Thursday, August 31st, marked the last day of my internship with the Federation of State Humanities Councils. The nine weeks I spent with that organization had been a whirlwind of with plenty of ups and luckily, only a few downs. Finishing the laborious history project for the organization was a major high. Not only did I feel accomplished having sorted through 20+ boxes of files and documents, but it gave plenty of time for me to be outsourced to other projects that needed to be completed in a hurry. I began to assist the Federation’s Communications Manager, Natalie Pak, in compiling a briefing book on each of the 57 state humanities councils to be presented to the new National Endowment for the Humanities’ Chair. Never again will I underestimate how difficult is to try and collect lots of information from lots of different people or how long it takes to […]

The Federation of State Humanities Councils was officially formed in 1977 to work as a liaison between each state humanities council and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Over time the Federation has been extremely busy, creating for themselves a full and interesting history. Luckily for me, they documented all of it. Well, sort of. What they did was keep everything that has come their way over the past 37 years. My job is to sort, record, and sometimes annotate documents of importance that give insight into the nuances of the Federation’s history. The task seemed daunting initially but there was little else to do but just dive in head first. My first day reminded me of an old show I watched as a child, The Magic School Bus. I felt like I was in Ms Frizzle’s class, and on a field trip that took me back to the late […]