Public History

A Sampling of Recent Graduates

Ann Chapman (2002)
As part of my joint M.A. in Landscape and Regional Planning and History/Public History, I completed an internship as an Interpretive Park Ranger at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont. This is currently the only National Park in the country with Conservation Stewardship as its theme. The 550 acre wooded estate is significant as the birthplace in 1801 of George Perkins Marsh, who wrote the book Man and Nature, a landmark book in the history of the American Conservation movement, and as the site of the first scientifically managed forest in America, planted in the 1870s and 1880s by property owner Frederick Billings. I have received the American Institute for Certified Planners 2005 prize for student projects in Applied Research. My Master's Project, a proposal for a Massachusetts Conservation and Landscape Planning Heritage Trail extending from Boston to the Appalachian Trail at Mt. Greylock, emerged from her interdisciplinary work in both Public History and Regional Planning. The inspiration for my proposal was the 150th anniversary of the publication of Thoreau's Walden as well as the work of visionary regional planner Benton MacKaye, a long-time Shirley, Massachusetts resident, and father of the Appalachian Trail. The Heritage Trail links historic sites like the Boston Common, Walden Pond and the Mohawk Trail State Forest (illustrating the establishment of the Massachusetts State Forest and Reservation system and the evolution of hiking trails and trail networks) to illustrate various stages of American conservation history. The proposal may someday become a National Register Travel Itinerary, helping travelers discover the history of conservation in Massachusetts. (Please click here for work by Ann Chapman on the Massachusetts Conservation and Landscape Planning Heritage Trail.)

Abby Chandler (2002)
I came into the program with a background in living history and museum education, having worked at the Boston Harbor Islands; the Homeplace 1850; and Iowa’s Living History Farms.  While at UMass, I interned with Mystic Seaport; did a project for the Skinner Museum in South Hadley; and researched 18th century petticoats at Historic Northampton for my material culture project. Since graduating, I have been working on a Ph.D in early American history at the University of Maine.

David Cline (2003)
David Cline received his Master's degree from UMass with a certificate in Public History in 2003. While in the program, he completed an internship that combined his interests in oral histoy and documentary production, spending a year interviewing African-American veterans for American RadioWorks' NPR documentary "Korea: The Unfinished War." See his Reporter's Notebook at http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/korea/notebook2.html He also made a short video documentary, "For the People," for an exhibit UMass students created on the Skinner Coffee House at Holyoke's Wisteriahurst Museum (for the on-line version, see http://www.ci.holyoke.ma.us/Skinner/eindex.html ). A fieldwork assignment in the Introduction to Public History class led to an ongoing relationship with the Valley Women's History Collaborative and after the program, Cline continued his oral history work with the VWHC, documenting reproductive rights history in the Pioneer Valley. He is the author of "Creating Choice: A Community Responds to the Need for Abortion and Birth Control," a collected work of edited oral histories based on that work. The book is forthcoming from the Palgrave Studies in Oral History series, published by Palgrave MacMillan (St. Martin's), in September 2005. David was awarded the National Council on Public History's HRA New Professional Award in 2004. He currently lives in Durham, North Carolina, and is working on his doctorate at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Richard Colton

Richard Colton (2000)
Rich Colton entered the National Park Service as an historian hardly a month after completing a Masters in History with a Certificate in Public History from the History Department at UMASS/Amherst in May 2000. Springfield Armory National Historic Site, the museum in Springfield, Massachusetts, housing the national collection associated with the national armory production at that site of military rifles and muskets from the late 18th century until 1968, allows Richard to work in public history with an important national focus. His work is also extended to area school systems in both outreach and aiding curriculum (Richard received a Masters in Education just prior to entering the History Department). Within the museum, one of his major objectives is to bring before the public the many historical narratives of the people and times of this historic site that formed one of the earliest successful manifestations of American mechanized industrial production. As a National Park Service historian, Richard is also one of a close cadre of Park Service historians at sites throughout the nation.

John Diffley (2007)
I first became interested in public history as an undergraduate at SUNY New Paltz where I worked with the town historian in the production of a community history. My studies here at UMASS have led to explorations of museum and historic site interpretation, historic preservation, and museum ethics. While at UMASS I worked on several public history projects, including the creation of a virtual exhibit examining the boyhood home site of W.E.B. Du Bois (now part of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library and Special Collections website at http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/duboishome/index.htm ). In summer 2006 I completed my internship at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in Manhattan, contributing to one of the museums newest projects, the recreation of a Nineteenth Century German Saloon. In my last semesters I worked as a consultant toward the creation of an exhibit for a private company in Holyoke, Massachusetts, a relationship that has continued even as I completed my degree in Spring 2007. Most recently, I have also become involved in museum-K12 partnerships, and am now considering teaching opportunities as well.

