One Day, One Job » historic preservation

Martha’s Vineyard Museum

Willy Franzen — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:28:28 +0000

I spent at least a week every summer on Nantucket until I was 18. It was also a great time, and it’s where I have some of my fondest childhood memories. Oddly enough, I’ve only stepped foot on Martha’s Vineyard once. I was flying from Nantucket and the plane stopped on the Vineyard. I got out for some fresh air (it was a tiny plane) and got right back on. That means that I’ve never visited the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in Edgartown, MA, but I’m sure it has a lot in common with the museums that I’ve visited on Nantucket. The museum is “dedicated to furthering an interest in, experience of, and appreciation for the history and culture of the Island and its environs.” That’s exactly what you’d expect, and they do this with exhibitions, collaboritive educational programs, scholarly research, archival collections, and community outreach.

Island Time

The Martha’s Vineyard Museum was originally founded in 1922 as the Dukes County Historical Society. They changed the name in 1996 to the Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society, and again in 2006 to its current name. The museum’s current exhibitions include We Are Marching Along (the island’s role in the Civil War) and Out of the Depths: Martha’s Vineyard’s Shipwrecks. There are also plenty of permanent exhibits that educate on the island’s history from colonial times to modern day. If you want a quick intro to some of the history that museum covers, you should check out its Martha’s Vineyard FAQs. If you find island life intriguing and want to help tell the story of Martha’s Vineyard, look no further than the Martha’s Vineyard Museum’s Jobs page. Right now there’s only one 20-hour per week position as an Oral History Assistant, but I’m sure that you could fill the rest of your time on such an interesting island.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you been to Martha’s Vineyard?

Nantucket Historical Association

Willy Franzen — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 14:01:51 +0000

I’m on Cape Cod for a wedding this weekend, so I decided to take my girlfriend over to Nantucket, MA for the day yesterday. I hadn’t been there in 9 years after going there every summer for the first 18 years of my life. It’s a wonderful island that is loaded with history. We walked around all day and made stops at the Old Gaol and the Whaling Museum, both of which are owned and operated by the Nantucket Historical Association. Both are well worth a visit, and so are all of the other NHA properties. If you want to learn about early American history, Nantucket is a great place to visit, and much of the reason is because of the work of the Nantucket Historical Association.

There Once Was a Historian from Nantucket

Much of Nantucket’s history is based around the whaling trade. It’s a practice that is now seen as immoral by much of the world, but it was essential to the growth of our country in the 1700s and 1800s. Nantucket was pretty much the center of the whaling trade, and it brought a ton of wealth to a very small island. Luckily, Nantucket has remained wealthy throughout the years, and a lot of the wealth has been committed to historic preservation through the Nantucket Historical Association’s programs, collections, and reach. If you can’t visit these sites in person, you should at least browse around NHA.org to learn more about Nantucket’s amazing history. And if it all resonates with you, then you’ll want to visit the Nantucket Historical Association Jobs page. Right now they’re looking for a Development Associate, which sounds like a perfect position for a new or recent grad who wants to ensure that the Nantucket Historical Association continues to get the funding it needs.

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Have you ever been to Nantucket?

Lower East Side Tenement Museum

Willy Franzen — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 16:25:48 +0000

We often forget that this country has been built (and is continuing to be built) by immigrants. For hundreds of years people have risked everything that they had to try for a better life in America. While just getting here is a journey, the first few years of “making a new life, working for a better future, starting a family with limited means” can be daunting. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York, NY tells the story of life in America for nearly 7,000 immigrants from over 20 countries who lived in the building between the years of 1863 and 1935. It’s a part of American history that doesn’t get a lot of attention (how many of us have visited colonial era museums?), yet it’s an extremely important part of our national identity.

