Wednesday, July 12

Another intern workshop, and another learning experience! This week the interns were met by the Registrar's office composed of 5-6 staff. While I did not think I was going to be interested in the topic, I was pleasantly surprised at how their duties and responsibilities aligned with experiences I have had in the past at the BMC Special Collections and other institutions.

I soon realized that when I walked into the presentation that morning, I honestly had not considered what a registrar does and why they do it. I found, however, that their work within the institution, especially in terms of the record keeping and information management of objects, acquisition history, and donors, has direct bearing on the work we are undertaking presently for Dr. Zuberi. Without institutional record keeping of who gave to the museum and what they gave, our project would be much more difficult.

Later on, when we caught up with Dr. Zuberi, I was excited to see how much work we had undertaken over the past two months, and sad to realize that the team will become smaller as the school year arrives. Because I have been consumed by entering the visitor data, I was not fully up-to-date on the archival progress.

After hearing from Isabella and Maeve about the growing information they have gathered from the archives, and the resources they compiling to send to Dr. Zuberi, I feel very confident that I can take up the helm of their work in August! There are some really exciting avenues to be followed, especially considering the possible Bryn Mawr connection Isabella found regarding the Plass family donations. Considering the presence of donations in the Bryn Mawr Collections, the BMC archives may have some valuable information that corresponds to the Penn objects as well. Interestingly, Margaret Plass seemed very engaged in the Penn Museum collections, and even wrote an article for Expedition Magazine in 1959 about the museum's Benin pieces which really speaks to the style of discourse white specialists were having about these objects in the late 50s: https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-art-of-benin/. At one point in the article, she calls the military action against Benin, the "debacle of 1897," which demonstrates the ways in which the Punitive Expedition was thought of and discussed in relation to these objects.

I can't wait to follow the threads further, and I feel the juicy stories are just getting started!



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