David Favaloro (2003)
While at UMass I pursued study in collections management and museum interpretation with a focus on the history of New York City. I chose UMass-Amherst for the unique blend of academic and practical training as well as the unrivalled community of scholars and museum professionals that is the Five College Public History Program. Under the tutelage of professors from each of the Five Colleges, I had the opportunity to apply the theoretical lessons of the classroom in a variety of settings including the design of a historic markers program for Smith College. I interned at the New-York Historical Society in New York City helping develop institutional policy for the collections management department, and worked as a research assistant for Professor Max Page on an exhibition entitled "Destroying New York: An Exhibition of Premonitions, Fantasies, and Realities" planned for the New-York Historical Society in 2004. I'm now planning to apply to doctoral programs in History, but in the meantime have landed a job with Big Onion Walking Tours leading historic tours of the Lower East Side, Chinatown, and Little Italy that deal primarily with the many layers (hence the name Big Onion) of the immigrant experience in New York past and present. I have also accepted a position in the research department of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, one of New York City's leading museums.

Kathleen Flynn (2007)
I first fell in love with the idea of working in public history when I began working at the Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, MA my first summer out of high school. I worked there for five years as a tour guide and historic interpretor, and I loved sharing history with the public and meeting people from all over the world. I also spent a summer giving ghost story tours in Plymouth, MA, which was really neat! In the summer of 2006, after my first year in the public history program, I completed an internship at Historic Deerfield working as the assistant tutor to the Summer Fellows. At Historic Deerfield, I assisted the Curator of Academic Programs with the design and implementation of the curriculum and activities of the summer program, and I helped the students with their individual research projects. I was also thrilled to develop for Historic Deerfield a project of my own: tour enhancements - including a possible audio tour - to the self-guided tour at the Stebbins House. I have always been intrigued by the way the public approaches history; what brings them to historic places, what are they looking for, what do they expect to learn and what do they want to take away? I returned to UMASS after spending four years there as an undergrad, because I knew the university boasted a strong program where I could learn more about how to better present history to the public in museums, historic homes, and at historic sites. I graduated with an MA in History and a certificate in Public HIstory from UMASS in 2005. As an undergrad, I had been trained to be a history teacher, and soon after earning my MA I was offered a job teaching 7th grade Social Studies in Walpole, MA. I am so excited to take what I learned at UMASS to my career as a teacher. I hope to be able to excite my students about history by using museums and also to teach them how to use museums themselves as educational tools. For the summer of 2007, I will return to Adams NHP for at least one more season as a tour guide and I have also been granted a full scholarship to attend Historic New England's 2007 Program in New England Studies (an opportunity I'm sure I wouldn't have been offered if it wasn't for my experience at UMASS).


Meghan Gelardi (2006)
I first became interested in public history during my senior year at American University, when I was attempting to figure out what I could do with a BA in History. After a semester-long internship at the Sewall-Belmont Home in Washington, DC, I realized that a museum career matched my interests perfectly. I wasn’t quite ready to give up “traditional” history yet, and the Public History program at UMASS seemed like the ideal combination of theoretical and vocational history training. While I was completing my degree, I was able to intern at the Skinner Museum in South Hadley and at Old Sturbridge Village. Both experiences taught me about the realities of museum work, and helped me make important connections with local museum professionals. (And both opportunities came directly out of connections made through the Public History program!) After graduating, I was offered two jobs – as the Assistant Collections Manager at the Skinner Museum, and as the Research Specialist on a local Teaching American History project. Together, the positions have allowed me to pursue museum work and make connections between museums and K-12 history teachers. As a collections management assistant, I am responsible for exhibit development, building relationships with Mount Holyoke College faculty members, and of course, keeping track of the objects in the collection. As a research specialist, I help history teachers develop local history units for their classroom, as well as forge partnerships between schools and museums. The two positions are a perfect complement to each other, and at both jobs, the skills and knowledge I developed as a student in the Public History program have been invaluable.

