mostly wanted help formatting. We explained to them that we didn’t do that, but I recommended them a free website that they could use to visualize it (which I had used for a different class at Bryn Mawr). Sometimes the help we could give was sending people somewhere else–we had one couple who wanted to find more about the history of their house, which they thought was on the National Register of Historic Places. I navigated to that register’s website (used in a previous class!), and looked for it, but we couldn’t find it, much to all of our puzzlement. Then I had a thought–I went first to the Pennsylvania Register of Historic Places, and then to the Philadelphia Register, and it turned out to be this last level where their house had been registered. I directed them to the Philadelphia Register to find the records of their house and continue their research journey.

Ultimately, I feel very happy with my time at HSP. I feel that I was able to get some good work done, and I definitely learned a lot about the inner workings of a research library. Cataloging is an admittedly tedious but nonetheless important part of the archival process, and I’m glad to
have some experience in it under my belt–and I can tell a Library of Congress call number from a Dewey Decimal now! What I took away from the experience most of all, though, was the degree to which libraries and archives rely on each other, and on communities, to function.
People often think of archives as hoarders of information, taking it and putting it in a vault to keep, but really archives are in the business of sharing information, among themselves and to others. OCLC Connexion is rightly named–it’s connection that keeps archives running, and the
sharing of knowledge that is their ultimate purpose

Sinclair Brown, BMC ’28

Praxis Course: Museum Studies Praxis Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Dr. Monique Scott

Community Partner: Arch Street Meeting House

Praxis Site Supervisor: Jennifer Gray

Praxis Poster:

HART_SinclairBrown-compressed

Further Context:

When I began my search for a Praxis internship site, as an art history major, I started with art museums and art related organizations—but none of them felt like quite the right fit for me. However, I met Jenn (my eventual supervisor) at a museum career fair and almost immediately felt that Arch Street Meeting House could be the right fit for me. Religion has always interested me, but I knew little to nothing about Quakerism. Further, ASMH was in the process of renovating their exhibition space ahead of the United States semiquincentennial, and I was excited by the opportunity to be involved in the process of exhibition design.

Arch Street Meeting House is a historic Quaker meeting house and burial ground that hosts both a local weekly Friends meeting and the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, an annual gathering of all of the Quakers in the region. As well as serving as an active site of worship, ASMH has converted the East meeting room and a smaller reception room into a museum space. In my opinion, the character of this space as simultaneously holding a significant historical legacy aswell as still being an active site of worship and community renders the museum even more relevant and impactful.

Upon starting my time with ASMH, I had the wonderful surprise of discovering that I would be working alongside two Bryn Mawr alums: Beth Tinker ‘97 and Isabella Dorfman ‘17. It was incredibly special to have the opportunity to learn from two alumnae with careers in my desired field of study! My primary responsibility at ASMH was assisting Beth, who is an independent museum consultant (meaning that she creates and coordinates exhibitions and surveys) in the final months of preparations before the April 30th grand opening. I had a wide variety of tasks, large and small, and each workday was a fun surprise!

My most significant project was the development and prototyping of a choose-your-own-adventure-inspired interactive exhibit that would educate visitors about evolving Quaker values in the 1700s. Visitors will imagine themselves to be Quakers in this time period, follow a path, and make decisions that will either allow them to continue or cause them to be “read out of meeting” (disowned) and therefore be ‘out’ of the game. Each ‘out’ point is accompanied by a real historical example of a Quaker being disciplined for the same offense. When I received the project, Beth had already conceptualized it and came up with a list of possible decision points. I researched the historical context surrounding the three topics/paths—for example, one of the paths deals with Quaker practices and beliefs surrounding enslavement, which shifted drastically within this time period—and shaped the decision points into a chronologically-driven flow chart that visitors could actually progress through. I also supplemented these decision points with many more based upon significant historical events or interesting instances of Quaker disownment that I came across. I then worked with Beth to prototype this exhibit by printing a mockup and encouraging museum visitors to try the paths. I collected observations of visitors’ behavior, as well as surveying them after they felt they had completed the activity. After implementing the feedback gathered here, the flow charts I designed have been sent to a graphic designer, who will adapt them to be printed on a large mat that visitors can walk across in the center of the exhibition space!

