In May, I will be finishing my History degree at Indiana University. Over the last three years, I’ve taken a myriad of courses on different periods and themes, searching for what subject might be my specialization. I’ll confess, I’ve never been drawn to any one subject. When asked “Do you have a favorite topic? A time period you’re really interested in?” I’ve never been able to give a straightforward answer. I always come back to one idea: the people. What did they eat? What did they wear? How did they cope with the unique trials of their time?

As a child, I was enchanted with my historical American Girl doll, Felicity. She lived in colonial Williamsburg, and came with a blue satin dress, a horse, and some period accurate tea cups. I daydreamed about living in her buckle shoes, learning how to cross stitch, resisting attempts to become a lady, preferring to ride her horse and spy on young Yankee soldiers.

The Art Institute of Chicago houses the Thorne Miniature Room, which contains 68 meticulously crafted recreations of famous cathedrals, grand halls, and bedrooms from throughout history (at 1/12 the scale of the real thing). Whenever I had the chance to visit, I spent all afternoon imagining what it might be like to put a sheet of hot coals under my bed to keep warm in a Tudor hunting lodge, or play with the miniscule dog just barely visible in the window of a house from Edo Japan. This preoccupation, with the beauty of humans and their things, led me to consider a career in museums. My motivation for studying history came from a desire to learn as much about people as I could.

There is one museum in Bloomington, four blocks west of campus, called the Monroe County History Center. I am very grateful that it exists. Moreso, I am grateful that I had the opportunity to work there as a Curatorial Intern this fall. On my first day, Gabby, the assistant curator, gave me a tour of the museum and storage area. Right in front of me were, in my opinion, the most valuable objects in the world: furniture, dishware, toys, letters, photographs, books, scrapbooks, vintage clothes and shoes and hats. They all came from people, who used them, whose loved ones used them, who all thought they were valuable enough to be remembered.

An exhibit I worked on for the first floor: “Fans: Fashionable and Functional”

Now they are here, dutifully preserved, where the community has the opportunity to learn about their stories.

Hilary (the head curator) and Gabby guided me through the many projects of my internship. They taught me how to accession new donations into our collection, and allowed me to sit in on meetings, where I learned about the process of acquiring and managing the items in a museum’s collection. They also gave me the opportunity to curate two exhibits of my own.

During these projects, I’ll admit I went down some research rabbit holes. I couldn’t resist reading the entirety of “The Epistle” ( the New Prospect Baptist Church’s congregation newsletter) while I cataloged it, to read letters to sons in Vietnam and attendance reports for the 1964 Vacation Bible School class. When doing research in the Herald-Times archives on local restaurants, I spent a little too much time admiring the graphic design of old advertisements. After completing my exhibits, I could now talk to you for hours about food preservation during World War II, or, if you prefer, the development of hand fan design since 1890.

I am now nearly done with my internship. I leave it with a greater understanding of the place I live, appreciation for the work of Monroe County History Center’s staff, and confidence in the value of studying history. I encourage you to visit the museum, to linger just a little longer in each gallery, to consider what it would have been like to go to a one-room schoolhouse, or live in a trailer in Woodlawn Fields. You will learn something about the world around you, and you will find something beautiful.

An exhibit I worked on in the Cook Gallery: “We Can It: The Tradition of Household Food Preservation”