Heather Gianni (2004)
After completing my first year in the history master's program I realized what a unique and valuable experience the Public History program provides UMass students. I have long been especially interested in the use of technology in bringing history to life, and began working with the Center for Computer-Based Instructional Technology (CCBIT) to provide teachers and students access to digitized primary documents and online curriculum which brings resources and tools right into their classroom. I also participated in the 2003 Archeology Summer Field School held at the W.E.B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The Field School provides valuable first hand experience providing public interpretation and learning archeology field techniques. It was the opportunity to receive an interdisciplinary education and work experience that made my time at UMass so rewarding.

Erik Gilg (2003)
I graduated from the University of Virginia in 1998 and worked for a few years at two Long Island museums before attending graduate school at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. While there I worked with faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Smith College, and Amherst College, and had two internships: one with the National Park Service (NPS), where I helped create a new Historic Resource Study for NPS Lindenwald, President Martin Van Buren's retirement estate; and the other with the editorial department at the University of Massachusetts Press. After graduating I entered the publishing industry and am currently employed as a psychology and sociology acquisitions editor at Worth Publishers, a college publishing house part of the Macmillan Group.


Angela Goebel Bain (2003)
My interest in public history began while I was interning for my M.Ed. at the Cultural Center in Kahnawake, a Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) territory outside Montreal. I learned about the Deerfield raid of 1704 from the Kanienkehaka perspective. Eventually, I began working at the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association's (PVMA) Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, where one of their major exhibits has traditionally been the 1704 raid. Shortly after becoming the Museum's curatorial assistant, I entered the UMass Public History program as a part-time student, and found that whatever course I participated in each semester greatly enhanced my work. In my Museum/Historic Site interpretation course, for example, I created an exhibit for the Museum, and turned my research into a paper published in the Proceedings of the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, 2000. I became the project manager for several National Endowment for the Humanities and Institute for Museum and Library Services grants that sustained PVMA's museum-school partnership, training teachers to integrate primary resources into their classes, and oversaw the development of the American Centuries website. I was the primary researcher and content editor of PVMMA's award-winning website--Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704--and co-curated the exhibition, "Remembering 1704: Context and Commemoration of the Deerfield Raid," which also opened in February, 2004. Today, I am a curator at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield. My coursework in the Public History program provided me with a theoretical framework which enabled me to confidently address a wide variety of both content and administrative issues in my day to day work. Drs. Glassberg and Miller are inspiring and have been and continue to be extremely supportive in and out of the classroom.


Margaret "Peg" Hepler (1990)
More than two decades after I earned a bachelor's degree in history at the University of Wisconsin, I enrolled in the history graduate program at UMass. Fortunate to have David Glassberg as my advisor, who was enormously helpful and gave excellent advice, I concentrated on New England history in the then-new public history program. Becoming one of the first Public History graduates in 1990, I interned with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, doing community-wide architectural surveys for several Connecticut Valley towns. I continued to work with historic preservation staff at the PVPC for a few years after graduating. While in Australia, I spent a year working in the Canberra office of the Australian Heritage Commission, and was impressed with that country's close collaboration between historic, environmental, and indigenous people's interests. Working as an independent free-lancer after my return, I conducted comprehensive historic resources surveys and wrote National Register nominations, contracting with local historical commissions in many towns across Massachusetts. In the past few years I've been active in a land trust where my historical background has been valuable in identifying and saving several historic landscapes. Hoping to strengthen links between the historic and environmental communities, I've enjoyed being an activist, working to protect important places for the future. Most recently, I've done historic context research for an archaeological team doing a National Park Service study in New Hampshire. Though I've reached the age at which many retire, I'm hoping to continue doing this very rewarding work.

Sandra Krein (1993)
Soon after completing the Public History Program at the University of Massachusetts, I was hired as the Director of Wistariahurst Museum, a twenty-six-room Beaux Arts mansion in Holyoke, MA. During my seven-year tenure there, I drew heavily on what I had learned in and out of the UMass classroom. While at Wistariahurst I became involved with the Emily Dickinson Homestead, as a member of the Homestead Advisory Committee and with the Bay State Historical League, as a member of the board. Until Fall 2002 I served as Executive Director of the Lynn Museum, a community history museum in Lynn, MA and am now an independent consultant, as well as the 1st Vice President of the Bay State Historical League. I've been known to say that once you're a UMass Public History student, you're always a UMass Public History student - meaning that the relationships I built there continue to shape and inform my professional and personal life.

