An Interview with Meagan and Laura, Preservation Professionals, Part 2

For part 1 of this interview, click here.

Aaron: Both of you are on Linked-In, I believe I’ve seen you on Twitter a few times… you guys are already starting to expand your brand a little bit, so the website is on the ups. I’m glad to see that.

Meagan: I don’t understand Twitter, but I’m trying to participate in the National Trust’s Twitter Chat, You basically write something intelligent, and then edit it down into nonsense! We think in the future, if we have a better discussion board, I could get all my bloggers together, maybe in a video chat, and try to expand and connect people. We’ll probably be more involved in the future with media and the internet.

Aaron: What is your favorite part about your job? This could be working with the National Trust, this could be working in preservation, working in archaeology, anything like that. What is the best thing about what you do?

Laura: So, I’m an archaeologist for the National Park Service at San Antonio Missions, and I think the best part of my job, and why I always wanted to work for the NPS, is that you have a really captive audience. It’s not just an archaeologist out in the middle of the forest exploring a site! There’s always people who are really interested in history and archaeology who I can talk to. That’s my favorite part about my job.

Aaron: What about you, Meagan?

Meagan: My favorite part about being a preservationist is community activism. That there are people whom are mounting their own grass-roots campaigns and starting their own projects. You know, getting off the couch and thinking of something to do with a building; buying a building, saving a building, developing re-use plans because the city won’t pay for one on their own. I guess what’s interesting to me is getting to the point where the preservation can happen. You can’t redevelop the building until you know that it’s not going to get demolished. Just continuing to educate through positive events as well as protests about the importance of the building to individuals, to community groups, to elected officials. Just organizing that, and being a part of something. That’s why I run the blog; I love that I can put something online and a couple of thousand people will see it.

Aaron: Is there some project you’ve always wanted to pursue, but couldn’t because of a lack of time or budget? If you had a blank check and as much time as you wanted to do whatever project you wanted, what would your project be?

Meagan: One, it’s not always money, it’s a lot of hard work. Hist Pres is something we wanted to do, so we did it. I don’t necessarily use money as a retardant to my imagination. What I would do, I would love to own an historic building, I would love to live in it, I would love to have that building host my businesses. I would also like to host community meetings, or other events, with kind of an open-door policy. Either a small-business incubator, or a place where community groups can meet. Just to be a hub for community revitalization in a city. That might not be something that I would have to do on my own; in the future I would like to be a Main Street manager, like the manager of a business improvement district, or a community association that’s very active. But if I don’t ever find that job I would love to buy a building. It’s pretty simple, but I would love to do it.

Aaron: Maine is selling lighthouses, from what I hear! In your opinion, since preservation and/or archaeology are largely hand-on kinds of jobs, how important is the internet to the field as a job hunting tool, a source of industry-relevant information, and as a tool for public outreach? Let’s start with your website. I think that your website sort of answers that question, but go ahead and give me your thoughts, if you would.

Meagan: What we’ve found is that the majority of jobs that we post are not hands-on jobs. A lot of the jobs are education and interpretation, management, research… they’re not necessarily as hands-on as graduate schools will lead you to believe. And also, there are specific degrees in material conservation; honestly, chemists do a lot of that work. But [the internet] is essential for jobs, and also for ways to get involved. Laura had mentioned to me before we started that the internet is the only way to apply for government jobs. And a big majority of preservation jobs are government jobs. As an activist tool, I point to Egypt.

Aaron: That’s the example on everyone’s mind, I think.

Meagan: And actually, Buffalo’s Young Preservationists, which I am a part of, we started a Facebook but we also have a smaller community that gets emails and an even smaller one that gets texts. So I think that the internet fuels our ability for direct contact, but what I do in terms of advocacy is publishing at a national level.

Aaron: Let’s go to the second part of that. What do you think of the internet as a source of industry-relevant information?

