I will be working eight hours a week - I feel like I should say playing because so far I've loved what I've been doing so much that it does not even seem like work. I have several projects which I'll be working on, including this blog. This blog is designed as a way to update my professors and mentors with the progression of my internship. Typically, students compile a journal or portfolio of their work. To me, blogging sounded like more fun, and it also lets a wide range of people keep in touch with me and learn about what I'm doing. I am hoping that this blog will simultaneously attract majors to the history department, promote the career center, and attract visitors to the archives. I am very excited to be working in conjunction with all of the people in these fields.
This semester I will be working on several projects including an ongoing project of the Arnold Archives dubbed "Bee mail." Mrs. Lillian Gross Brown, more commonly known as Mrs. Bee, served as the registrar at PC during the Second World War. She was the wife of Marshall W. Brown, one of the college's history professors who would later become the President of the college. During the war, Mrs. Bee organized a newsletter for those affiliated with the college who were actively serving with the armed forces. Her newsletters helped to keep the displaced "PC'uns" in touch with their PC family. This semester I will be looking at letters written to and by Mrs. Bee during WW2 in order to help the Arnold Archives continue their Bee Mail project. You can read more about Mrs. Bee and her newsletter on the Archives Website located here.
I will also be working on my own project, which I started this summer at PC Summer Fellows. Summer Fellows is a program conducted by the college each summer in which undergraduate students gather for two months and work with a faculty mentor on a topic of their interest. This summer I decided to research into my hometown, Laurens, South Carolina. In my research, I looked into the legacy of Confederate memory within Laurens County. Confederate memory, in the context of my work, refers not only to the way in which people remember the Civil War, but also what they have forgotten, as well as the many different legacies left of the War Between the States. This summer I interviewed several people in my community about this remembrance. Part of my work will be to transcribe these interviews and donate them along with my finished paper to the Archives. Alongside this transcription I am enrolled in a directed study to further my knowledge on the subject of Confederate memory and I plan to do Honors level work on this subject.
Other duties I will gladly perform while I am here include giving tours of the Founder's Library and the Isabella Arnold Collection. The former being the personal library of William P. Jacobs and the latter being the collection of relatives of Stonewall Jackson's. I will also be doing clerical work, including archiving, cataloging, and photocopying of documents as well as helping to update the displays located outside and within the Arnold Archives. Overall, I am very excited, and I eagerly anticipate getting started.
I would like to take a minute to extend thank-yous to the people who have helped me so far. Lynn Downie in Career Services was very helpful in pointing me in the direction of this internship and has been more than gracious in letting me worry over my future and gush about my Civil War research to her in the past few months. Dr. Alan Shackelford is serving as my internship adviser and has also been my adviser in my Confederate memory research. He has always had an open ear and a helping hand toward my endeavors. He and the rest of the History Department have always been there for me. I am thrilled to be working with Mrs. Nancy Griffith and Sarah Leckie in the Archives. They have been nothing but help and kind words since I began talking to them about this internship last spring. Thanks!
Well, that's it for my first post. I hope to update everyone soon on my first few days at work! Happy reading!
I meant to comment here the first time I came to your blog, but haven't yet done so.
ReplyDeleteThanks for such an interesting way of presenting your journal!