Ron Lamothe (2000)
Ron received his B.A. in 1990 from Tufts University, where he studied clinical psychology and political science. He traveled across Africa from Morocco to Tanzania in 1990 and 1991, taught history and English for three years in Washington, D.C., and. after a brief sojourn in Prague, enrolled as a graduate student in history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In addition to receiving his master's degree and certificate in Public History in 2000, Lamothe spent four years in the UMass Academic Instructional Media Services department as a producer, videographer and editor. He also worked as a researcher and associate producer for Florentine Films/Hott Productions. Most recently, Lamothe and Terra Incognita Films moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he now lives with his wife Karen and two daughters, Madeleine and Parker. He is currently a Dean's Fellow and Ph.D. candidate in African history at Boston University. His films include "The Political Doctor Seuss" (which aired in Fall 2004 and featured UMass faculty member Dick Minear), and "The Call of the Wild" (2007), an exploration of the travels of 24-year-old “aesthetic voyager” Chris McCandless, who starved to death in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992.

Kristin Leahy (2004)
I'm originally from Philadelphia and graduated from the University of Delaware in American history and Archeology. I chose UMass because it had everything I was looking for: a great staff, wonderful opportunities, and the challenges I knew would prepare me for the future. While in school I researched, designed and mounted a bilingual exhibit (English and Spanish) on the Skinner Coffee House (an early twentieth-century settlement house) at Wisteriahurst Museum in Holyoke. I also worked for the National Park Service on a project with the staff at Sagamore Hill (Teddy Roosevelt's Long Island home) to update its listing on the National Register, and completed a nomination for the Old Tavern Farm in Greenfield, Massachusetts, which went through in 2005. For my internship, I went to Cliveden ( http://www.cliveden.org ), a National Trust site in Historic Germantown, Pennslyvania, (in the greater Philadelphia area) on an effort to reinterpret the history of slavery on the estate. After graduation, I worked as an architectural historian for URS Corp, a global engineering design firm, which gets a lot of federal government contract assignments, including work for FEMA; after Katrina, that job took me to New Orleans (in the 9th Ward) assessing the buildings that are to rehabilitated, and outlining what needed to be done to meet historic preservation guidelines. After that I returned to D.C. and accepted a position as Cultural Resources Program Manager with the National Guard. UMass is an exciting learning experience and I recommend it!!

Claire Long (2007)
I graduated from the College of Wooster in the spring of 2005, and came to UMass that fall. During my time at UMass I interned for the Massachusetts-based Trustees of Reservations (see http://www.thetrustees.org/pages/324_mission_house.cfm ), and served as a guide at three of their historic properties in western Massachusetts (the Folly at Field Farm, the Mission House in Stockbridge, and Naumkeag, the 1880s Choate estate) and also (building on experience with audio tours developed during a course-based field service project for the Emily Dickinson Museum) compiled a script for an audio tour for one of the properties. I also gained skills using GIS as a research tool through coursework at Mount Holyoke College. I was recently hired by History Associates to work as an object cataloguer to work on various projects in and around the Washington, D.C. area.

Jeffrey Mish
I am interested in the documentary film aspect of Public History, as well as looking at local/community history pertaining to ethnic islands of various immigrant groups residing within the United States. In this respect, my primary focus is studying men and women who came from the partitioned lands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 1800s and early 1900s, such as Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Poles and Belarusians. I am also intensely interested in the Polonization of Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Belarusians both within the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Hadley, Massachusetts, area, which includes Amherst (I grew up in Hadley, which is right next to Amherst). The topic of Polonization of the Eastern Europeans in the Hadley, Massachusetts, area was the subject of my undergraduate thesis at Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, New Hampshire, where I graduated Summa Cum Laude in May 2006 with a B.A in Anthropology; a minor in History; and a certificate in Global Citizenship. I have completed a four-hour documentary film chronicling the history of the Eastern European population of Hadley and how it changed over time, which aired on the local Hadley television station in August 2006; I also presented my work on Polonization at the June 2006 meeting of the Hadley Historical Society.

