Mourning Heliose...

Sorting through the Caldwell Delaney Collection, in the Battle House file, I happened to stumble upon a newspaper clip from 1916, and on the back was this gem. The poor chicken named "Heliose was a scion of the Black Orpington family and boasted distinguished ancestry. The blood of some of our oldest eggs ran in her veins." Clearly, her death was noteworthy enough for publication in the local news.
Enjoy!

Hello, I'm the New History Intern :)

Hello, Mobile!

My name is Helena Stover and I am the new intern here at the History Museum of Mobile. I am working under Scotty, our History Curator, and am very excited to be a part of the HMOM team.
I'll begin by telling you a little bit about myself.

I just graduated from Auburn University (War Eagle!) back in May majoring in history and minoring in Spanish, French, and Italian.
My first love in life has always been history (my second is travel), although I didn't always realize it. I was blessed with parents who loved to travel and actually take their kid along with them, so I have been able to visit many cities and countries in my mere 21 years of age.
It wasn't until we visited Rome that I learned that I was slightly obsessed with history. Ever since, I have devoted my studies to it. Nearing graduation however, I began asking the million dollar question, "What's your next step?" And though I would guess it, I never had a good response to it.
So, in my search for "what's next," I began looking at my options. I have ALWAYS loved museums. But the truth was, I never knew what "museum work" entailed. So before running off to grad school, I decided that an internship was my best option to learn what it is I really want to do.

Being an intern here at the History Museum of Mobile has been very instructive so far. Scotty has been so nice and helpful! The entire staff really has been so welcoming. It's a pleasure coming in to work everyday. And I have already gotten to experience two events!

The first one being Hurricane Issac. Being on the Gulf Coast area, I was curious as to what we would do to protect all of our artifacts and collections. The answer: Cover EVERYTHING in plastic. And that's exactly what we did. Covered EVERYTHING in large sheets of plastic. It was all worth the hard work since we got to eat Pizza for lunch!

The second being the second annual Herstory event. Herstory is an awards ceremony and reception put on by the Museum to honor prominent women in the Mobile and Baldwin counties area. \ I must say that PR officer Daniela and Scotty, and everyone else involved, did a phenomenal job! I enjoyed helping write the biographies for the honorees and learning about all of these women's accomplishments. During the actual event, I helped welcome in the honorees and guests and handle tickets. And finally, I was given the opportunity to bar tend for the first time ever; and it was a crazy, hectic blast!

Currently I am working on the new Caldwell Delaney collection. Going through and organizing boxes into separate folders. My very own first introduction to archival work :)

Till next post!

-Helena Stover

Thank you and Farewell.

....And the award goes too... (me.. insert cheesy acceptance/thank you speech here)

....But really, I do want to take a moment to thank everyone who has made this summer so amazing for me.  First and foremost Jacob, the awesome Curator of Exhibits, who has been my mentor for the last five years, and will continue to be so in the exhibits world.  Also to David our amazing director for letting Jacob take me on as an intern, and then to the entire staff of the History Museum of Mobile who helped make my internship educational, enriching, and most importantly... fun!  (You guys rock!) Thank you also to everyone has kept up with my blog, I hope you all get a chance to visit the exhibit, it really is amazing!!

Now time for the shameless plug:  If anyone needs an enthusiastic, hard-working, exhibits developer/designer- I am looking for a job to start at the earliest June 2013.  I also have friends in all areas/concentrations of museum work looking for jobs.  Just send a message or leave a comment on this blog and I can send you the information you require (per usual internet security concerns I am not posting my direct contact info here).  Thanks a million!  

Ok now back to Up, Up, & Away!  I am going to just leave you with a few final pictures from my work this last week.  The main project were the interactives I posted about in the last blog and lighting.  We also had a few smaller projects we finished up.  Most notably the final wall of the exhibit, which I have taken to call my baby.  Except for the actual words themselves (drafted by Scotty our Curator of History) The design plan and text panel design was all me (basically this whole post is going to be a shameless plug). 

