Bonnet House Internship Summer '25

Hello Reader, This week marked the final phase of physical work on the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Exhibit at the Bonnet House Museum and Gardens. Although I wasn’t able to come in on Monday as I had planned (due to an injured ankle over the weekend), I was still able to make it in on Wednesday and Thursday to move the exhibit closer to completion. This post is organized into the three key components of the exhibit we finalized this week: the panel, the table display, and the trunk installation. The Panel Completed Panel The vertical display panel holds the mounted photos and interpretive signage that introduce visitors to Helen’s story. Most of the signage had already been mounted, but there were a few pieces that needed to be redone due to cutting issues last week. I re-mounted those, applied Velcro to the backs of each piece, and arranged everything on the panel in its final layout. Once complete, we placed the panel in a closet near the Music Room overnight to make sure everyth...

Planning how to mount the photos Hello Reader, This week at the Bonnet House Museum and Gardens, I made major progress on the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Exhibit; so much so that the finish line is finally in sight. Wednesday: Finalizing the Exhibit Items After last week’s visit from the team at Glen Helen, we had temporarily packed up all of the archival items for the exhibit. On Wednesday, we brought everything back out to finalize exactly which materials would be included in the display. After laying it all out and reviewing the options, we decided on a selection of original and reproduction items that reflect Helen’s personal life, creativity, and legacy. The final group includes a page from one of her photo albums, an original valentine envelope addressed to her father (along with a recreated version of the valentine that was inside), her original handwritten sheet music, a first edition of Capricious Winds , and a copy of the Glen Helen Memorial Collection booklet from the A...

The Sphinx and I Hello Reader, This week’s blog post is a bit different. I wasn’t able to make it into the Bonnet House due to being sick and needing some time to rest. I had only planned to go in on Wednesday, since Katie was going to be out of the office on Thursday, but unfortunately, I wasn’t well enough to go in at all. Even so, I had an unexpected opportunity to think about museum work in a different context. Some art I saw at the MET Over the weekend, I took a spontaneous trip to Manhattan with my mom and spent a day at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. While I saw many incredible pieces of art and historical artifacts, one stood out to me above the rest: the colossal Sphinx of Hatshepsut , located in Gallery 131 next to the Temple of Dendur. The statue, originally from Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri, depicts Egypt’s first female pharaoh with the body of a lion and a human head. She wears the royal nemes headcloth, a false beard, and the uraeus cobra on her brow,...

Glen Helen Nature Preserve Hello Reader, This week at the Bonnet House Museum and Gardens brought a nice mix of exhibit progress, special visitors, and obviously more searching for the ever-elusive rooster. As the weeks go on, I’m becoming even more familiar with both the collections and the behind-the-scenes work that goes into caring for historic sites like Bonnet House. Wednesday: Preparing for Special Guests On Wednesday, Katie let me know that visitors from Glen Helen Nature Preserve in Ohio would be coming to Bonnet House the following day. Glen Helen was established by Hugh Taylor Birch in honor of his daughter, Helen Birch Bartlett, after she passed away from breast cancer in 1925. In the months leading up to the visit, Katie and the staff at Glen Helen had been exchanging materials and information related to the Birch family, and now they were finally coming to Bonnet House in person. Collection Materials for the Flashdrive My task was to collect both physical and digital mate...

Frederick's Studio Hello Reader, This week at the Bonnet House Museum and Gardens, I continued my work on the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Exhibit and also had the opportunity to take on some unexpected and fascinating collections work. It was a week of both planning and hands-on tasks that gave me a deeper appreciation for the responsibilities involved in museum work. Wednesday: Exhibit Planning Planning the layout Since I had finished writing the signage text and pulling archival materials last week, my goal this week was to move forward with the physical setup of the Helen exhibit. Katie and I began by looking through the boards that had been used in previous exhibits. We decided on a 7-foot-tall tan fabric board that had previously served as a room partition in the studio. Using the signage text I had written, I decided on the corresponding photographs and began mapping out how everything would be arranged on the board. I used Canva to create a digital mockup, organizing the...

Hello Reader, This week marked my first full stretch of hands-on work at the Bonnet House Museum and Gardens, and it was incredibly rewarding. I originally planned to be in on Wednesday and Thursday, but I ended up going in for five hours on Friday as well. I was fully invested in the project I had started and wanted to make progress while Katie, the curator, was available to support and guide me. Research on Wednesday When I arrived on Wednesday, Katie and I sat down to discuss four upcoming projects that the museum is preparing to take on. The first is the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Exhibit, which will be installed in the Music Room to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Helen’s passing. The second involves redrawing the docent tour map to reflect updated exhibit labels and room descriptions. The third project is updating the museum’s signage system, transitioning from QR codes (which are rarely used by visitors) to more accessible and permanent physical signage. Finally, the f...