Name: Audrey Hollenbeck
Class Year: 2028
Major: History

Internship Organization: American Philosophical Society
Internship Title: Exhibitions Curatorial Intern
Location: Philadelphia, PA

What’s happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!

My internship was at the American Philosophical Society (APS), America’s oldest scholarly organization. I primary completed research for the APS Museum’s 2028 exhibition on the Arctic and supported supplemental research for their upcoming 2027 exhibition on Indigenous use of APS collections. I spent most of my time finding, reading, and taking notes on collections, books, resources, and information from APS and over forty other institutions.

Box from the Geographical Society of Philadelphia Records collection

I grew particularly interested in Josephine Diebitsch Peary, who was one of the first white women to go to the Arctic with an expedition. She gained national prominence at the turn of the century, writing books about her and her daughter Marie’s experiences traveling around the Arctic to support her husband, Robert E. Peary. Josephine’s impact on Arctic exploration has only recently begun to be fully recognized by scholars, and women’s participation in polar expeditions remains under-researched. It was important to me to highlight in my research Inuit people and women in the Arctic, and my supervisor supported and encouraged me in this endeavor.

Why did you apply for this internship?

I have always loved museums, research, and history, and an internship where I had the opportunity to do historical research in a museum seemed absolutely perfect. The American Philosophical Society’s Museum is particularly exciting for me because it is located within a larger institution that contains a vast research library and focuses on community outreach through conferences and workshops. The interdisciplinary nature of both the Museum and the Society as a whole was a major draw for me because I was able to talk to and learn from people with diverse career paths, fields, and goals every single day. This internship was firmly rooted in an environment that I already loved while also guaranteeing that I would be introduced to new paths, experiences, and skills.

What has been your favorite part of this internship?
My favorite part of my internship was the variety of pacing, topics, and collaboration I experienced on any given day. Somedays, I sat quietly at my desk or in the Library’s Reading Room immersed in the worlds of academic articles, books, or archival materials for my own research project on the Arctic. Other times, I would participate in energetic meetings where the museum staff discussed updates and goals for the whole group.

Brochure and correspondence from Hjordis Kittle Parker to Mrs. Rosser of Geographical Society of Philadelphia

At any time, my supervisor might urgently ask me to find and summarize additional information on a niche topic, such as modern cedar bark weaving techniques or a list of Nuu-Chah-Nulth art galleries, which would immediately become part of the larger project of interviews, interpretation, and acquisitions for the 2027 exhibition. It was invigorating to sit down every morning at my desk not knowing exactly what rabbit hole I might fall down, but confident that I would end up on a fascinating adventure leaving me more curious about the world as I headed back to Bryn Mawr on the 5:36 pm train.

What is most rewarding about your internship?

I spent a lot of time in APS Library’s Reading Room studying the Geographical Society of Philadelphia’s Records. Well-known historical figures like Amelia Earhart appeared, but even more thrilling was the slow burn of piecing together the lives of individuals where my only information on them was a trail of mundane business correspondence. While I only had a part of the picture, I saw the stories of women like Hjordis Kittel Parker, a woman who traveled the geographical film-lecture circuit. She was mainly advertised as a housewife who went on adventures, yet she was extremely knowledgeable about Scandinavia and skilled at making the films that accompanied her lectures.

Through reading two decades of correspondence of Parker scheduling her Philadelphia lectures with the society’s executive secretary, Mrs. Emily Rosser, I began to see how Parker understood herself as a filmmaker who was able to show audiences a side of the world they would likely never get to see otherwise. Through the small anecdotes slipped into the letters coordinating her event appearances, the loving respect Parker had for herself, her work, and Mrs. Rosser taught me that the battle to be seen as serious professional woman in mid-century America was buttressed through women collaborating to elevate one another.