Here is a picture of the final product.  Note: I designed the text panel to be a "mirror image" of Thor.  "Mirror image" in quotes because that phrase is also in the text panel. (The fact that it is a mirror image of Thor has nothing to do with my obsession, honestly)  I hope you guys like the wall!

I also spent my final day burning about 300 matches for a display case.  Now that I had a lot of fun with. 

 The mannequins that go with the drawing interactive.  You can move them to inspire your drawing of your very own superhero.  This is the one interactive we were unable to complete before I left.  But I did get to do some prep-work by drilling holes in the bases of the mannequins for mounting.

Superman comic book case.  That is actually four comic books, which when aligned make out the "S" from his uniform.  We had to do some brainstorming of how to safely mount these without major obstructions to the design.  The final solution came in clear plastic mounts the books sit on, and a bar at the top of each.  You can barely see the mounts! I think it turned out great.

The result of my match burning venture from earlier that day.  300+ matches scattered on the display case to give emphasis to the fact comic books were burned back in the day.  This case is in our censorship section.

Well that is all folks!  I have really enjoyed my summer and also getting to share my adventures at HMOM with you guys!  Stay tuned later in the semester.  I hope to update you all on my work from my final year of graduate school.  In the meantime have a safe, wonderful time the rest of your summer and year!

-Christina

Interactives, Interactives, and more Interactives!!

Hello!  Exciting things have been going on the last two weeks.  Jacob and I have built two new interactives for Up, Up & Away.  The first one in pictures is a box for a glow in the dark comic book.  (Cool, huh?) 

We started by cutting the wood at an angle and assembling the box.  What you can't see is that we also installed an area inside to put the comic book at an angle for visitors to see it.  Here is the box prior gluing and hammering together.

Guess what! I wasn't done using new power tools!  Got to use a sander to round out the edges.  

We then stained the inside of the box black and then wrapped the outside with black vinyl to give it a more shiny surface.  After that we built the lid.  The picture below is pre-staining of the lid.  After we stained the lid we covered it with plexi-glass and installed the light and light switch. 

Testing out the box: it works!! We also decided to attach a hood to the wall to help shield the box from light.  When you come to visit the exhibit, here is how it will work.  You will have to flip the switch on the box to turn the light on for a few seconds to give the glow-in-the-dark elements some light, and then turn off the light to see the comic glow!  Unfortunately glow-in-the-dark does not show up well on camera :(.

Here is the box pre-hood installation in the Anti-Hero/True Villainy area of the exhibit.  Be sure to look for it when you visit the exhibit!

Next interactive!  This one will be in the True Villainy area of the exhibit.  It is a flip-rail.  We took an existing table element from the Gadgets exhibit that used to be in the room and converted it.  Jacob built in supports for each comic book and then covered it with plexi-glass.  Then installed the hinges for the flip covers.

Each flipcover will have a comic book with a villain in it, so the flip cover had to be built with supports as well.

After building the supports we cleaned it, installed the comic book , covered it with plexi, and then installed the knob.  Here is a sample of three villains.

Post-construction.  Isn't it pretty!?

The interactive in its final place in the True Villainy area of the exhibit.

Be sure to come and visit these interactives and more when the exhibit opens October 20!  And stay tuned for my last post!

-Christina

Hello!  I just realized I didn't update everyone on what went on last week! I am sorry you guys!
Last week:  The director, curatorial staff, a few helpers and I went to University of Mobile to accession the Caldwell Delaney collection.  I have never been apart of a collection acquisition before so it was interesting.  It took two full days to get most of the collection out of the library, packed, into our box truck, back to museum, and unpacked.  It is a massive collection with some really interesting stuff.
Here are a few pictures from the event:

Unloading the box-truck at University of Mobile

Packing up the awesome photos, maps, and pictures

Loading the box-truck

Least flattering picture ever, but gives a good idea of the room of documents we were working in.

The awesome box maker: Daniela.

all unloaded at the museum waiting to go to its storage room.  That is a lot of boxes! (and that is only half of them)

Loading boxes into the room we will use for processing.

