Big Lessons from a Small Museum

To be honest, at first, I considered the Tippecanoe County Historical Association, or TCHA for short, to be a long shot option for my public history internship. I initially expected, and hoped, to end up at a museum comparable to the Country Music Hall of Fame or the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. But, when the Country Music Hall of Fame fell through, I reached out to TCHA to see if it could be a viable backup option. I knew that it was a small museum, significantly more so than other museums I applied to, and I was not even sure if the staff would take on an intern, as they did not have a formal program or application process like the others. Yet, it was this very organization that would outlast two other museums I interviewed with, both of which had established internship programs and application processes. Ironically, I largely credit the small size of the organization as the reason why my place at TCHA remained secure from January to June 2025. As I progressed further into the internship, I found myself very glad and grateful that I ended up there.

My Curatorial Tasks

As an intern, I discovered that I could contribute dedicated time to projects full time staff or even volunteers may struggle to find time to complete or even begin. For example, I am currently updating the format of exhibit labels at the Tippecanoe Battlefield Museum, a museum under the care of TCHA that focuses on the Battle of Tippecanoe, to make them more consistent in font and how they are displayed. This is a significant task because as they stood originally, the labels are more of a hodgepodge means of display. Even though to date, typing each label into a Word Document, gluing them to foam board, and then cutting them to size has spanned just over a month of work days (Monday through Friday), I have been able to make sure that each label has the same font and put onto the same material for mounting. Additionally, I have revised the content for an exhibit on Lydia Bacon, the wife of an officer in the battle, to fill out the exhibit itself. By doing so, I was able to better highlight more how she and the troops traveled to Vincennes, IN and the Battle of Tippecanoe as well as highlighting her experiences waiting for her husband’s return, which I organized into clearer sections. These sorts of tasks are beneficial for me to complete, as opposed to staff or volunteers, because I have the ability to dedicate significant amounts of time to such projects, which the others may not be able to do. Additionally, these two tasks will benefit me because they provide hands-on experience preparing uniform materials for long term use in a museum.

Community Involvement

Beyond my designated projects, I have gained a new perspective on how the Tippecanoe County Historical Association does not stand alone in Lafayette. I have seen how heavily intertwined with and reliant TCHA is on the community to support it. One way this is accomplished is through community members purchasing memberships. The first time I had first-hand experience with this aspect was at an archaeological tour at Fort Ouiatenon, another location that TCHA contributes to caring for, which only members could attend. One detail that caught my attention was that the full-time staff knew many of the members by name. This struck me as significant because it shows how much the staff is in the (relatively) public eye and the investment community members make into the association. For that particular event, I was able to see how the staff were right in the action, interacting with individuals as they came to be checked in.

Another aspect of community involvement that I have encountered was the involvement of volunteers at the association itself. For example, at the main location of the TCHA, some volunteers help catalog the collection while others clean archival materials and work with marriage records, which shows the variety of projects volunteers have a hand in. Together, these two ways the public can be involved in the historical association allow it to continue to preserve the history of the broader community.

The Academic vs. The Professional Worlds

Lastly, I have been able to experience the amount of variety that takes place day to day at TCHA, which has helped me see history in practice, not merely in theory. In addition to the above, I witnessed a walking tour around downtown Lafayette, the transport and display of traveling exhibit panels and other materials and even had a hand in creating exhibit centerpieces for a fundraising dinner. I particularly enjoyed the exhibit centerpieces, as I wrote labels for each one and I decided which relevant artifacts would go into three of the four centerpieces and how they would be arranged. This experience, alongside everything else, has given me a completely different experience than what I have found in the classroom. In the classroom, I learned to expect critiques and/or affirmations for practically every assignment, sometimes represented solely by a grade but, in the internship, comments or corrections do not always come in so hard or so fast. While in the classroom, I also learned to look for one correct answer, but in the internship, there is significantly more flexibility. What this means for me is that it forces me to be less reliant on the approval of those around me for the work I accomplish. While I find it hard to grasp that critiques are not always needed, I am learning to appreciate this structure, especially as someone who already holds myself to a high standard with anything resembling and including academic work. Because of the lessened amount of ready-to-give feedback, I have come to appreciate how needing to think on my feet is an essential workplace skill, especially as the staff fill more roles than their job title. Together, everything I have had the chance to experience at TCHA testifies to the assortment of skills necessary for daily operation.

This post is part of our Curation Chronicles series. Find out more about the History department.