Fort Roberdeau has been busy with visitors over the past few weeks. I have had the honor of serving as tour guide for many visiting families, including my own. My family came to visit me and take a tour for the first time, and I can admit giving a tour to someone you know is much more stressful than to someone you have never met. Since school is out for the summer a lot of the tours I am giving are to families with small or school age children. Making the children exercise their imagination and their thinking skills in a museum context is something I enjoy. I encourage children to ask questions, guess what an object was used for, or remember information I stated previously in the tour. Fort Roberdeau allows children of any age to relate and have a personal experience with history. As a little girl who loved going to historical places; I can see the same sense of wonder and interest in the children I give tours to that I had as a child. Being able to adapt your tour to an age group or interest of the visitor is a skill not to be overlooked. I also had to adapt my tour when my boyfriend came to visit me, because he wanted to start in the fort rather than the exhibits. Each tour is never the same, though carries much of the same information. Having the ability to create my own tour, what I will focus on, and how I will start and end my tour, gives me the freedom to excel as a museum studies student and apply my education. I also am always asking questions and learning new information to add to my tour. I am currently learning fan talk, how upper class women would flirt with men in the 18th century. I constantly have funny and insightful interactions with children. From the child that wasn't happy he would have been the last to take a bath in the same water his family would have before him in this time period, to the child who wanted to hold my hand in each cabin, each child gets special treatment on my tour. Many of the museums I have worked at during this internship have wanted to utilize my past museum studies education. Railroader's Memorial Museum asked me to write down ways that their exhibits could be updated, Baker Mansion has worked with me on conducting a research project on the architecture of the mansion itself, and Fort Roberdeau has asked me to create a new museum exhibit plan incorporating ideas of many of the other workers there. Each of these projects allows me to learn and soak up knowledge from each museum and allow me to apply my past knowledge. If you are ever in Altoona I would highly recommend a visit at each of these wonderful museums. Each of them are dedicated to preserving and presenting history for generations to come. I am so happy and grateful to have been a part of the history of each of these museums.
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Interesting things are always happening at Fort Roberdeau and I am so blessed to be a part of it! The 4th of July event at Fort Roberdeau always draws a crowd and brings the community together. I worked in directing traffic and answering questions about exhibits. I met two little girls who were interested in George Washington and I told them about his connection to the Fort. Seeing the children engaged with history always brightens my day. I like finding different ways to relate the information to the public, by finding their interests and catering my tour to them. The weather caused us a problem for a little bit, but many people stuck it out with us. Another day I gave a tour and later overheard a little boy relating to his mother what I had told them during the tour. Knowing that what I told the children stayed with them makes me happy. I remember going to a living history place as a child and I still cherish the memories from going there. I hope the children that visit Fort Roberdeau remember the memories they made there. I believe it is not the child's job to be engaged, it is the tour guide's job to engage the child with history. One day we had a summer camp visiting the Fort. On days where summer camps or school tours visit the fort various tour guides give demonstrations on how life was like in the 18th century. I worked at the station titled Toys and Games. I love being in creative control of a station and determining what toys and games I will set out and explain for the children. I had fun playing with the 3rd and 4th graders, showing them what toys they would have played with in the 18th century. I reminded the children that if they lived in the 18th century their chores and helping their parents would have to be completed before they got to play. I had the children tell me if any of these toys or games are still played today and what they are called today. Seeing children that are so used to playing on a phone engage with real hands-on toys was a joy to behold. One little girl in particular was fascinated by corn husk dolls and bought a kit to make one in the gift shop. Another day at the Fort me and the other interns were given the job to come up with ways to change the current exhibits. We came up with really good ideas that we are working to implement within the museum. I have started learning "fan talk", a way that women of the time period talked to one another and men when they were not able to outright speak due to the restrictions of their gender. I want to incorporate this skill into my tour guide presentation and have already had some visitors express their interest in also learning the language of the fan. I am always trying to learn new things to incorporate into my tour to better engage visitors with history. Faux Windows at Baker MansionBaker Mansion still holds many secrets for the people that work there today. I happened to be one of the lucky people to bring one of these secrets to light. When the Mansion was restored it was determined that some of the windows on the outside or facade of the house are faux or fake. Meaning though there are shutters on each window, making them appear as if they open into the inside, in reality they do not. The faux or fake windows were created to serve as enhancements to the outside or facade of the house, making it appear visually pleasing from the outside. As you can see from the picture above, when the window shutters are closed you cannot tell the difference between the fake or faux windows from the real windows. Four of the windows on this side of the building are faux or fake. I was given the task of determining which windows are real and which are fake, and then labeling them on a copy of the architect's original plans. There is no documentation or plans showing which windows are fake, so I was given this task. Each fake or faux window corresponds with a fireplace where the window should open. This task only took me about an hour, and then I continued my research on the architecture of the building itself.
Each museum I work at provides me a different experience and opportunity that I will cherish forever. Working at Baker Mansion is one of my favorite experiences of the whole internship. The Greek Revival Mansion rivals the castles of my childhood imagination and each room is meticulously designed and restored to it's glory. I spent a lot of time last week working in the archives, always ending the day with an interesting find. The people that work there are so lovely and always ready to answer my numerous questions about the museum history or history of an object in the collection. I worked with the curator to start my research project on the architecture of the house, how each room was originally set up and used by the Baker family, and how the museum chose to preserve the house. I have a wealth of information to go through and my research will be used in the museum in the future.
One day last week my sister joined me in working in the museum. My sister, who is not a fan of going to museums by any means, thoroughly enjoyed her experience there. I was glad I could share that experience with her and see her eyes light up when I showed her various parts of the museum. She helped me rework the Ipad podiums to be more presentable for the public in the future. I have been working on cataloging their collection into an excel document, so that it will be easier for the museum staff to more quickly and efficiently find the items they are looking for. There have been some very interesting finds I have come across, that I can't relate here. But I can say they are important pieces of history that Baker Mansion will hopefully one day be able to put on display. I can't wait to see what other mysteries the beautiful mansion has for me to find. |
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