Update on this week to come in the next post!

-Christina

We are in the Paper!

Well we are at least in the internet version of the paper!  Here is a link to the Press-Register at al.com.  Enjoy the beautiful photos! (the lighting is way better than what my camera takes)

http://photos.al.com/mobile-press-register/2012/07/history_museum_of_mobile_comic_6.html

(If it doesn't work, just go to al.com, click on entertainment, and then scroll down for at least today July 24.  After that I am sure you can just search by typing in history museum of mobile, comic.)

Enjoy!

-Christina

Good Afternoon,
I want to start this particular post off on a slightly more somber note, since my adoptive state is Colorado.  This past Friday morning, July 20, there was a massacre in a theater in Aurora, Colorado, during the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises.  Waking up to this news was terrible as I have or have had friends live in Aurora (roughly 1.5 hours from Boulder where I live).  Thankfully none were in the theater during the incident.  But regardless of where I have lived or currently live, this was a terrible incident and my heart grieves for the families and community of Aurora.  This comes on the heels of all the wildfires in Colorado that have destroyed a lot of houses and communities (also coming close to entering Boulder and impacting my friends and I personally), and so I grieve for the state of Colorado.  But the people of Colorado are resilient, and just like the amazing people of our state and Gulf Coast who have to pick up after so many tornadoes and hurricanes, we will ban together and heal our communities one day at a time.  Please keep Colorado in your thoughts during this time.


And now to turn back to a topic that I hope will liven everyone's day = Thor Themed Day!!

There are only 4 more days left in my internship, and the exhibit is really coming together.  And what do we do when we are finishing an exhibit?  Put the finishing touches on with finishing nails! (Yes, I do think I am clever).  But finishing nails require a hammer - thus Thor Themed Day!

Here are some clever pictures from my morning assignment- putting up white blocks to connect the only spaced out portion of our exhibit.  The white blocks help to create "shadows" to give an illusion of a filled and connected space.  This is a deliberate design move, and an excellent idea by our Curator of Exhibits Jacob.

Pictures of installation:

Taking a break mid project to have a bit of fun posing as my favorite Thor poster:

(Not a very good impression I know, but we had fun.)

Also this morning we had a photographer from the Mobile Register, Mike Kittrell, come to take pictures of the exhibit, and of us installing the exhibit.  So keep an eye out for us in the Register some time soon Mobilians!

Picture of Mike Kittrell taking pictures (once again, yes I think I am very clever today):

  That is all for today!  I hope everyone has a great day!

** Note: In an earlier post on interactives, I had said an interactive element was called "extending the exhibit"- I meant to put "extending the experience" (not exhibit, but still same concept).  Sorry about the mis-post, I guess my brain was reading one thing and fingers typing another!  The post is now fixed!

-Christina

Good Afternoon!
Time to catch everyone up on work from last week.
Last week we installed the interactive I talked about in my last post. We also installed the Black & White and Mythos rooms. But even more exciting is that the superhero cutouts we made came in! We had a lot of fun installing those.

Here are some pictures from the week's work:

Cleaning more cases for comic books:

We took some time before installation to test the cutouts:

Several members of the staff wanted to help us test the cutouts. Here is our awesome PR officer, Daniela:

The gallery is really coming together!  Don't forget it opens October 20, 2012. Have a great week!

-Christina

Good Morning!  It has been a while since my last post, but that means we have been very busy installing the exhibit. (yay!)

The project I will be posting about in this post is unique from what we have been doing in the past few weeks.  This week we began work on an awesome interactive in the exhibit.  In my Masters program I learned there are basically two general forms of interactives: self-guided and guided.  In a guided interactive there is often a docent/volunteer or staff member who leads the visitor through the interactive, activity, or experience.  These are very popular in larger museums, with large exhibit space. My personal favorite is at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in the Prehistoric Journey exhibit.  At the end of the exhibit there is a window into a large room where paleontology volunteers are clearing/cleaning fossils.  There is always something being done because the Colorado region is an excellent place to find fossils.

