It is often said that the Johns Hopkins University Museums are laboratories of learning. Homewood Museum and Evergreen Museum & Library certainly lived up to that reputation in 2023, hosting internships for students from across the Johns Hopkins and the greater Baltimore communities. While the students gained hands-on experience and advice from museum professionals, the museums benefited from the interns’ energy, creativity, and scholarship: a true win-win! Below, meet the eight emerging scholars who interned at the museums in 2023.
Eric Smith
Eric, a sophomore majoring in International Studies in the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, interned at Homewood Museum over the summer as the Pinkard-Bolton intern. The Pinkard-Bolton internship is a competitive, paid internship that provides Johns Hopkins undergraduate students with the opportunity to gain significant understanding of the museum profession through work at Homewood Museum. Supervised by Lori Finkelstein, director of the Johns Hopkins University Museums, Eric conducted original research that will be used in a new self-guided walking tour of Homewood’s exterior, historic outbuildings, and grounds. Like Spiral, Eric enjoyed his internship so much that he extended it into the fall, when he began researching the Wyman family, who purchased Homewood from the Carroll family in 1838. Eric credits his museum experience with improving his research capabilities and got a chance to present his research to the Homewood Museum Advisory Board at its fall meeting. He now says he can see himself working in archives in the future, perhaps for the National Archives or even as an Intelligence Scholar at the CIA.
Camille Skala
Camille interned at Evergreen Museum & Library during the spring semester, while she was completing her freshman year in the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, where she is pursuing a double major in Art History and French with a minor in the Program in Museums and Society. Camille worked with Michelle Fitzgerald, the museums’ Curator of Collections, to catalogue archival photos of the Garrett family and life at Evergreen in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Eleanor Franklin
Eleanor interned at both Homewood and Evergreen throughout her senior year at JHU, from September 2022 through May 2023. As a double major in Public Health Studies and Art History, Eleanor was keen to have a museum experience during her undergraduate years. She worked with the museums’ registrar, Natalie Shores, to cleaning and catalogue Homewood Museums’ book collection and catalogue Evergreen’s archival photo collection. After graduation, she was hired as a Visitor Services Associate at the Baltimore Museum of Art and she has future plans to pursue graduate study to become an art curator or conservator.
Corinne Kirby
Corinne interned at Evergreen Museum & Library from December 2022 through mid-April, during her junior year at Towson University, where she is majoring in Art History and minoring in Museum Studies. Her paid internship was sponsored by Studio Institute, which provides students with demonstrated financial needs early-career opportunities with area museums through is Arts Intern program. She worked with the museums’ registrar, Natalie Shores, to research and catalogue Evergreen’s collection of 211 intaglio prints after 17th-century Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens. She used the internship as an opportunity to learn how she could apply her education in the museum world and her 15-week experience culminated in a presentation to museum staff in late March that explored what she had learned about the cataloging process, the objects, and the man who had built the collection, T. Harrison Garrett.
Katherine Cook
Like Corrine, Katherine interned at Evergreen as part of the Studio Arts Intern Program. Her stint ran from mid-June to mid-August, just before she embarked on her senior year at Towson University, where she is majoring in Art History and minoring in Museum Studies. Katherine was supervised by JHU Museums registrar Natalie Shores as she worked to digitize and catalogue Evergreen’s collection of stereoscopic images.
Spiral Weber
Spiral (he/him/his) interned at both Homewood and Evergreen over the summer through the Bloomberg Arts Internship, a paid internship for rising seniors at public schools in Baltimore, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Students apply to the program and then are matched with host institutions in their city. 2023 was the seventh consecutive summer that the Johns Hopkins University Museums have participated in the Bloomberg Arts Internship. Spiral, now a senior at Bard High School Early College Baltimore, catalogued photos for the tour at Evergreen, and transcribed letters from various Carroll family members at Homewood. While he doesn’t yet know what his college major will be, he is considering Gay/Lesbian Studies with a possible minor in Linguistics. Spiral’s ultimate goal is to “end up in an archive, working with historically queer artifacts.” Spiral enjoyed his internship experience so much that he returned to the museums throughout the fall semester to volunteer [work?] at events like Evergreen’s late October lecture on the history of Spiritualism in Baltimore.
Finn Tondro
The Bloomberg Arts Internship is the primary vehicle through which high school students can intern at the JHU Museums. However, on occasion, the museums accept area high school students as interns to fulfill credit or community service requirements. Such was the case with Finn, a Gilman student, who interned at Evergreen this summer and helped Curator of Collections Michelle Fitzgerald research Evergreen’s archival photograph collection.
Asha Worley
Asha, a senior at the Bryn Mawr School, interned at Evergreen and Homewood for 10 days in May. During that time, she was supervised by JHU Museums Director Lori Finkelstein and she shadowed staff, assisted with daily administrative duties, helped to promote the museums’ Festival of Dogs fundraiser, and researched the history of the Govans neighborhood, which borders Evergreen to the northeast.