Meagan: Well, the government sites for preservation, like the Advisory Council, is not a good website and is not updated regularly. Previously NPS was not very good; they’ve since updated. Statewide it varies; some states have searchable databases for National Register properties, some do not. I do not see the internet as the way to get the best preservation information; but preservationists still say to look at the National Park Service preservation brief. They haven’t been updated since, I don’t know. Before Laura was born! You know, the only membership, really is Forum,and that’s paid. So… I don’t know, really. There’s some great websites out there. I think that Preservation Directory filled a need as the preservationist’s telephone book. And Preservation Nation has a great blog and they’re updating their main website. Ever since their new outlet program kicked in, it will be a lot more about connectivity and getting people together. But it terms of technical information I would point to Association for Preservation Technology, and if you’re a conservator the AIC, etcetera, etcetera. I would still got to the professional organizations for real information.

Aaron: And what do you think of the internet as a tool for public outreach?

Meagan and Laura: NUMBER 1!

Aaron: A resounding number 1.

Meagan: There’s a couple of things I learned about advocacy through the internet. It’s really important to focus on your website; one. And then social media, because there are people who don’t have accounts, and they have ads, and they take down posts… I don’t put a lot of stock into fad social media. I think your website should be a representation of the best work your company or initiative can do.

Aaron: One last question for both of you. Do you have any advice for history professionals who want to do what you do?

Meagan: What do we do?!

[laughter]

Aaron: That’s up to you to decide! From what you’ve told me it sounds like, between the two of you you do pretty much everything.

Meagan: If you’re interested in historic preservation, I would suggest, if you’re still in school, seek out courses in architectural history or public history. Then, wherever you are, look for regional organizations that have a docent training program. Learn your downtown, learn about one specific building, but in a lot of cases you’re trained in the stock information to say to visitors. When I was working with Buffalo Tours, they had some very talented historians who in their own research came up with something, and then created a tour that became an official tour of Buffalo Tours. So if you’re interested in historic preservation, the good thing is there’s usually something happening. A friend of mine in Buffalo officially considers herself an activist historian. If a building is going to be demolished, she does all sorts of research. She’ll reach out to descendants who are still alive. She has the ancestry, genealogy and the research background to get involved. Laura, what do you think?

Laura: If you’re already a professional and not [in school]… I guess there are some classes that you can take that provide a little introduction to historic buildings. Like if you were a history professional focusing more on… non-building history!

Meagan: Well, you could try to find a certificate program, like the National Council for Preservation Education. Or you could find a docent program. Or there is one national organization called the Institute for Classical Art and Architecture, and they have a lot of classes but they’re very expensive. Depending on how much you put into it, I think there’s a way to learn about it. So, 1; seek out academics, 2; get involved.

Aaron: Sounds like good advice to me. Ladies, thank you very much for agreeing to sit down and go through all of these questions. You’ve given me a ton of information; I think I may actually be able to get two posts out of this!

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HistPres. Web. 19 Jan. 2013. http://histpres.com

An Interview with Meagan and Laura, Preservation Professionals

Meagan Baco is a Historic Preservation advocate currently working in Washington, D.C. Laura Burghardt is an archaeologist working at the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. Since graduating from the College of Charleston and Clemson University, the two have started HistPres.com, a website dedicated to Historic Preservation jobs and emerging professionals. Through a complicated linkup involving Skype, smartphones and Google Hangout, we were able to sit down one night and have a surprisingly audible conversation about their work and interests.

Aaron: I’m speaking with Meagan Baco and Laura Burghardt, and we’re talking about Historic Preservation, archaeology, and the internet. Good evening to both of you!

Meagan and Laura: Good evening!

Aaron: Let me start out by saying thank you both for agreeing to talk with me tonight. Can both of you tell me a bit about yourselves and your entry into Historic Preservation?

Meagan Baco: I guess I'll start. I was always interested in Historic Preservation, and before I went to [graduate] school I had a degree in “Urban Planning lite,” as I like to call it; an environmental design program. So then I went and I got my Master’s and met Laura. She had this great system of finding jobs and she used to send me jobs sometimes. So we decided to be entrepreneurial and see what we could figure out. We knew that the internet was obviously very important; none of our friends had a portfolio website, so we made our own portfolio website on iWeb and got our own domain names. And that was really the start.