97 Orchard Street

What’s most interesting about the Lower East Side Tenement Museum (which is part of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience) is that it gives us deep insight into how much living standards have changed over the past century. By sheer luck 97 Orchard Street was left as it was for more than 50 years, and when museum founders Ruth Abram and Anita Jacobson stumbled upon it, they knew it was the perfect place for building “a museum that honored America’s immigrants.” If you want to be part of sharing the history of the immigrants who built this country, then take a look at Jobs at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. They have a number of interesting opportunities including Museum Shop Associate, Visitor Services Associate, Collections Manager & Registrar, Costumed Interpreter/Educator, and Executive Assistant. Give them all a look.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum?

Sapphos Environmental

Willy Franzen — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 17:23:21 +0000

It used to be that if you wanted to build something, the hard part would be actually building it. These days the biggest hold up in construction and development is often environmental compliance. There are a multitude of regulations that limit what you can build, where you can build it, and how you can build it. The rules are often complex and they can vary greatly between jurisdictions. Sapphos Environmental is a Pasadena, CA based company that helps its clients resolve “planning, resource management, and environmental compliance issues through the development of pragmatic solutions and exemplary client service.” In other words they offer a range of services that ensure that development projects are done in an environmentally sensitive and compliant way.

Turning Compliance into Poetry

That maybe an odd heading, but it appears that Sapphos Environmental is named after an Ancient Greek poet. To get a feel for what the company does, you need to take a look at some of their past projects. They’ve worked on things ranging from the Hyundai Automotive Test Course to a Comprehensive Citywide Historic Survey of Santa Ana, CA. Looking at these cases, I can tell that Sapphos Environmental really digs in and looks at all of the issues surrounding a given project. Their job is to understand all of the factors that affect a given project, and then offer their clients a suite of options to their that work within the environmental and compliance constraints. It looks like fascinating work, which is why you may want to take a look at their Jobs page. They offer some really cool job titles like Archaeologist, Botanist, Avian Wildlife Biologist, Cultural Resources Coordinator/Architectural Historian, and Wildlife Biologist; however, most of these positions require significant prior experience. The two positions that you should look at are Wildlife Biologist/Botanist and Resources Specialist (if you have a Master’s Degree). If you have the right education and an interest in environmental consulting, you should be a good fit.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about Sapphos Environmental?

Daughters of the American Revolution

Willy Franzen — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:45:14 +0000

Happy Independence Day! (And Happy Birthday Mom!) Today we’re celebrating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Though I’m sure you’re showing your patriotism, chances are that your celebration includes some combination of barbecuing, beach, beer, baseball, and blowing stuff up. The Daughters of the American Revolution take the Fourth of July a little more seriously. They’re a “non-profit, non-political volunteer women’s service organization dedicated to promoting patriotism, preserving American history, and securing America’s future through better education for children.” They restrict membership to women “who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution,” so they also happen to be “one of the most inclusive genealogical societies in the country” with 165,000 members. I’ve seen the DAR march in my town’s Memorial Day parade, but their work goes far beyond making public appearances.

Are You a Daughter of the American Revolution?

The Daughters of the American Revolution is responsible for a ton of volunteer work. They put a big focus on historic preservation, which means that they contribute a lot of money to both the building and restoration of commemoratives and memorials. There’s also a huge focus on patriotic public outreach by doing things like publishing a manual on citizenship, participating in naturalization ceremonies, providing flags and flag codes to organizations and schools, offering services to veterans, and granting patriotic awards like DAR Good Citizenship Medals and the DAR Medal of Honor. The DAR also puts a huge emphasis on promoting and supporting education, while also spending a significant time on genealogy. If you’re impressed by the DAR and want to be a part, you might have to check your bloodlines (and presumably your gender); however, if you want another way in, you could check out jobs at Daughters of the American Revolution. Right now they’re looking for a Temporary Data Entry/Documents Scanning Specialist and a Cataloger Genealogical Researcher. Both positions seem like they could be suitable for new grads, so check out the full descriptions on the DAR Jobs page.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How are you celebrating the Fourth?

