194. Building Digital History Projects at the Washington Library with the ITPS Interns

One of the most important things we’re able to do at the Center for Digital History is offer internships to college students.

Working with students allows us to move our projects forward while giving them real world opportunities to do the kind of work that historians do, and development skills that will hopefully serve them well later in life.

Now, we’ve talked about our internship program on the show before – you might recall our chat with Jamie Morris of Washington College – and today you’ll get to hear from three excellent students who joined our team last fall, thanks to a partnership with the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona College.

Felicia, Moriah, and Christian, all students at Iona, joined us virtually over the course of the fall term to help us with the Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington and the reconstruction of the Database of Enslaved People at Mount Vernon.

Jim Ambuske and Jeanette Patrick and served as the site coordinators at the Washington Library for these internships, while Dr. Michael Crowder, the ITPS’s public historian, was the students’ instructor. He’s one of the architects of the institute's internships as well.

So on today’s show, Michael, Jeanette, and Jim chat with our interns about their interest in history and their experiences working with us over the past few months, and then at the end the three of us reflect on the semester, what worked, and the opportunities that lie ahead.

About Our Guests:

Felicia Ferrando is a Junior majoring in History at Iona College in New Rochelle, NY. 

Moriah Simmons is a Junior majoring in History at Iona College in New Rochelle, NY. 

Christian Zimmardi is a Senior majoring in Political Science at Iona College in New Rochelle, NY. 

Michael Crowder is the Public Historian at The Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona College. He earned a Ph.D. in the History Department at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. His project, “Human Capital: The Moral and Political Economy of Northeastern Abolitionism, 1763-1833,” examines the relationships between the rapid growth of abolitionism and capitalism in the Era of the American Revolution. He has also written essays about the African colonization movement and American participation in the slave trade, as well as articles about American football for rollingstone.com. In addition to serving as an archival fellow, he teaches American History at Queens College, CUNY.

About Our Hosts:

Jeanette Patrick is the Digital Writer and Researcher in the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. Among her many responsibilities, she serves as Associate Editor of the Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington.  She holds an MA in Public History from James Madison University. She is a former Program Manager at the National Women's History Museum in Washington, D.C.

Jim Ambuske, Ph.D., leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.