Hello, my name is Harrison Smith. I am a grad student at the University of Central Florida who is currently pursuing a masters in public history. My areas of specialized study fall within the topics of military and 20th century history; with a major focus being on the First World War. For the summer semester of 2022 I will be interning at the Museum of Military History located in Orlando, Florida. The museum was originally founded as the “Veterans’ Tribute” in 2003. The Veterans’ Tribute became a 501(c) non-profit institution in early 2004 and moved to its present location in September of that same year. The institution's museum statement is to educate, increase awareness, build knowledge and understanding of the American military experience through interactive, interpretive exhibits designed for visitors of all ages.
One of my major career goals is to work within the public history sector, in a history museum; this is why I believe this internship is a great preliminary stepping stone to understanding how museums work. (Acquisition, finance, curation, deaccession, archiving, etc) Since the end of the Spring 2022 semester, I have exchanged emails and phone calls with the Museum of Military History’s curator Mathius Williams, and executive director Chris Roberston. Both seemed to be very excited to have me on board for the summer especially with my military history specialization and background. I began my internship on May 19, 2022 and worked out a weekly schedule going forward. I hope to gain curation and public history skills from this internship. I will be working on multiple projects with the museum but based on my first day it seems that much of my time will be spent improving the First World War exhibition.
The first day of my internship was a mixture of an orientation and a brief museum tour. Matthias and Chris brought me up to speed with the practices, policies, and goals of the museum while also giving me additional context on the museum’s board member history and the possibility of a second story expansion occurring early next year. The exhibitions are set in chronological order starting with the American Revolutionary War of the 18th century and ending with the Global War on Terror of the 21st century. After learning about my area of study, Christ and Mathius sent me to the First World War section of the museum. They wanted me to really look at their collection representing the First World War and give my opinions and feedback on the accuracy of the exhibition.
I created a quick sketch of the museum’s First World War exhibition layout (which I will provide Dr. Gannon within a pdf). The sketch gives a rough idea of what is in each display case, and contemplates ways of improving the over narrative or flow of the exhibition. My goal for this upcoming week is to communicate a new labeling system with Mathius and Chris that relies on numbering items within the exhibition and providing pamphlets to museum guests that have the matching number and labeling that explains the significance of each item. That way physical authentic items do not need to be removed from the exhibition, but labels can be removed from the display cases to create a neater, more uniformed, and less cluttered look. I will be returning to the museum next Tuesday, May 23rd to continue my work with the museum. I will report my findings and an update in blog post 2 which will be submitted Friday, May 27.