Laura Burghardt: I think it was also a lot of frustration with the only available preservation job website being Preserve Net and Preservation Directory, which post really rarely and usually they’re jobs for people with a lot of experience. To find entry-level jobs, you had to check so many different websites; museum job sites and architecture. They were all in different places and it took a lot of work to get all of them together. To my mind, that was one of the biggest advantages to making our website, was that people could go to one space to find all of these jobs that are relevant and not just preservation jobs but jobs that are related enough to preservation so that if you had a background or interest you would be interested in those jobs.

Aaron: You mentioned that you had a system for finding jobs. Can you tell me a little about that?

Laura: I sought out websites that might post preservation-related jobs.

Meagan: Like state websites or SHPO (State Historic Preservation Office) websites. Once we found a place that had a job post, Laura bookmarked it.

Laura: At this point, I have more than 100 websites that I go to; I open them all in tabs. I go through all the new jobs that they’ve posted and look through each one to see if it’s relevant, if people who are interested in preservation would be interested in it. That’s how we find new jobs to put them in one place for people to find.

Meagan: So it’s not so much of a system as a lot of work! Laura usually does that over the weekend, because of work. So Laura will give me a pretty long list of jobs, and I will enter them into the back-end of our website and set an expiration date. So on a daily basis I’ll go through, check the expiration date, and post things that are going to expire in the next couple of days. It’s really the boring stuff that we do. I post like 5 or 7 every other day, and answer all the emails. I get every preservation newsletter I can sign up for, and I check those for opportunities and jobs. And then if I see something on Facebook or I get an e-newsletter about an awesome project, or a project that needs help, or a project that’s completed, I ask them to submit a blog, and so I manage the weekly blog. We’ve been doing that since last October, and it’s really one of my favorite parts of the job, and I think it’s really starting to come into its own. And we like that; we don’t want to be just a jobs board.  This next group of website improvements that we’re trying to raise money for we’re going to try to communicate what your projects are, trying to connect people nationwide who are doing interesting projects, or who need help, etc. Trying to connect people, to make it more of a hub than just a jobs board.

Aaron: How did both of you get drawn into Historic Preservation? What made you decide that you wanted to go into this field in the first place?

Laura: People ask me this a lot! I really don’t have a good answer, other than that I was so interested in the past; I used to play pioneer with my sister. That’s how I got interested in it. I think the reason I went more into Historic Preservation instead of History is that I like the historic aspects of conservation, and working on buildings.

Meagan: Laura, didn’t you know what school you wanted to go to before you went to it?

Laura: Yeah, when I was in high school I already knew that I wanted to get a Master’s in Historic Preservation. I flew through undergrad; I was so, so excited to get to Charleston.

Meagan: Laura’s exceptionally organized and plans ahead better than a lot of people do. In high school she was already thinking about grad school. It probably does come from whenever, in your childhood when you figure it out; it took me a lot longer. When I was a teenager I was into the environment and environmental sciences and that’s what I wanted to go to school for. But I didn’t really want to go into science, so I was going to go to school for either geology or geography. Geology is a lot of memorization, and geography is already settled. So, not much to do there! I ended up going to school for urban planning and realized that my favorite places were all historic places. So, that’s how I got involved. I took a year off between undergrad and grad, and my brother was living in Charleston so I looked up “Historic Preservation Charleston.” He said I would love it there. I applied to the College at Charleston and Clemson University Joint Program, and I went to school.

Aaron: Why would you say historic preservation is important?

