Beyond Work Duty

Contributed by Peabody Student Volunteer, Anthony Chung Yin Woo

In the fall term of tenth grade, I first joined the Peabody as a work duty student before returning as a student volunteer during my upper senior year. Working at the Peabody has given me an in depth behind the scenes look into running a museum, exposing me to the challenges in caring for a collection. When participating in preparation works for the building renovation project last winter, I learned about some of the technical complexities that museum workers have to go through in order to responsibly safeguard the collection. Having had the great opportunity to attend the Peabody Board of Advisors meeting in the fall as a student representative, I was also exposed to some of the administrative complexities behind museum work.

A complete revamp of the basement area meant that we had to come up with creative solutions when it came to temporarily rehousing the collection within museum premises. Armed with a tape measure and a rough floor plan, we navigated all protruding columns and bulky built in radiators in the southern first floor gallery to mark up the approximate location for a separated temporary storage space with individual climate monitoring, while maintaining the required three foot hallway for access to the fire exit located at the back of the building. Additionally, previously underutilized spaces had to be optimized to fit in more durable, weather resistant objects, allowing me to foray into the expansive attic as I removed sawhorses and large glass tubes from the basement.

In spite of the physically and mentally draining task of completely clearing out the basement, moments of excitement rewarded me throughout the process. Under the empty wooden bays, for example, I found tiny matchboxes from the 1940s, cool items which alluded to the museum’s own history. A Spencer Delineascope, manufactured by Bell and Howell found in the basement, spoke to the great advancements made in projection technology since the 1930s, as the bulky object was moved slowly up the stairs. Only when it was removed from the little room under the stairs to the basement was when I could truly appreciate the size of the museum’s safe and its obsolescence in a time when the entire collection was kept behind locked doors.

Learning about the 3D printed replicas of the intricate molding on the gallery ceilings also made me appreciate the museum as a historically significant space itself, allowing me to understand that preserving the space’s spirit through attention to detail was crucial even as the building is physically altered to facilitate better learning in the future through greater accessibility.

Attending the Peabody Advisory Committee meeting allowed me to better contextualize my work as a volunteer as I watched experts across disciplines partake in the collaborative process of museum governance. It was especially interesting for me to hear about the cross-institutional connections brought by Hopi artist Ramson Lomatewama, and I was particularly happy to share my experience at the communal fused-glass making workshop, which was enthusiastically attended by both faculty members and students. Going through items on the agenda, such as the adoption of a new mission statement, as well as the advisory board’s renaming (form the Peabody Advisory Committee to Peabody Board of Advisors), while less captivating than the discussion on the Peabody’s educational program and future student engagement opportunities, were nevertheless just as relevant to the student experience. As I look forward to returning to the updated building on Main Street in the winter, both as a student volunteer and as a member of this year’s Human Origins cohort, I am constantly reminded of the care demonstrated by the Peabody’s staff as well as the Peabody Board of Advisors towards the collection, the museum, and the greater community as a whole, manifested in the meticulous attention to word choice in the advisory board’s mission statement drafting process.