Anthony Eley ’19 Carnegie Museum of Montgomery County – This summer I have had the great opportunity to intern at the Carnegie Museum of Montgomery County. It has been quite the experience for me and one that will benefit me both as a student and as I prepare for my post-college life. Over the summer, I have gotten to learn how a small museum works, not just with designing exhibits and the day to day operations of the museum, but also how it works with other museums and partners in the community, which is a vital part of running the museum and succeeding.

At the end of June, we held ten events in in a week to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the museum. We had paint parties and an open mic night, hosted the Girl Scout stem van to teach local kids about the different types of energies, and a host of other events that brought in people of all ages from all around the community to help celebrate the anniversary. Assisting in these events allowed me to work outside my comfort zone and realize how important this museum is to the community and the broad support it receives. Along with this, I have been working on several individual projects. My main project this summer has been creating an exhibition on the history of the Fire Departments of Montgomery County. I have been looking at historical documents, contacting the local Fire Departments from around Montgomery County, locating artifacts for the exhibit, and working with the curator to plan and set up the exhibit. Having never done this before, it was an amazing experience. Having to gather information from so many different sources and working with the curator on figuring out what we wanted the message of the exhibition to be and narrowing down so much information to one exhibition were some of the most interesting things about this project. Along with working on the exhibition, I have helped with our summer program, helped with creating a document detailing the mural in the museum, and researched and made suggestions for future exhibitions. Having worked at another completely different small museum, this has been a great way to diversify my experience in museums. I love history and being able to interact with it daily and help communicate the stories that history has to tell us.

I am very thankful to the Lilly Endowment for enabling me to a wonderful experience. I am glad that the Carnegie Museum and Wabash College have this internship partnership and I hope to see it continue for many years to come.