Meagan: Well, there’s just so much in historic preservation. You can technically say what Laura does is historic archaeology, which I would say is almost historic preservation. Where she works, with the Park Service, she’s literally digging up new history to explore. Or you could be an architectural historian, doing more in the research library. You could be a preservation specialist; rebuilding or redeveloping a building. Or you could be a preservation advocate, which is what I am. I research, aggregate and promote historic preservation and related projects – all to make historic places, official or not, more appreciated, and better used. All of those things are quests for knowledge and education; it’s learning something new, it’s sharing it, and it’s exploring and investigating the importance of our lives, and other people’s lives. I think that not too many things are permanent, and I think that even fewer of them are of importance. To me studying how we used to live, and the craftsmanship… there’s importance to that. Someone laid that brick, someone designed that building. It’s just kind of amazing how disrespectful we are to a building that shows any sign of age.

Laura: That’s why I think that archaeology and historic preservation are so related. They deal with things that people left behind, and even though the people are gone, these are the things that are left; the archaeology and the buildings.

Aaron: It’s kind of a question of time periods, isn’t it? One of you deals with the older stuff, the stuff that’s been abandoned for some time, and the other deals with structures that were constructed more recently, that are still livable, by modern standards.

Meagan: I hadn’t thought of it that way, but yeah! Laura digs up the buildings and I try to make sure they don’t become those ruins!

Aaron: Can you describe a typical day managing your website?

Meagan: It’s a system where Laura looks up the jobs and I get the email and I input them all. And then I post them every day as they are set to expire. And then I go through my newsletters. What’s different about our website from other sites is that we don’t post everything. Preserve-Net probably posts everything that gets submitted to them; so does Preservation Directory. What we provide is a lens that says this is a job you’re probably qualified for, that seems interesting, and hopefully you’re getting compensated for. I try not to post a lot of volunteer positions. I post a lot of things that are events and professional development and webinars so people can develop their own career while they’re looking for work. I think that’s a situation that a lot of people are in. That’s the daily of the website, and we keep track of all of our expenses; we’re a business. We have to do the taxes; that’s a learning experience. We’re a registered LLC (Limited Liability Company), that’s a pain!

Aaron: And you’re both collaborating on this even though one of you is in, I believe, Buffalo, New York, and the other is in Texas?

Meagan: Laura’s in Texas and I’m in Washington D.C. now. Actually, the website never existed when we lived in the same place.

Aaron: What is it like collaborating over the web like that?

Meagan: Laura and I know each other pretty well, and we’ve been running it for a while. I’d say it’s pretty easy. If, one week, someone’s really busy and isn’t going to get to it… text each other. Call each other.

Aaron: At this point you’ve gotten past the trial period!

Meagan: Yeah, things are actually looking up. I think we’ve gotten the site to the point where it’s attractive to businesses and school to put some attention into it, in ads and sponsored narratives and things like that. It’s always going to be free. But we also do career consultation service; we’ve helped over 50 people with that, and that’s something we both enjoy doing. But we don’t want to keep making money on the unemployed. But they’re usually in school, and $75 in the great scheme of things is usually just a great night out. But we’d like to get some more partnerships that bring in money so that we can filter that back into improvements to the website. We don’t make any money on the website.

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Due to the huge amount of information that Meagan and Laura were able to provide me with, part 1 ends here. Come back next week to read part 2. If you can't wait that long, please voice your displeasure in the space below. It won't make any difference in the long run, but you'll feel better.

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HistPres. Web. 9 Jan. 2013. http://histpres.com.

Preservation Directory. Web. 9 Jan. 2013. http://www.preservationdirectory.com/HistoricalPreservation/Home.aspx

PreserveNet. Web. 9. Jan. 2013. http://www.preservenet.cornell.edu/

The Millerites and the End of the World

Written on Friday but mistakenly not published until Sunday!

Today is Friday, the 21^st of December, 2012. According to some people, the Mayan civilization long ago predicted that today is the day that the world will end, based on a very particular interpretation of the “long count” calendar. It’s now 6:47 PM in Massachusetts, and in some parts of the world it’s already Saturday the 22^nd. I would guess that the world will not be ending today, unless it’s waiting until some point later tonight, maybe after everyone’s asleep. Considerate, those Mayans.

