Black History Museum Graduate Intern

Graduate Intern for The Alexandria Black History Museum Collections

Summer 2023

Overview
The Alexandria Black History Museum is currently undertaking a two-year project to digitize, interpret, and make four of our important archival collections publicly accessible. Documents, photographs, objects and other material from Alexandrian activists Ferdinand T. Day and Annie B. Rose, Washingtonian opera singer Ben Holt, and public relations icon Moss H. Kendrix are being digitized. The digitization process includes creating or updating catalog records in the museum database PastPerfect, and scanning or photographing collections items, resulting in records with images for public access.

As part of the project the Museum will produce a series of small online exhibitions that will explore the stories of these individuals from the archives and their respective roles in the overarching theme of civil rights and equity. These archival collections contain a wealth of material that will allow the Museum to better tell the story of the civil rights movement, self-empowerment, the African American image in American society, and the re-positioning of the African American in the wider American culture.

The project is partially funded by the IMLS Museum Grants for African American History and Culture.

As part of this project ABHM is delighted to offer a paid 13-week internship. The internship will encompass the full range of tasks from sorting and digitization of the primary archival material to the researching and production of an online exhibition. This internship is ideally suited to anyone with an interest in archival management, museum collections management, public history, curatorship and/or digital exhibitions.
Working with the project team under the supervision of the Director of the Alexandria Black History Museum, the intern will process, digitize and produce a researched online exhibition on a topic or theme from the Kendrix Collection.

The internship project will cover the following processes:
1) Processing of a section of the Kendrix Collection, including sorting, rehousing, physical numbering collections items where necessary.
2) Scanning or photographing the original archival items
3) Cataloguing the archival items by creating new or updating existing database records for the archival items in PastPerfect including attaching digital images
4) Researching an exhibition subject using original archival material from the Kendrix Collection and other resources
5) Creating an online exhibition (in PowerPoint) about the subject and the Kendrix Collection

About the Department
The Office of Historic Alexandria (OHA) enhances the quality of life for city residents and visitors by preserving and interpreting Alexandria's historic properties, archaeological sites, cultural resources, artifact collections, objects, archives, records, and personal stories and by encouraging audiences to recognize Alexandria’s diverse historic heritage and its place within the broader context of American history.

Minimum & Additional Requirements

All applicants must either be enrolled in an accredited HBCU and have completed at least two years of academic coursework (60 credit hours or equivalency); have earned a Bachelor's or master's degree within the previous two years from an HBCU; or currently enrolled in an advanced degree program from an HBCU with museum and/or history course-work; proficiency in MS Office Suite reflective of their tier of education.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience in scanning and documenting historic documents and materials, using Past Perfect application as well as collection-management classes.

Notes

This is a temporary position (13 weeks) with 40 hours a week and the possibility of a flexible schedule where possible.

This is a City match partially funded project to a Museum Grant for African American History and Culture from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.