In Up, Up, & Away we do not have enough space to do guided interactives, so we have several self-guided interactives, which also very successful and effective in all sizes of museums.  A self-guided interactive is when instructions or a prompt is present at an activity/interactive, allowing the visitor to become engaged in the exhibit at their leisure.  I honestly love this type of interactive, so I was very excited when I got to pitch an idea for one of the interactives in the exhibit.

This particular interactive allows the visitor to have their own superheroes to become part of the exhibit.  (This method is called extending the experience)  The idea came from a mixture of my mom's first grade class room and a dry-erase board interactive we have in the CU Museum of Natural History (the museum my masters program is based out of).

In the interactive prior to this one the visitor will be able to make their own superhero.  Then the visitor can take their superhero to this interactive and attach it to a chalkboard we have set up. Kids and grown-ups of all ages can participate and draw out their own comic strip using magnetic props and their own superhero.  Afterwards the visitor can leave their superhero for others to see or take it home.

Example of what it will look like.

Stay tuned!  Pictures of construction and installation coming soon!

-Christina

Good afternoon everyone! I hope everyone had a relaxing Fourth! Since I don't work on Thursdays and Fridays I figured I would take some time to update everyone on this week's happenings at HMOM.  The gallery is really starting to take shape.  We ended last week with script going on the wall.  This week we took installation one massive step forward and began to install artifacts, pictures, and text panels.


One of the first things we did was to install signs that would hang from the ceilings.  I helped to make the suspensions last week on what we dubbed a "Thor" themed day because there was a lot of action happening that involved a hammer and metal.   

Next we began to install the comic books into their cases and mount them to the walls. We have more than 150 comic books.  In this particular room we were also able to install one display case of some recent valuable comic books.  Be sure to visit the exhibit when it opens October 20th to see which comic books these are!

The next project was to install text panels and graphics. For many of these we want them to "float" away from the walls.  In order to do this we pre-drill holes into wood, then attach the wood to the wall and attach the text panel or graphic over that.  Below I am doing the pre-drilling for one of our final text panels.  

Another assignment I had was to arrange the entrance wall.  You can see it mid-install below.  This was a very exciting assignment for me because I love puzzles, and pre-decided design was in place.  I looked at many elements when designing this wall: the color of the comic books used, which comic book correlates to which theme, what themes a visitor may be more or less familiar with, and then the length of each theme and space provided.  We wanted a good mix, and I think that is what we achieved.  Comic books and themes visitors may not be overly familiar with are sprinkled in among the more recognizable ones such as Superman or The Hulk comics.  Also, there are no groupings of colors - all reds, blacks, and blues are spread fairly evenly throughout the design.  I also thought of age and height of the visitors.  I tried to put some comic book covers that may be more appealing to the younger visitors lower, where as some of the classics are placed higher up for the enjoyment of us older folk (note I put myself at 25 in that category).

In all the gallery is really shaping up!!

Now, I mentioned earlier I don't work on Thursdays and Fridays. So what do I do with my time?  Well, I study. To give you a little insight into graduate school, we have what are called Comprehensive Exams.  Typically, in your last or next to last semester of school and classes you take these - it varies program to program.  If you do not pass the exams you cannot move onto writing a thesis/dissertation, or graduate. The CU history department prefers us to take our exams upon completion of coursework.  I finished my last class in May, so am now studying for my exam.  My list consists of 103 books (not articles) and I am almost done!  Once I have these read I will divide them into categories and start writing essays on the different themes I found.  Hopefully by the end of September my professors will give me the go-ahead to take the four-hour written exam.  And then I will start the whole process over again for my second masters in Museum and Field Studies.  Thankfully my advisor in history sits on both Comps Committees so the second list won't be entirely new.(whew!) If all goes well I will be completely done by May of 2013!

Picture of my work station for the day.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! And tune in next week for more exciting updates on the Up, Up, & Away exhibit!