A recurring belief about the end of the world is the ability of humanity to calculate when that end will arrive. Theories about coded messages cluing us in to our expiration date have pointed at sources like the ancient Mayan calendars and the Bible, and even lines of computer code (remember the Y2K scare back in 2000?). Often these predictions are prompted by mistaken interpretation of religious doctrine, sometimes they’re the result of pseudo-scientific theories regarding cosmic cataclysms or technological disasters. Underlying them all is a desire to understand humanity’s fate, and a belief in the power of people to do so.

In 1831, a young New York farmer named William Miller began a career as a preacher to the Baptist community in the Adirondack town of Hampton. Developing a keen interest in Scripture and Biblical prophecy, Mr. Miller soon began closely examining certain passages of the Bible, especially in the dream-like Book of Daniel.

As Miller explained later, “Prophetical scripture is very much of it communicated to us by [… ] highly and richly adorned metaphors; figures such as beasts, birds, air […] are used to represent things prophesied of—such as kingdoms, warriors, principles…”

Viewing scripture as coded prophecy, Mr. Miller then began the laborious task of figuring out just what the heck the prophecies were trying to say. Of particular interest was Daniel, Chapter 8, verse 14, which states: “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Believing this passage to be a literal warning of future events, Mr. Miller chose for the starting point of his count the year 457 BCE, the year that a Persian King named Artaxerxes issued a call for Jews to rebuild the destroyed city of Jerusalem (supposedly the “sanctuary” referred to in Daniel 8.14).

Mr. Miller than assumed the “two thousand and three hundred days” to refer instead to years. Beginning with Artaxerxes’s decree of 457 BCE and counting forward 2,300 years, he arrived at the prophesied year of… 1843. Further study of the Book of Daniel and related texts led him to the conclusion that 1843, or thereabouts, was the year that the world would witness the second coming of Jesus Christ and the beginning of the end times.

These beliefs had such a profound effect on the normally reserved Miller that he overcame his natural shyness to become an eloquent and forceful preacher. In 1833, the Baptist Church recognized his achievements by making him an ordained minister. In 1838, realizing that if his predictions were correct time was running out to save the souls of his friends and neighbors, the Reverend Miller published a series of lectures on his theories, entitled Evidence from Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ, about the Year 1843.

Evangelism was on the rise in America at this time, and the economy was slowing. Many Baptists and evangelicals in New York and western New England were enticed by the idea of Christ’s return, and thousands began to spread Miller’s teachings, earning for themselves the derisive nickname “Millerites.” Newspapers noting the event often referred to Millerites as “deranged” or “addled,” and the sect itself as “madness.” On September 21, 1844, the New York Weekly Herald expressed the hope that Miller’s day of doom would “hold up until we elect Polk.” of Eager to gain more followers, and perhaps stung by the ridicule, Millerites began to press William Miller to announce an exact date of the end of the world.

Somewhat reluctantly, the Reverend Miller announced that Christ would return to Earth in April, 1843, and that true believers would be called to Heaven on October 23, 1844. When a bright comet appeared in the sky in early 1843, it was believed by the Millerites to be God’s affirmation of their beliefs, and many began to prepare for the end.

In October of 1844, thousands of Millerites gathered in homes, underneath tents, and, in New York state, on the banks of the Hudson River. Without much in the way of food, possessions, or even clothing, they set their earthy affairs in order and, speaking to passersby and writing to the newspapers, urged others to do the same. By the time the 23^rd of October had come and gone, one confused group had supposedly inquired as to whether the appointed day should be reckoned in American or Jerusalem time.

Afterwards the 23 of October, 1844 was known as the “Great Disappointment” in Millerite lore, and although the movement didn’t completely die out, it left many sincere believers disappointed and disillusioned. In 1863, the remnants of Reverend Miller’s converts, working with other sects, were formally incorporated into the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, still practicing today.

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Do you have a formula for determining the end of the world? Leave your answer in the space below, and be sure to show your work.

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Jones, Lindsay, ed. “Seventh-Day Adventism.” Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 12.2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005.