National Park Service

Willy Franzen — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:37:02 +0000

Memorial Day is one of my favorite holidays—not only because it signifies the start of summer, but also because I love small town patriotism. My hometown always has a fantastic parade that is often accompanied by a fighter jet fly over. Now, today’s employer may not immediately make you think of Memorial Day like last year’s did (it was Weber-Stephen, the manufacturer of my favorite charcoal grills), but you’ll realize pretty quickly why the National Park Service is a great choice for today. Not only are some of the parks that they manage great places to celebrate the Memorial Day weekend outdoors, but they’re also responsible for quite a few memorials including The Marine Corps War Memorial, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, The Korean War Veterans Memorial, and The World War II Memorial. Memorial Day is really about our fallen heroes, and the National Park Service is constantly working to honor them by maintaining and managing our memorials.

Celebrate Memorial Day All Year Long

If you love Memorial Day as much as I do, then a job with the National Park Service might be something worth thinking about. Whether you love the outdoors and want to be at Yosemite, love history and want to be at Lincoln’s Boyhood Home, or love our country and want to be at one of the memorials, you’ll have plenty of options. The NPS is constantly working to preserve “unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.” So, how do you land a job with them? You can start at the NPS Jobs page (it has some awesome photos from the 70s), but that will dump you into USAJobs.gov—use this link so that you only see jobs posted from the NPS. There are 163 jobs posted right now, and many of them are entry level, so we’re not going to wade through all of them for you, but you should know that the NPS typically hires in the following areas: Administration, Health and Safety, Archeology, History, Architecture, Human Resources, Biological Sciences, Landscape Architecture, Community Planning, Maintenance and Facility Management, Concessions, Natural Resources, Contracting, Park Police, Cultural Resources, Park Ranger (Protection), Engineering, Park Ranger (Interpretation), Financial Management, Park Site Interpretation, Firefighting, Physical Sciences, and Fire Management. That should help you direct your search on the USAJobs.gov site a little better. Applying for government jobs can be tricky, so be sure to pay very close attention to the details before you send in your application.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your favorite National Park/

National Trust for Historic Preservation

Willy Franzen — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:00:20 +0000

On many college campuses there’s a constant battle between the old and the new. We’re not talking about Senior-Freshmen rivalries – that’s so high school. We’re talking about the state of constant construction that is as much a part of going to college as wearing flip flops in the shower. Administrators and trustees are left to decide whether it is better to make do with the quirky inadequacies of a building from a century ago, or to knock it down and build a new monstrosity in the latest architectural fashion. There is a fine balance that needs to be achieved between architectural and historic integrity and function. Unfortunately, it seems more and more common that campus decision-makers are deciding in favor of state of the art facilities built atop the graves of their obsolete predecessors (I guess you know what One Day, One Job’s stand on this issue is).

Although they don’t focus on college campuses, the National Trust for Historic Preservation is a non-profit organization that is saving America’s diverse historic places through leadership, education, and advocacy. Just what many of our college campuses need! If you love history, architecture, and good taste, you might truly enjoy working for the National Trust. Their jobs are all over the place; you can be an interpreter at President Lincoln’s Cottage or an Accountant in their Community Investment Subsidiary. An Assistant Business Manager in the Center for Preservation Leadership or an IT Training & Staff Support Coordinator (the links to these jobs are now dead, for current opportunities visit the National Trust’s Careers page). The jobs get even more interesting as the experience level goes up. There are some really cool opportunities that require 3-5 years experience, which means you can either try to really impress them with your cover letter and resume or work your way up through the ranks.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has an excellent website with simple navigation and very clear job descriptions. Applying for a job is as easy as sending a cover letter and resume to a position-specific e-mail address. This is definitely an organization to keep a constant watch on. You never know what kind of opportunity will show up next on their jobs page.

Note: On April 27th we revisited entry-level jobs at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

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What’s your favorite historic building on your college’s campus? Leave a comment and tell us about it!