Week 7:
Nearing the End

July 14, 2021

Cataloging

This week was slightly shortened from the holiday weekend, so I only was in person for one day. The other intern had finished her internship so working in the museum was quieter than normal. I spent my day cataloging objects that had been gifted to the museum. The process was pretty similar to cataloging archives, which I had done before, so it did not take too long for me to get the hang of it. The only real difference was that it required taking and uploading pictures of the object to the museum’s database. This offered a bit of a learning curve and took me a while to get perfectly correct. From there, it was pretty much just a tedious task of uploading them to the computer.

Looking at the Big Picture

While working from home, part of what I did while working was continuing on the big research project I have been working on. Part of what I was focusing on to research was looking at the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth in the Juvenile Justice System and its relationship to the school-to-prison pipeline that affects students of color. It was interesting to shift my focus in this way, but many jarring connections reminded me why it was so important to really look at the big picture of the situation. By that, I just mean this is a really complex problem, so it is necessary to learn about all the little parts at play.

The Clark Family

The rest of my time working from home was spent researching material for another History Adventure video I will be making this week. This kind of initial research is probably my favorite part of this process. I ultimately decided on the topic of Susan and Alexander Clark. Alexander had sued the school board on behalf of his daughter. Susan Clark was the first black child to attend public school in Iowa. In fact, this case made Iowa the first state in the country to grant black children the ability to attend any public school. And as it turns out, her brother was the first black lawyer in Iowa, and her father was the second. It was honestly a fascinating family to learn about, and I am excited to teach about this family’s importance to Iowan history.

Nearing the End

A couple of days ago, I realized that at the time of me writing this blog, I only have a week and a half left of this internship. I am definitely ready to have a real break for the rest of the summer vacation. Because a lot of the work I am doing is really just research, I sometimes feel like this has just been an extra-long block class. Even still, it has been a lot of fun, and I honestly have learned a ton about Iowa’s history, so I have already gotten a lot out of this opportunity. I will be a bit sad to leave Iowa City too, I will definitely miss living in such a big town when I go back to Mt. Vernon in August.