Some of my other favorite tasks were assembling a kids’ scavenger hunt (in which they follow fox-shaped signs, in honor of Quakerism’s founder George Fox), voicing suffragist Alice Paul for an interactive exhibit, transcribing a cursive note affixed to an artifact, and writing image
captions for the displays. I had plenty of less glamorous tasks as well, such as cleaning the 200-year old (and extremely dusty) benches and installing UV film on the object cases. As a whole, I feel that it’s incredibly fulfilling to know that I have left a lasting impact upon the exhibition space as well as the experiences of every visitor who explores Arch Street Meeting
House. More personally, I’ve truly loved my time at ASMH and all of the people I worked with, and found it extremely impactful in shaping my goals for my future museum career.

Georgia Svoboda, BMC ’26

Praxis Course: HART B420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Professor Monique Scott

Community Partner: Fleisher Art Memorial

Praxis Site Supervisor: Rachel Hsu and Gerard Silva

Praxis Poster:

HART_GeorgiaSvoboda

Further Context:
This spring semester I interned at Fleisher Art Memorial in South Philadelphia, one of the oldest community arts centers in the United States. Founded in 1898 by Samuel S. Fleisher, it continues to be dedicated to offering accessible art education to both young people and adults and has a strong relationship with the Philadelphia community, often featuring art from local artists and holding community events and programs.

During my time at Fleisher, the majority of my work was spent supporting the Young Artists Program (YAP), where every Saturday I worked directly with students aged 5-12. A typical day involved going to three hour and a half long classes, working under the direction of the teaching artists as I guided students through the project for that day. Although I had experience working with children in the past, working with children in an educational setting was a new experience for me, so I had felt somewhat nervous during my first day. However, I quickly became comfortable and was able to enjoy my time at Fleisher thanks to the welcoming atmosphere and friendliness of both the staff and students.

Two major projects at Fleisher I helped with were the Spring Open House and end-of-year Student Art Exhibition. For the Spring Open House, one of my main contributions was the creation of a press release that was sent to local schools and other community centers to advertise upcoming summer and fall classes at Fleisher. My other main contribution was greeting new students and their families at the Open House’s welcome table alongside two other interns. The Spring Open House was especially exciting for me as it was the first time I had helped out with a project like that one and allowed me to see how a non-profit such as Fleisher goes through the process of creating such an event. The end-of-year Student Art Exhibition was similarly exciting for me as it was also a new experience. It was also especially fun to be able to look back on and celebrate all of the artwork created by the students over the Spring Term.

Throughout my entire experience at Fleisher, my favorite aspect was the people I met. Working with the teaching artists and students strengthened my interest in community engagement, education, and accessibility in museum spaces. I am especially thankful to my Praxis Site Supervisors Rachel Hsu and Gerard Silva as well as Professor Scott and Tiffany Stahl for all of their wonderful help and support. The connections I formed at Fleisher allowed me to become much more confident in my leadership abilities and gain a deeper appreciation of all the work done in community non-profits.

Kenna Pettigrew, BMC ’26

Praxis Course: Museum Studies Praxis Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Monique Scott

Community Partner: Icebox Project Space

Praxis Site Supervisor: Timothy Belknap

Praxis Poster:

HART_KennaPettigrew

Further Context:

This semester, I worked as a curatorial intern for Icebox Project Space, an independent, artist-run gallery in Kensington. I secured my internship by cold emailing Icebox to inquire about whether or not they were open to hosting an intern, one of the co-curators, Tim Belknap, invited me to come see their current exhibition last winter, in December 2025. I saw the show, we had a brief meeting, and we were both fairly confident right off the bat that Icebox would be a good fit for me.

Throughout my spring season at Icebox, there were three different programs I got to participate in: an audiovisual experimentation series called Light and Sound, a collections research side project, and an annual video festival called 20/92. Icebox is an incredibly dynamic space, and patrons will find that the gallery space can look entirely different week-to-week depending on the current project.

During Light and Sound, which runs from late January to the end of March, Tim assembles an audiovisual platform using lighting design, video mixing, and an eight-foot-tall disco ball mounted on Icebox’s ceiling to bring in local performance artists, musicians, DJs, and anyone else attracted to the singularity of his platform to host events of every caliber. As an intern, working during Light and Sound looked meant getting hands-on coaching about how he does his AV set-up while a show is going. From there, I went on to independently run lights for upcoming performances, which was really exciting.

