C.V. Starr Center Fellowships Place Students in Summer Jobs at Top Museums, Archives

Chuck Weisenberger '12 will travel to the British National Archives with
the Maryland State Archivist as part of his summer research position.  

CHESTERTOWN – From Washington to London, from Smithsonian museums to national parks, a cadre of top Washington College students will be fanning out this summer to work at leading cultural and historical institutions. Thanks to grants awarded by the College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, nine students will have paid, full-time jobs doing everything from unearthing the identities of 18th-century slaves, to researching a forthcoming exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery or helping plan the celebration of the 225th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution.

The students’ upcoming experiences are made possible by the Starr Center’s Comegys Bight Fellows Program, established in 2003 by Drs. Thomas and Virginia Collier of Chestertown. This year, thanks to partnerships with major institutions and the additional support of new donors, the Center has been able to launch a new, greatly expanded version of the program.

“I’m thrilled that we can help some of Washington College’s top students gain the kinds of positions that few undergraduates – or even graduate students – at other colleges could hope to get,” said Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the Starr Center. “It’s exciting to think that for some of these students, including graduating seniors, the fellowships may even be launch pads into future careers.

The Starr Center’s staff networked with directors and curators at distinguished institutions to secure potential positions for qualified students from Washington College. They also worked with donors to obtain funding. Then they paired individual applicants with specific positions based on each student’s background and interests. The Comegys Bight funds will be paid directly to the students as hourly wages for their summer work.  

James Bigwood '12

James Bigwood ’12, a double-major in Physics and History and a longtime participant in the Starr Center’s Poplar Grove Project, will work with David Ward, chief historian of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. He will help research two upcoming exhibitions – one on Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, the other titled “In the Sweat of their Faces: Portraits of American Working People.”

“I’m excited about the work, and the location is unbelievable,” Bigwood says. “The National Portrait Gallery is in the old Patent Office Building and there is so much history there. It’s cool to think that Walt Whitman was walking through those very halls.”

“The Smithsonian is all about partnerships, both intellectual and institutional, and we at the National Portrait Gallery are especially happy to work with Washington College to provide a place for their students to work and learn,” says chief historian Ward. “Internships are mutually enriching: while the undergraduates gain – we hope! – valuable experience at a museum, the museum in turn benefits from their work and enthusiasm. Both Washington College and the Smithsonian are conscious of our role as teachers of the next generation.”

Christopher Brown '12 will develop a tour of
Harpers Ferry National Park.

A history major with a special interest in the Civil War, Christopher Brown ’12 has always wanted to work for the National Park Service. This summer he will be at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park developing and presenting a tour of the great landmark. “I’ll be going to grad school next fall in history with a focus on public history,” says Brown. “So I can’t wait to get my hands dirty and get some on-the-job training.”

History majors Ellen Dalina ’13 and Michael Kuethe ’13 will be doing research at the Maryland Historical Society, most likely on the War of 1812, as Maryland marks the anniversary of a conflict that left a lasting mark on the state. Both Dalina and Kuethe are also recipients of the Starr Center’s Quill & Compass Scholarships. 

Megan McCurdy ’14, a political science major, will work at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on special events, including the 225th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution. “There will be a summer-long celebration leading up to one big party on Constitution Day,” she says. “I’m honored to be part of such an historic occasion.”

Daniel Primiani ’13, a history major, will work at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond on an ambitious project launched last year called “Unknown No Longer: A Database of Virginia Slave Names.” He will help scholars comb through some eight million documents dating from the 17th through 19th centuries – including wills, memoirs, letters and family Bibles – seeking the names of slaves and their owners for an extraordinary searchable database posted at vahistorical.org. 

Paul Levengood, the President and CEO of the Virginia Historical Society, welcomes this new partnership with Washington College.  “It’s especially appropriate that the namesake college of the preeminent Virginian is linked with the premier historical institution in Virginia,” he notes. “Dan Primiani’s research assistance will be invaluable as we uncover long-hidden connections between African Americans and their enslaved forebears.”

Sarah Hartge '12 will work
at the Maryland State Archives

An anthropology major who wants to pursue a career in museums, Sarah Hartge ’12 will be at the Maryland State Archives documenting the lives of free and enslaved African Americans who lived in Maryland’s colonial London Town settlement between 1690 and 1760. “It will be a fabulous way to gain valuable research experience and help me figure out if this is what I want to do with my life,” she says. 
Katherine Thornton ’13, a student associate at the Starr Center who is majoring in American Studies and Environmental Studies, will also work at the Maryland State Archives, helping historian Christopher Haley (nephew of Roots author Alex Haley) document slavery and resistance on Maryland’s Upper Eastern Shore.

And Chuck Weisenberger ’12 will work at the Maryland State Archives further pursuing research he began at the Maryland Historical Society last summer, studying African-American Marylanders in the War of 1812. As part of his Comegys Bight Fellowship, he will travel to London with Maryland State Archivist Edward Papenfuse to delve into military records in the British National Archives at Kew, just outside London, seeking evidence of escaped slaves who joined the invading forces. Weisenberger, a Quill & Compass Scholar at the Starr Center, also wrote his History thesis on black Marylanders in the War of 1812.