Miller, William. Evidence from Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ, about the Year 1843. Boston:  Moses A. Dow, 1841.

“News.” The Weekly Herald. New York, NY: September 21, 1844.

Scharnhorst, Gary. “Images of the Millerites in American Literature.” American Quarterly. Vol. 32. No. 1 (Spring 1980): pp. 19-36.

GIS, General Lee, and the Future of Historical Cartography

Unless you’re a professional geographer, you’ve probably never heard of a tool called Geographic Information Systems, or GIS. Until recently, unless you were a student or faculty member at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, you may not have heard of Associate Professor of Geography Anne Kelly Knowles. Readers of the December issue of “Smithsonian” magazine know her as one of the recipients of the 2012 American Ingenuity Awards, given to individuals recognized for “brilliant new achievements in science, technology, art and society.”

According to the GIS website, the program allows geographers to take location-related data, integrate it onto a map, globe or chart, and analyze and display relationships and trends over a geographic space. I realize that this doesn’t sound very exciting. But the way that this program is being used takes it out of the functional realm of Cartography and into a variety of different fields, including History.

Using the GIS program, Professor Knowles has made new connections between geography and history, applying historical data to maps and topographical charts. For instance, an elevation map of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, created in 1874. Using a scanned copy of the original, Professor Knowles created a highly detailed birds-eye view of the Civil War battlefield, highlighting strategic features such as buildings, roads, woods, and hills. By using robust GIS technology on an ordinary laptop computer, she was able to get the program to run a very complicated, but very revealing simulation.

Looking at the image, it’s hard to tell what all the fuss is about. You see elevations, some grayed out as if in shadow, some illuminated as if by the sun. You see landmarks infamous in Civil War lore; the Black Horse Tavern, the Union battle line, Little Round Top. The thing that stands out most, though, is a red dot marking the site of the Lutheran Seminary; the vantage point from which Confederate General Robert E. Lee stood to view the battlefield.

The illuminated parts of the landscape mark terrain that was within General Lee’s field of vision. The gray bits mark terrain that was hidden from Lee by Gettysburg’s hilly landscape. The GIS software has provided Professor Knowles (and 150 years of Civil War scholarship) with scientifically generated insight into Lee’s actions at the Battle of Gettysburg; actions that led to the Confederacy’s most iconic defeat.

For military historians, Robert E. Lee’s disastrous attacks on the second and third days of the battle have long been enigmatic. General Lee was one of the most celebrated generals on both sides of the conflict, a masterful commander with military experience dating back to the Mexican-American War. The terrain around Gettysburg should have suggested the danger of a frontal assault on Union lines. And yet, he made this mistake two days in a row.

To explain away Lee’s miscalculation, Civil War scholars have often criticized his subordinate general James Longstreet, the commander of the Confederate right. Longstreet has been accused of everything from incompetence to cowardice for his decision to lead his men on a protected but circuitous march on their way to attack the Union flank. But as Professor Knowles has shown, General Longstreet may have been able to see more of the battlefield and understand more about the tactical situation than General Lee did.

From his position near the Black Horse Tavern, Longstreet would have been able to see Union troops on top of the hill known as Little Round Top, the same hill that Lee had ordered him to attack. This pair of maps reveals that Lee had a very different understanding of the battlefield than did his subordinate, resulting in very different tactical decisions. Longstreet’s protected march may have saved the lives of hundreds of his own men, but it also delayed Lee’s strategic assault, allowing the Union line time to advance and prepare their defense.

Professor Knowles points out that the site where Longstreet’s men engaged the Federal defenders is illuminated, meaning that is was visible from the Lutheran Seminary. General Lee’s vantage point would have given him a good view of the bloody skirmish at the extreme end of the Confederate line, as well as Longstreet’s pained withdrawal. She speculates that the psychological pain of Lee watching his troops being killed may have affected his judgment the next day, when he ordered a costly frontal assault known as Pickett’s Charge.