In between Light and Sound and the launch of their video festival, Tim and I worked on a side project he had going in Germantown – a curatorial project at the Madonna Art Museum. The Madonna Art Museum is an emergent religious art collection belonging to the Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Germantown. After a preliminary appraisal and a visit from an expert in Renaissance art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tim and I were able to use available information to do further collections research and prepare for a grand opening event scheduled for mid-May.

By the end of April, I received my final assignment: cataloguing entries for Icebox’s annual 20/92 video festival. As an art history major most interested in contemporary art who was concurrently completing my thesis on a feature film, it was such a welcome task to see what emergent filmmakers are trying worldwide. I learned a lot of valuable curatorial lessons by sitting down with Tim and Logan to discuss not just the artistic merits of each individual piece, but how they would fit thematically with other films we were considering admitting and, most importantly, how they would suit the immersive environment of the Icebox’s screening room. I’m very excited to attend the festival in mid-May and see all the films in their final form!

I greatly enjoyed my time as an intern at Icebox, and it was such an affirming feeling to be in a space that is so aligned with my interests and goals for the future as I prepare to graduate and enter the working world. I’m so looking forward to continued involvement at Icebox during my post-graduate life, when I’ll be living in Philadelphia!

Angela Coppola, HC ’26

Praxis Course: Museum Studies Praxis Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026   

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Monique Scott

Community Partner(s): Harriton House

Praxis Site Supervisor: Laura Carpenter

Praxis Poster:

HART_AngelaCoppola

Further Context:

This semester, I interned as a transcriber at the Harriton House, a historic house and landmark in Bryn Mawr. I found out about this internship possibility through the Museums Fair from last semester and inquired more about the praxis by emailing Laura Carpenter. Transcribing was not a skill I was accustomed with, but with my newer interest in archives, I thought it would be great to explore.

During the spring semester, I transcribed the daybook of Charles Thomson. His daybook was started in 1789, right after he stopped working at Continental Congress. From then on, his life transformed from secretary to agriculturist. By working on this daybook, the Harriton House seeks to achieve an accessable and searchable document for Harriton House visitors and members to use. In addition, through my project, I took notes on some of the names and location mentioned in his daybook. This information could potentially be used for a later project on a more in-depth look into Charles Thomson’s life. For some of this research, I had to explore consensus records and genealogical websites to learn more about a person mentioned in the daybook. I had never tried searching these types of websites before, so this experience was enlightening.

To summarize the history of the Harriton House, it was originally owned by a Welsh settler, built in 1702-1704. The house was named Bryn Mawr for “Big Hill” and sold to Richard Harrison. Harrison originated in Maryland where he owned tobacco plantations, thus the Harriton House was made into a plantation. After Harrison’s death in 1745, his wife Hannah Norris owned the property, it being managed by tenant farmers. After her death in 1774, the property was passed to Hannah Harrison who married Charles Thomson that same year. Thomson then become the owner of the property due to the inheritance laws at the time. It’s during his time owning the Harriton House that Charles Thomson wrote the daybook. I learned the history of the house throughout the semester and was able to connect it with some of the information found in the daybook.

Some of the challenges I encountered was re-learning cursive. Cursive was something I was taught in school, but I never properly incorporated it into my life. As such, I had to have a cursive alphabet out when I first examined the daybook. Over time, I improved my cursive comprehension to point where I no longer needed the alphabet out. I also had to understand the characteristics of Thomson’s writing to improve my transcribing skill. For example, I learned that Thomson writes his “T” a certain way, as well as spelling words wrong, like “drizle” for “drizzle.” In addition, I learned about old age vernacular for farming and building. These were some of the learning curves, I had to refine in the project.

I enjoyed interning at the Harriton House, as I was able to explore a separate field of museums studies. In this internship, I learned multiple skills, such as transcription, cursive, and genealogical research. I found the most rewarding part of my project to be personifying the author and people mentioned in the daybook. With this perspective, the daybook became less of a monotonous task and more of an intimate look at Charles Thomson’s life and relations. In addition, when transcribing in person at the Harriton House, I understood more about the daily behind-the-scenes of a historical house and small non-profit. I was able to sit in on interviews and view how the thought that goes into programming at the Harriton House. I think this project helped me figure out that I am interested in archive work and looking forward to exploring the possibilities in that career field.