Along with the continuing generous support of the Collier family, this year’s Comegys Bight fellowships were made possible by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Helen Clay Frick Foundation, as well as gifts from several individual donors.

The National Portrait Gallery is one of the institutions benefitting from
the summer work of some of Washington College's top students. 

“We’re tremendously grateful to these benefactors,” says Goodheart,  “as well as to faculty members in various departments who encouraged their top students to apply. I just wish we could have offered fellowships to more of the two dozen applicants, but I hope that in future years, the Comegys Bight program may continue to grow.”

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Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in colonial Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience is dedicated to fostering innovative approaches to the American past and present. Through educational programs, scholarship and public outreach, and a special focus on the literary craft of history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between the academic world and the public at large.  For more information on the Center and on the Comegys Bight Fellowships, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

Three Comegys Bight Fellowships Support Valuable Internships in American History

CHESTERTOWN, MD— For three Washington College students, the summer of 2011 brought unexpected opportunities to live and breathe history through interning at some of the nation’s leading institutions for the study of early American history and culture. With the generous support of the Comegys Bight Fellows Program, they delved deeply into the material records of the past – documents, artifacts, books, etc. – and found new directions for their own futures.

The Comegys Bight program, conceived and generously sustained by Drs. Thomas and Virginia Collier of Chestertown and administered by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, offers stipends for students to pursue research-based internships that provide real-world experience in their own areas of historical interest.

History major Kevin Lynch ’12 spent the summer on the grounds of George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens, working as an intern in the Education Department. At Mount Vernon, he drafted lesson plans for the site’s popular distance learning program, on topics ranging from political disagreements in Revolutionary America to the far-reaching impact of the Washington presidency.

Lynch also worked extensively with Mount Vernon’s highly-competitive summer institutes for teachers, and helped to script the filming of a new documentary on black Virginians’ diverse responses to the violent overthrow of slavery in Saint Domingue. While working on this project, Lynch collaborated with experienced character interpreters from Mount Vernon and Colonial Williamsburg. “It was remarkable to see historical interpreters working behind the scenes talking about how their characters will interact and feed off each other during a filming,” he noted.

Lynch hopes to approach his senior thesis on Benedict Arnold differently thanks to his summer experience. “It’s one thing to know a lot about a particular field of history,” he reflected. “But it’s another thing entirely to learn how to explain it to others and make it meaningful.”

Kendall Mulligan ’12, an art history major, spent the summer at Brown University’s John Carter Brown Library, which houses one of the world’s richest collections of books, maps and documents related to North and South America and the Caribbean between 1492 and 1830. The first undergraduate student to ever intern at the library, Mulligan split her time between two departments, digitization and cataloguing.

Her work in both departments centered on archiving and organization, and introduced her to the various technologies used in a rare book library. In the digitization department, Mulligan worked with priceless early accounts of exploration of Brazil and Peru, ranging from 17^th-century maps to 18^th-century books and letters. She also created photo labels for the discs housing scans of many of the images in the library’s collection, a project that allowed her to immerse herself in the history of political cartoons.

The experience heightened her interest in archiving and restoration, and she is now considering pursuing a masters degree in library science. “My experience at the John Carter Brown Library was wonderful,” said Mulligan. “I feel so lucky to have worked at such an important and established place.”

Charles Weisenberger ’12, a history major, interned at the Maryland Historical Society, where he served as a member of the War of 1812 research team. Putting his research skills and previous experience in museums to good use, Weisenberger combed the society’s collections to identify materials for use in upcoming bicentennial exhibits and programming.

Weisenberger’s supervisors at the MdHS charged him with investigating the impact of the conflict upon black Marylanders. Immersing himself in period newspapers, city directories, and court records, as well as the letters, diaries and personal papers housed in the society’s library, Weisenberger documented the experiences of men and women whose pursuit of freedom led them to cast their loyalties on both sides of the conflict. He also compiled a list of daily happenings between 1812 and 1815, and created annotated transcriptions of important documents for use by future researchers.

In 2012, Weisenberger will join a panel of other War of 1812 researchers for a public program at the Maryland Historical Society. Looking back on his experience, he reflected, “I’ve gained critical thinking and research skills, as well as extensive exposure to working with a rare-collections library. I believe these skills will enable me to market myself better to future employers.”

Now in its eighth year, the Comegys Bight program has served 41 students since its inception in 2003. Recipients of the Comegys Bight Fellowship are provided opportunities to take their passions beyond classroom study, resulting in experiences that have, in some cases, changed the course of their intellectual lives.

“In collaboration with the donors, we changed the nature of the fellowships somewhat this year,” said Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the Starr Center. “Rather than simply funding independent study, the Comegys Bight program now pairs up Washington College students with nationally eminent institutions that hire them as interns and researchers. We think this new focus will not only provide students with exciting and intensive research experiences at a very high level, but also generate connections that may help advance their academic and professional careers. And I was especially proud to hear back from the institutions that these Washington College students were some of the best undergraduates they’ve ever worked with.”