Stories from the West Virginia Railroad Museum
By: Emma Pringle
AmeriCorps has given me the opportunity to explore a few of my career options while getting a stipend for it, offering hands-on experience in my potential field, and letting me network with other professionals.
I arrived just in time to finish up the season for the West Virginia Railroad Museum with the current exhibit, ‘20-’20 Visions. In a normal season, the AmeriCorps service member begins work to create a new exhibit-- but because the museum decided to keep ‘20-’20 Visions for another year, I found myself with a chance to do something different. My big project-- which I will endeavor to conduct as safely as possible-- is to collect the oral histories of the retired railroaders. It’s an exciting project which I’m hoping will lead to more engagement with oral history in the community and in my career.
When the museum closed for the season, my work moved from the Darden Mill to sequestering myself in the West Virginia Railroad Museum Archives-- the Museum Office, for short. Working in an archive is a treat because what is on exhibit is only a fraction of the entire collection, and there’s everything else to discover: from objects (we, for instance, have a shelf full of old lanterns), photos (like our William V. Russell Collection which I’ve spent the last week updating), and a library. We use a database program called PastPerfect Museum 5 to keep track of everything. A while ago, an AmeriCorps named Cicely Schuring had to rearrange everything in the archives from being organized by collection to being organized by types of object— and I’m almost done updating the locations for everything in the archives with the help of my fellow AmeriCorps (Morgan Glup and Lindsay Dubrovny). When the updates are finally done, I’ll work on making sure everything has a photo and work on the objects waiting to be accessioned. It’s fun to interact directly with the material objects of history, even if sometimes, hours of data entry makes me want to curl up in a corner and remind myself that at least I’m not washing dishes anymore.
People who interact with our social media are interested in the archives, too. Once in a while, I’ll find something on a shelf and post a picture of it on Facebook. Ed Greisel and I looked at a photo last month that we didn’t know a lot about— but then we put it on Facebook with a general call for what others might know. Don Whetsell commented on our photo, and had a map with a possible location. When people engage with our posts we hope that they know we see their comments and we do make notes of their thoughts, suggestions, and observations in our historical record.
Working at a museum is fun, challenging, and rewarding. I’m grateful for the AmeriCorps program, which makes all of this possible for me. The experience I have here in Elkins, WV, is one that’s going to have an impact on my career and my attitude about museums, archives, and community engagement going forward.
