As I come to the tail end of my internship and reflect on my time working in the Ramsay Archives, I have truly enjoyed and benefited from working in and on the history of the College. As a history minor and someone who truly values history, it was extremely educational to learn new things about the college’s history, how archives manage their collections, and how the Ramsay Archives fits into the larger alumni network. The internship’s main focus was to help research the history of the Wabash Club of Indianapolis and assist John Pactor with his personal research regarding the topic. John was great to work with and helped to show me how much the archives and the college’s history matter to alumni associations like the WCI and so I thank John for giving me the opportunity to help with the research and apply for the internship position.
Aside from WCI research, while in the archives I helped to set up and perform research for Big Bash presentations and exhibits. The Big Bash research primarily focused on Sparks Hall and has given me a deeper appreciation for a building most students walk by without thought, especially as it comes time to replace it with the New Campus Center. Additionally during Big Bash, as alumni came down to check out the archives I was able to show where specific collections and newspapers might be located.
The last main activity I assisted with during my time in the archives was helping to process collections, meaning that I was actively helping to organize and restructure unorganized papers. Seeing the finished product with orderly folders and collections ready for research use made me feel proud as I was not only helping to make the archives a better place but could potentially have made a researcher’s life a million times easier. Throughout my time in the archives, I was able to appreciate the level of organization and logistics that are required to maintain an always-growing archive of Wabash history. I would like to thank Nollan Eller and Evan Miller who run the archives for not only allowing me to practice professional archival work and to see what that looks like but also for being such friendly and helpful supervisors who would always be interested in sharing each other’s interesting research findings as fellow historians. For anyone reading this who hasn’t visited the Ramsay Archives, I believe that even one visit would help to showcase the value and treasure trove of Wabash history and information it contains as well as our amazing Archivists!
