Career & Civic Engagement Center PARTNER INTERNSHIP | American Philosophical Society (APS) Curatorial Internship
Summer Internship in Curatorial Research at the American Philosophical Society
The selected student will participate in the Beyond Bryn Mawr Summer Internship Program.
DEADLINE has been extended to: Monday, March 2, at 11:59PM ET
Application Instructions: A complete application includes
- The Summer Funding Partners Application Form
- A one-page resume emphasizing museum or public history experience, a cover letter describing your interest in the project and how the internship may be useful to your future goals through this Handshake listing.
- The APS Application Form (available on the Internship Partners Page) and uploading it through this Handshake listing in "other documents"
The American Philosophical Society Library & Museum seeks a motivated, enthusiastic intern to assist in the development of its 2021 exhibition, tentatively titled Women in Science: Unequal Recognition.
Position Summary
The American Philosophical Society (APS) Library & Museum seeks an intern to assist staff curators in researching the Museum’s upcoming exhibition, tentatively titled Women in Science: Unequal Recognition, opening in April 2021. The intern will join a small, versatile staff in a collaborative workplace that brings together experts in exhibition planning, education and outreach, collections management, and conservation.
Duties will include the following activities:
● Perform exhibition-driven archival research using APS Collections (searchable here)
● Conduct literature reviews and write summaries of secondary sources
● Assist in identifying potential collections and/or objects for exhibition
● Research the provenance of archival or object collections
● Perform data entry for exhibition objects in collections database
● Attend exhibition-planning meetings
● Attend staff events, including lectures and social events.
The intern will spend a significant amount of time in the APS Reading Room working directly with archival materials. They will spend the remainder of their time conducting research from the museum offices. Each week a cohort of interns from across the APS will take field trips to Philadelphia-area cultural institutions, and participate in discussions about best practices and career opportunities in public history.
While contributing to exhibition development, the intern will advance their written and oral communication skills by writing a blog post and delivering an informal presentation on their work for APS staff as part of a weekly brown bag lunch series.
Interns are expected to have basic historical research skills. The intern should have an interest in public history and a background in history, history of science, gender studies, material culture, and/or museum studies.
About the APS Library & Museum
The American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purposes of “promoting useful knowledge.” In the 21st century, it serves to advance knowledge and promote scholarship in the humanities and social, mathematical, life, and physical sciences. Members of the Society are elected from among the most eminent scholars and civic and cultural leaders in North America and abroad. More than 100 living APS Members are Nobel laureates.
The APS Library & Museum’s collections make it among the premier institutions for documenting and exhibiting the history of the American Revolution and founding, the history of science from Newton to NASA, Native American languages and culture, and the development of American anthropology. The Library houses over 13 million manuscripts, 275,000 volumes and bound periodicals, 250,000 images, fine art, and other objects. Museum exhibitions interpret these extensive collections for the regional, national, and international visitors who come to Philadelphia’s historic district. In so doing, the exhibitions aim to nurture the spirit of inquiry, promote critical thinking, and engender enthusiasm for object-based learning by using primary source documents and authentic objects.
About the Upcoming Exhibition
Women in Science: Unequal Recognition (working title)
April – December 2021
The exhibition will highlight women’s contributions to science as well as the structural forces that systematically undervalued their work. Themes will include access to training and education, gendered division of labor in the laboratory and the household, as well as compensation and recognition. The exhibition will offer a historical perspective on the continued underrepresentation of female-presenting practitioners in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
The exhibition will draw on the APS collections documenting scientific practices from the 17th century to the present, from amateur naturalists to Antarctic explorers. Highlights from the collections include the flight suits of Jeannine Duane, NASA Teacher-in-Space astronaut and the papers of Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Barbara McClintock.
Contact:
Mx. Magdalena Hoot
American Philosophical Society Library & Museum
431 Chestnut Street, 2nd Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19106
museum@amphilsoc.org
215-440-3442