-Christina

Good Afternoon fellow History Museum of Mobile fans!  I hope everyone had a restful weekend!
Today I am going to update you all on the work we did here at History Museum of Mobile last week.
It was a very exciting week because we began the process of actually putting things up in the gallery!  The main project for me was to learn how to put RTA vinyl lettering on walls and on boards.  The trick is to be careful and measure things out ahead of time.  I think it went really well, and only a few corrections, mid-application, had to be made.  I am posting pictures below, so you can form your own opinion.

Example of the themes we are putting on the walls and text panels

Applying the RTA to panels.  The Windex allows us to clean it properly so the lettering will stick to the board.

Measuring out for the main theme panels.  These will hang from the ceiling!

A completed RTA panel on board. 

Putting a quote on the wall. 

More of said quote.  It was big enough that both Jacob and I had to work on it. 

Also this past week I laid out all the comic books we are using in the exhibit.  Here is a sampling of some that will go in the exhibit. 

So there is a quick synopsis of last week!  It is really starting to come together. If anyone has a question make sure you leave it in the comments section.  Also the museum Instagram and twitter are following the progress of the exhibit with me, so be sure to check those out! 

Have a happy 4th of July!

-Christina

As promised, pictures of me painting in oompa loompa gettup:

 The walls look pretty now in all white, though!


In other news, my birthday was a few weeks ago. In related news, Jacob has become aware of my obsession with Thor (so gorgeous).  The result of these two statements is below:

Yes. He will be going up on a wall in my apartment when I get back to Colorado, and maybe eventually in my own office whenever I get a full-time job!  

In an exhibit related comment: this particular poster was the inspiration for the final text panel I designed on my own the first week here.  So to be given a copy of the same poster was also an awesome reminder of my work thus far at the museum!  I am very excited about this exhibit, and I hope every can take time to see it this fall and winter.  The exhibit Up, Up, & Away opens October 20.  

Good Morning! I just downloaded new pictures from the past few weeks. The pictures are from the Up, Up, & Away exhibit as we construct the layout and build cases. This was the week I learned how to use power tools!!! (I am very excited about this if you can't tell.)

First project of the week was to construct walls. Why are we constructing walls, you may ask. Well, each exhibit that goes into the changing gallery has a different layout. In order to change the layout we have to tear down or construct walls. In fact, many of the walls in the galleries are temporary walls. Now I have constructed some walls before, but usually with the help of several guys. So Jacob was kind enough to let me construct two walls with little to no help from him.
Here are pictures of the first wall I built:

This first wall, and the second wall you see below all had to be anchored into the wall. We do this by screwing it into the wall.  For the first wall we did not have to put weights on it to weigh it down because of the weight of the wall it is attached to.  The second wall, however had to have that small piece attached to it to help it stand up straight, and then weights were added later to anchor it.  

The third week, was the actual painting of the walls.  I had an awesome time walking around barefoot (in the gallery only) so I was sure not to track paint onto the carpet.  I also got to wear a painting outfit to keep paint off my clothes.  The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie kept going through my head, and I was singing Oompa Loompa Dobidoo all day.  The staff had a great kick out of it.    Here is a rather rough pictures from that.  I will attach the oompa loompa gettup picture in a little while.  

With the gallery walls built and painted, it was time to move onto building cases.  We bought MDF (medium density fiber) to cut and stain as the backing to the cases.  This particular task introduced the most terrifying power tool in the shop: the table saw (dah dah dum).  After a non-to-brief safety lesson in which many horror stories were told, I decided to either stand on the other side of the room while the saw is being operated or to help move the MDF through the saw but from a distance (MDF is very heavy and very big, so it was a two person job).  Maybe one day I will build up the courage to use the table saw, it just probably won't be this summer.  

Below is a picture of the case backings after the cutting process was complete. 

Ok that is enough writing for this post! The blog is now up to date, and I will explain more about the case construction we are doing this week in my next post!  Have a great day everyone!!

-Christina