Final Post

Reading List

Last weekend of the internship was Saturday and Sunday, but not the last week at the site. This summer’s stint has been eye opening experience into the daily operation of a historical site. I have been able to experience tour presentation, graphics creation, parking logistics, electrical strikes, broken elevators, more electrical strikes, fried air-conditioning, small-town politics and sharing the breath of territorial, state, national and international history that is encompassed in Chinsegut Hill. I jumped into the internship at the last second with the idea that I was going to work on some type of short documentary video. Well, to a variety of reasons that didn’t happen. Time being the biggest issue. What did happen was creating graphics for self-guided tours that will begin later this season in addition to learning to present the overwhelming amount of history that is part of this site.  

In presenting tours, I have learned and am still learning the volumes of stories that can be told about this site. We cover from the Second Seminole War to the Bolshevik Revolution, The Armed Occupation Act to the Jim Crow South, Votes for Women to Prohibition. Plus, a little bit of geography and agronomy. Each guest that visits have different backgrounds, interests and knowledge. Some just come to see the old house, some come to learn about its history, some come to argue about its history, and I am learning how to accommodate each guest the best that we can to give them the best experience we can provide. 

The video project has not been forgotten, just put aside after a series of unexpected delays, time to be able to complete it was running out. However, the site has been working on implementing self-guided tours that will need graphics in order to tell the story. This is an ongoing project that will have the drafts completed sometime this fall. From this I am learning to write or at least attempting to write in a very short and concise manner. It’s hard. Of the posters I have finished I am only really happy with one. The others need help in their verbiage. This is in part a reflection of my lack of depth of knowledge in some of the subjects. In order to write a little, you need to know a lot. I have a lot more to learn. 

What I am taking away from this summer is finding my niche, the topic that I know and can expound upon, but I think more importantly one I can write a little on and say a lot in doing so.