My name is Jennifer Webb, and I’m a Keystone Intern. (“Hi,
Jenn.”) I applied for a PHMC internship in archaeology and GIS at the tail end
of my junior year at Kutztown University, where I major in history and
anthropology. When I received a callback from Janet Johnson, I was surprised
and pleased.
My time at the PHMC is split between Noël Strattan, who supervises
the Cultural Resource Geographic Information Survey (CRGIS) at the Bureau of
Historic Preservation, and Janet Johnson, a curator in the Section of
Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania. For Ms. Strattan, I entered and
corrected CRGIS artifact data that State Museum archaeologists had catalogued
over the years. My work for Ms. Johnson was a bit more varied, including data
entry; cleaning, sorting and re-shelving artifact collections; scanning old
archaeological journals; digging at Ephrata Cloister; assisting another intern
with a lithics and projectile point typology project; and attending a meeting
at Cornwall Iron Furnace.
Regarding the CRGIS, not only was the entire system being
overhauled, but in many cases the State Museum and BHP had received conflicting
data concerning archaeological sites. It was up to me to convert artifact
information to the new system (“brick”, for example, became
“architectural—ceramic”) and then resolve the differences between the data
sets.
Amy Jukus, the intern coordinator, diversified my days at
the PHMC by organizing several tours and field trips for the interns over the
course of the summer. These included a walking tour of Harrisburg’s historic
district, a special tour of the capitol building and a day trip to both Ephrata
Cloister and Landis Valley. In addition, Joe Baker, a Penn DOT archaeologist,
arranged a weekly seminar for Penn DOT and Keystone interns. During these
seminars, we learned about cultural resource management, heard amusing
anecdotes of Mr. Baker’s experiences in historic preservation, and attempted to
solve problems that might arise during the course of building a bridge or
widening a road. He also took us down to Washington Boro, so we could see in
person what we had been working on in theory.
Most of the internship was good, of course, but there was a slight
flooding problem in archaeology that occurred one evening that resulted in a
massive, multi-departmental effort to move and dry boxes of artifacts. And when
I say “slight flooding problem” I mean “a pipe the size of my torso ruptured”.
However, it was nice to see all the other PHMC employees coming down to assist
as we frantically relocated things. (Don’t worry—as far as I know, no artifacts
were harmed.)
Now that I have completed my internship, I am looking
forward to my senior year at college and then apply to grad school. I would
like to get a master’s degree in archaeology, but I may end up going for a
history degree or some other related field, depending on where I am accepted
and the programs offered.
Overall, it was a deeply educational experience that I would
certainly recommend to anyone interested in museum studies, cultural resource
management or historic preservation. The opportunities to meet and work with
professionals in the field, as well as the “extracurricular” activities that
allowed us to stretch our legs, were very much worth the commute!
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