2022 Mystic Seaport Museum Internships
Overview
Through the Reimagining New England Histories Project, The Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, Mystic Seaport Museum, and Williams College are using maritime history as a basis for studying the relationship between European colonization, dispossession of Native American land, and racial slavery. The RNEH interns have the unique opportunity to go behind-the-scenes at MSM and other institutions who are partners on the Mellon grant. Discussion seminars, staff partnerships, and hands-on projects in collaboration with museum experts introduce interns to the work of telling the story of New England maritime history more inclusively. Interns work at the Mystic Seaport Museum and partner institutions on projects related to the topic of the Mellon grant. Interns are engaged with the programming five days per week and have two days off each week. This is a full-time internship that pays a stipend with free onsite housing.
Designing Inclusive Experiences
To Brava and Back is an interactive, mindfully gamified visitor program designed by RNEH Interns. The experience invites guests to navigate the life of a mariner of color. Through Captain John Teofilo Gosalves’ story, visitors can learn not only about his life and his experiences, but the cultural influences of his Cape Verdean culture. During Summer 2022 RNEH interns researched the whaler and his culture, collaborated with museum living family members of the whaler to gain oral histories, and revised the program with feedback through rounds of test audiences at the end of the summer. The program launched through the Mystic Seaport Education department in September 2022.
Highlighting Diverse Narratives
Summer 2022 interns Anujot Kaur, Bridget Hall, Cheyenne Tracy, Liz Ferrara, Lydia Downs, and Spencer Krenitsky collaborated with Mellon partner institutions, researched diverse maritime narratives guided by experts in the field, and collaborated with exhibits teams to bring underrepresented stories to the grounds of the Mystic Seaport Museum. Living history gardens were planned with external partners to highlight BIPOC medicinal practices in an African Garden, and Indigenous traditions through a Three Sisters Garden. Museum panels and talks were crafted highlighting local indigenous boat building practices, as well as black oystering traditions featuring the life and story of Thomas Downing, the Black New Yorker who built his fortune as the Oyster King. As an act of reciprocity with RNEH partners, the Mellon interns created a digital inventory with the Tomaquag Museum. These students also brought a diverse reinterpretation of foodways to the Buckingham Hall House. As a start, they invited Silvermoon LaRose to share a Harvest Johnnycakes cooking demonstration at the Hall House. Interns also highlighted Black oystering stories in the Thomas Oystering House, and designed a new garden on the seaport grounds rooted in African and Indigenous Maritime culture that will be planted in October.
The program will be offered again during Summer 2023. Applications will open in November; click for more information.
“Thank you so much for this past summer! It was truly an amazing experience and I’m so happy that my first internship was surrounded by such a supporting team. Thank you for always being open to my thoughts and collaborating with me. I will totally miss the seaport and I’ll definitely try to come visit!.”- Anujot Kaur
“Thank you so much for such a wonderful experience at Mystic Seaport Museum this summer. It was such a privilege to work with you and the intern team this summer, tackling our projects both in the Museum and with collaboration from community partners. Working on the Reimagining New England Histories project was a dream come true, and I feel very lucky to have contributed in some small way to the wonderful work of this grant. It was also such a wonderful experience to work with the Tomaquag Museum, both with their collections and with Silvermoon - thank you for pushing to include these connections in the internship this summer.”- Bridget Hall
“Thank you so much for such a wonderful experience at Mystic Seaport Museum this summer. It was such a privilege to work with you and the intern team this summer, tackling our projects both in the Museum and with collaboration from community partners. Working on the Reimagining New England Histories project was a dream come true, and I feel very lucky to have contributed in some small way to the wonderful work of this grant. It was also such a wonderful experience to work with the Tomaquag Museum, both with their collections and with Silvermoon - thank you for pushing to include these connections in the internship this summer.”- Lydia Downs
“Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of an internship aimed to diversify museums, and for the opportunity to be able to meet and work with local indigenous communities. Thank you also for the chance to write a blog post for the museum that highlights diverse maritime figures, when it comes to my queerness and the LGBTQ+ community I am very passionate about making sure our voices and stories are told across the globe and in different professions. I had a great time getting to know Joe and was excited to be able to share her life with others.
Thank you and everyone for your guidance, feedback and just general support this summer. I had a wonderful time researching and learning about the amazing life of Joe Carstairs, thank you for giving me this opportunity to write a blog post for the seaport, I am always looking for ways to bring the queer community into new and different spaces.”- Liz Ferrara
“I cannot thank you enough for your dedication and enthusiasm you brought to the collections work you completed this summer. The unofficial number of Belongings you inventoried, described, labeled, and photographed resulted in 3,729 individual lines in the spreadsheet, which does not account for multiple parts (e.g. a,b,c) so I am estimating around at least 3,800 Belongings passed through your collective hands these past two months!! That's absolutely incredible.
You should all be proud of the work you completed. An unprecedented level of inventory, and as I have stated before, a full inventory has not been completed at the museum since 1981-1983.
An inventory-which is the absolute foundation of collections management is essential to the intellectual and physical control that allows us to know not only where everything is, but what it is as well and gives us accurate cataloging information… You also uncovered some truly interesting Belongings in the process, most of which I had never seen before, so it was a learning experience for all of us!...”- Anthony Belz, Museum Archivist/Collections Manager at Tomaquag Museum