Kristin Morris (2001)
I received my B.A. in history from the University of Virginia in 1995. At the time, I had never heard the words "public history" but knew I wanted to have a history career outside the academy. I came to UMass in the fall of 1998 to pursue my dream. How lucky I was to find a whole group of people of the same mind! While at UMass, I had the opportunity to do two projects for Wistariahurst Museum in Holyoke. For the Museum Studies course, I wrote an exhibit on trolleys for the museum. Wistariahurst director (and UMass PH alum) Sandra Krein later landed a grant from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities enabling me to do an oral history project and exhibit on domestic servants at the site. This unique opportunity allowed me to do oral history, research, writing, exhibition installation and docent training. I coordinated the history department's History Institute (an outreach program bringing together faculty and K-12 teachers) for two semesters and the inaugural "Voices from Three Centuries" teachers' institute. After completing my coursework, I returned to my home state of California. Today I work at History San José, a museum that manages two sites, 26 historic structures and a collection of over 550,000 objects. As in so many public history jobs, I wear many hats, including school program coordinator, volunteer coordinator, and historic site manager. I currently work at the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society.

Mona Minor
I graduated magna cum laude from Smith College with a B.A. in psychology. While at Smith I studied human identity and the influence of social milieus on individual development, personality, and decision making. In my graduate studies I have continued to explore identity as it is situated within historical contexts, focusing on women and children in colonial and early America. I have studied the influence of collective memory on identity through coursework and research on Holocaust memorials, Civil War and World War II reenactors, and flashbulb memories of public events like the Kennedy assassination and 9/11. Most recently, I have immersed myself in the study of material culture, examining how individuals and societies have used objects and possessions as tools to shape identity. I am presently researching and writing a book about the social construction of clutter, combining my interest in psychology and history with my passion for flea markets, creative writing, and domestic spaces.

Jennifer Mohan (2004)
I have a B.A. in Film from Emerson College with a minor in photography. My career interests are in Visual Arts archives, historical research for American documentary filmmaking, and multi-media exhibitions. My other academic fields at UMass were queer studies and the globalization and dynamics of social movements. Since UMass combines Museum Studies with History, I was able to study a range of topics in the program that pertain to my career goals. I have interned in the Audio-Visual Archives at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, the DEFA Film Library at UMass, and I am currently an intern at the Harvard Film Archive, Harvard University. In the fall I worked with the Art and Technology Department to develop an exhibition at the Firehouse Theatre in Harlem, New York, proving historic visual material for the exhibit, and also to provide technical work for the theatrical performances. After completing my M.A., I decided to pursue another graduate degree, and was accepted into the Film Studies program at New York University.

Jill Ogline (2007)
I first came to UMass for its Public History program. Its conception of public history as a discipline tied to academic history and the study of memory, encompassing but not limited to the more "practical" professional fields, set it apart from others and piqued my interest. While an MA student, I was involved in field projects with Historic Deerfield/Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association and the Greenfield Historical Commission, assisting with monument reinterpretation and preparing a National Register of Historic Places nomination. My summer internship with the Northeast Regional Office of the National Park Service led to three years involvement with the NPS Civic Engagement Initiative. In the meantime, I decided to pursue the Ph.D., and during those years I had opportunities to prepare a comps field in Public History; spend a summer helping a Concord-based nonprofit, the Walden Woods Project, develop a project on Thoreau & Conscience; and serve as program assistant for the UMass History Institute, an outreach arm to K-12 teachers. Upon graduation I was thrilled to accept a position as Associate Director of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College ( http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu/ ), an innovative effort to raise the profile of History and the humanities in American public life.


Jean Petrovic (1990)
As a British citizen and one of the earliest graduates of the Public History program, I embarked on my MA following a BA (Hons) in American Studies at Manchester University , during which I spent my junior year at UMass.  While doing the MA, I did two incredibly enjoyable internships - one at the University Archives and the other working on the Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony which were being edited at the University at that time. Conversations with people I worked with on these internships prompted me to apply to do an MLS and I was accepted to do one - thankfully fully funded - at SUNY-Albany. While doing the MLS I did several more internships (a key to getting a good job I think!) - one at the University Archives and one with the University Library Reference team. Very fortunately for me a job came up at the newly formed Eccles Centrefor American Studies at the British Library just as I was looking for a permanent position. I have now been here for 13 years (quite a brief period time compared to many of my Library colleagues!) and the job has changed quite a lot in that time. Essentially though, the Centre is dedicated to promoting the American holdings of the Library (which are the best outside of the US itself) and to supporting American Studies in the United Kingdom at both the school and college level. Among a very varied remit I write guides to the Library's collections, curate exhibitions - both real and virtual, compile an annual guide to American Studies BA and MA programs in the UK , and answer readers' enquiries. The Centre has an annual lecture series and we have an on-going program of conferences and seminars. To be honest I could not have asked for a better job - and there is no way I would have got it without having done the Public History programme at UMass!