GIS has also been used to examine Massachusetts history. The Director of the Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive in Virginia, Benjamin Ray, has inserted data on the 1692 witchcraft accusations into an interactive map showing the spread and distribution of the disturbances. He notes that the progression of the accusations is similar to that of a disease. You can see the interactive map here.

And the possibilities of GIS go beyond historical cartography, as well. Scientists use the program to study the frequency and pattern of earthquakes. Similar studies are being conducted on the ozone layer and climate change. On an anthropological note, GIS has been used to determine that early hunter-gatherer tribes may have deliberately chosen to settle where they could see the landscape around them, a trait apparently not shared by agricultural societies.

The purpose of Geographic Information Systems is to take a range of data far greater than the scope of a single human being and to put it into a visible, spatial form. In essence, it visualizes human history, far more effectively and reliably than any painting or movie ever could. Perhaps even greater achievements lie ahead.

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You can see Professor Knowles' Middlebury College webpage here. Do you think that you have greater strategic and tactical talents than General Robert E. Lee? If so… are you General James Longstreet? If so… what’s your secret? How in God’s name are you still alive? Answers to all these and more can be left in the space below.

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Ahmed, Akbar. “Cartography, Redefined.” Weekend. October 21, 2011.

Horwitz, Tony. “Mapping the Past.” Smithsonian. December 2012.

Symonds, Craig L. A Battlefield Atlas of the Civil War, 3^rd ed. Mount Pleasant, SC: the Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company , Inc., 1994.

“What is GIS?” ESRI: Understanding our World. Web. 6 Dec. 2012. http://www.esri.com/what-is-gis/overview#overview_panel

Winter is Coming: A Seasonal Worker's Tale

I realized the other day that even though Interpretation is just one of several topics I’m covering in this blog, it’s the category that I've focused on almost exclusively for the last few months. This is partly because Historical Interpretation is what I've been doing as a profession for the last three years; it’s my default setting. But also, honestly, I’m just not that interested in writing about these other categories. I started this blog largely as an extension of my job search, when it comes down to it I don’t really want to write about the job search itself!

In the last few weeks, however, my employment status has changed. The day after Thanksgiving, my seasonal appointment came to an end. I’m now working two volunteer positions in two different history museums in order to keep busy and learn new skills.

I've been advised by counsel that these are major professional events that should at least be mentioned in a blog revolving around a profession. Consider this post my resigned sigh.

November 23 was my last day as a seasonal interpretive guide at Boston National Historical Park. I figure that as the Department of the Interior is now a previous employer, I can specifically name them without worrying that I might say something compromising on this website. Since that last day, I've been busy learning the ropes for these two new volunteer positions.

The first one is in Archives. For 2 days a week, I will be processing, cataloging  and maintaining an extensive collection of primary and secondary sources relating to early Massachusetts history. I also get to repair old exhibits, and later in the winter I will have the opportunity to develop some new ones. The stacks are my oyster.

The second position is in grant writing. This will be useful experience; grant writing is of course all about convincing wealthy philanthropists to give poor institutions money to fund programming. Museums, much like people, like to have money. If you’re a person who can get them some, maybe they’ll decide to share some with you.

2 volunteer positions, 4 days a week. That leaves me with 3 days a week to continue job hunting, take care of personal business, and maybe have a weekend. A busy life, but a good one.

It’s been a week so far on this new schedule, and so far I’m enjoying it. I’m learning new skills, I pretty much set my own schedules, and I get to wear suit jackets and other grown-up clothes to work. No pilgrim suits or straw fedoras this winter for this cowboy!

That’s what I’m doing now. That’s what I’ll be doing for several months. I’ll post professional updates as they happen and if I think they’re significant enough to trouble you with, but otherwise you can expect a return to items of historical interest within the next few days.

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Are you a seasonal worker? Would you like to stand together in line at the Unemployment office and play Scrabble? Do you have any suit jackets you'd like to get rid of, size L and wide in the shoulders? Post a time and date in the space below and I'll swing by to pick them up.