MMC Interns Put Never-Before-Seen Documents Online for JSTOR
Spencer Dias and Alexa Ramirez
MMC students Alexa Ramirez and Spencer Dias have leveled the playing field for history by posting documents that were once limited to researchers visiting archives onto JSTOR, where they can be accessed anywhere the Internet can reach.
The task called on skills Alexa and Spencer learned at MMC. Both are History majors, with Professor Lauren Erin Brown, Ph.D., as their advisor, and Alexa is also an English and World Literature major with Professor Michael Colvin, Ph.D., as her advisor. Their classroom studies came in handy when they undertook an internship at the Center for Migration Studies, where they examined documents chosen for posting online, annual reports of the National Catholic Welfare Conference Bureau of Immigration New York Port Office, a long name for long typescripts detailing one immigrant aid agency’s work with people in transit through New York each year from 1921 to 1965.
Spencer and Alexa used their historical knowledge to identify keywords future researchers might type into JSTOR. They searched the archival collection from which the reports came for representative pictures and composed text to highlight the reports’ narratives about work with New York’s incoming immigrants. They studied technical information from JSTOR. Finally, they uploaded files as directed. Their handiwork is now available for viewing here!
This internship experience is the tip of the archival iceberg. New York’s tradition as a center of business, communication, and cultural make it a center of history and archives, with plenty of opportunities for MMC students to incorporate some aspects of the modern career of history into their own life plans. If you are interested in an internship like this, contact Professor Brown at lbrown2@mmm.edu!
Published: April 29, 2024
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