Blog Post #1: The Journey Begins!

Blog Post #1: The Journey Begins!

            It’s that time of year again at the History Museum of Mobile: Summer Internships! I am Seth Kinard, and I shall be your guide for this year’s journey through the laughter, tears, and big musical numbers of being an intern at the History Museum of Mobile (henceforth known as HMOM). I suppose I should tell a bit about myself in order to help form a bond between me and the readers of this blog. I am a native of Mobile, Alabama, and attended Satsuma High School where I graduated with Honors. I am currently a senior at Troy University, getting my bachelor’s degree in History with a concentration in American History. I’m a Libra, enjoy cooking, and taking long walks on the beach…and yes, that is what I think of every time I do an introduction for myself. It always feels rather awkward and very much like a dating website questionnaire. (Not that I know what an online dating questionnaire is like.) Joking aside, those things are all true except for the beach thing. I love everything about history, and I have very high hopes for my time here. This is my second museum to work in, the other being the Pioneer Museum of Alabama in Troy.

            I hope to provide some entertainment to anyone that reads this, in addition to giving some insightful insights to the goings on of the H.M.O.M. and my internship for the rest of this summer. Having only done academic writing for the past three years, with the exception of a very enjoyable creative writing class, I am still stretching this whole “blog writing muscle” out. It is for that reason, I ask for patience over the first couple of posts. I’ll be with you every week until school starts back in August, so I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually. (Or get tired of writing aside-esque statements and made up words in parentheses in thinly veiled attempts at humor, whichever comes first.) So I’d like to ask everyone to buckle their seat belts, and keep their hands and arms inside the blog as you join my expedition as an intern at the History Museum of Mobile!

            My first week at the museum showed that one should always be ready for anything. While that implies that I was attacked by one of the curators (Jacob) with naught to defend myself with but my trusty sword umbrella, (yes, I totally have an umbrella shaped like a sword) in reality it just means I had to help clear out a room. You see, the museum is located in the middle of Downtown Mobile in the Old City Hall and Southern Market. This building was completed in 1858, and is a National Historic Landmark. Though this provides an awesome working environment, it also means that there isn’t much space to expand and store things. Because of this, I was tasked with the job of moving the contents of the previously mentioned room over to Fort Condé. This was my mission for the first two days with other tasks thrown in, such as: making parking passes for the museum volunteers, helping procure clothing rack materials from Home Depot, and helping de-frame some pieces of artwork for the upcoming fall exhibit.

            I believe this is the time that I should explain what the fall exhibit is. In October, the museum is opening an exhibit on the artwork of Roderick MacKenzie, a London born artist who chose Mobile as his adopted hometown after growing up here. This exhibit will look at his art from his time in India in the turn of the twentieth century. (It will now be henceforth known as “the India Exhibit” or simply as “India.”) This is what most of my efforts will be put towards during my internship. After taking the morning to finish up those parking passes, I began my first foray into museum work and starting working on a tour outline for India. Under the direction of my Current Curator, Jennifer Fondren, Curator of Education, I was told to narrow down the accompanying text panels for the exhibit to the main ideas and a few supporting details to assist the docents for when they give the tours. This is my current project so I’m afraid all I can say now is that I have a bunch of highlighting done, but I will bring more news on that in my next post.

           

So with more to come,

Seth Kinard

Here is a picture of me. I hope that it contributes to that whole “building a bond” thing I mentioned earlier.