Anne Poubeau (2000)
While at UMass, I performed research toward the reinterpretation of the John F. Kennedy birthplace in Brookline, and also researched cheesemaking in the Porter Phelps household for the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House Museum in Hadley, MA. I have been the Education Director at Old York Historical Society since June 2000. My duties include designing and presenting school programs, overseeing interpretation and docent training, running the fellowship program in collaboration with curator of collections, and many many other things (but I love being busy!). How does my training at UMass help me the most? I received a great training in material culture, which I use everyday in developing new school programs. I recently presented a new program on the American Revolution to tenth graders. Students got to handle (with gloves of course) a powder horn, soldiers' letters, glasses and other artifacts from the time period. It turned out to be very successful. Thanks David and Marla!

Stacie Sosinski
As a former teacher with a B.A. in History and Secondary Education from Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., Stacie came to UMass interested in Museum Education and learning to incorporate Public History into classroom settings, and interest sparked by a living history internship at Old Bethpage Restoration Village in Bethpage, N.Y., where she later developed an internship program. In 2006 as an intern herself at the Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, N.H., she designed and implemented new summer educational programs. The internship allowed her to utilize her knowledge of material culture, oral history, and public history gained in the program, while in her course work, she conducted an oral history of the post-war development of UMass-Amherst campus architecture as well as a study of landscape and memory on Fire Island, a particularly exciting project for this native Long Islander. Having heard of the UMass program from her undergraduate advisor, Stacie is happy to report it has advanced her academic and professional goals just as she'd planned; upon graduation Stacie returned to the school district where she taught before beginning her graduate work, where she will begin looking for ways to draw together her K-12 and public history skills and experiences.



Charlie Tebbetts (2001)
After teaching elementary school for five years, I thought pursuing public history would be a good practical application of my graduate studies. While studying public history, I gained a keen intellectual and practical understanding of museum and historic site presentation. Additionally, I elected to take a non-profit management class that lead to a wonderful internship that taught me the fundamentals of non-profit management and how historic institutions are run financially. After graduating I decided to return to teaching at the high school level, and today work at Frontier Regional High School in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. In some ways putting time and attention into public history might seem to have been a distraction. However, the opportunity, the example, and the creative application of studying history that public history offered me contributes daily to the way I can better teach high school students.

Kate Navarra Thibodeau
I came to this department with a strong background in Anthropology and Archaeology. The classes and projects I encountered in the Public History Program have introduced me to a world of museums; professional experiences like conferences; a network of museums and projects to work with; and a supportive environment. I have had the opportunity to work on several projects at the Wistariahurst Museum, including two exhibits, one on the Settlement House Movement, using the Skinner Coffee House in Holyoke, MA as an example, and a historical exhibit on The Orchards Golf Course in South Hadley. Immediately after graduating, I was offered a full-time position as Curator at Wistariahurst Museum in Holyoke. My duties include evaluating potential donations to the collections, overseeing the appraisal, cataloguing, and box listings, provide reference services for the public to both collections, oversee volunteers, interns and employees who work on or with the collections, work to increase the public knowledge of materials through public programming, publications and web content, and monitor budget needs for both collections and track donations for the collection. Check out our website: www.wistariahurst.org. Independently, I am working on publishing a local history Arcadia book on Wistariahurst Museum. It should be out in early 2006. As if there is not enough to do on my plate, I am working with Richard Colton of the Springfield Armory to produce a document that transcribes and analyzes work logs of production at the armory from the years 1778 - 1780. If anyone has any questions about the program, feel free to contact me at knavarra@ci.holyoke.ma.us.

Kris Woll (2003)
I received my B.A. in history and English from the University of Minnesota-Morris. While working on my M.A. in history and certificate in public history at UMass, I was involved in a number of great projects -- as an interviewer/researcher for the Valley Women's History Collaborative, as an intern at Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association working on both their American Centuries website and their Teaching American History program, and as the coordinator for the UMass History Department's History Institute. For the past three years, I've worked coordinating education programs and partnerships in New York City. Currently I am the education department's program manager at the City University of New York's Gotham Center, where I coordinate and help facilitate Teaching American History programs in partnership with the New York City Department of Education and other cultural organizations throughout the city.