During the summer internship, I worked as a research intern for Arch Street Meeting House Preservation Trust (ASMHPT). The trust is a non-profit organization preserving the historic landmark of Arch Street Meeting House, a meeting place for the Philadelphian Quakers since the early 19th century. The project goal is to accomplish a landscape report of the meeting house’s burial ground, which could be dated back to the late 17th century before the meeting house was constructed and was used for interment until the mid-19th century. My regular task is to collect archival materials relevant to the burial ground, including Quaker meeting records, epistles, and manuscripts. I paid frequent visits to Quaker institutes including Haverford College and Swarthmore College for documentation. In many cases, it involves digging through piled meeting records and epistles to find those documents that have never been cited. I’m expected to sum up the records I find to make a bibliography entry, which is to be referred to by other researchers in the future. The work in archives, including HSP and Quaker archives in Haverford and Swarthmore demands the documentation techniques learned in HSPV 6000. The organization of records in the bibliography and knowledge regarding the history of the Quakers and the meeting house burial ground are relevant to what I learned in HSPV 5340 Public History of the Built Environment.
During the internship, I worked with many archivists in archives across Philadelphia. Aaron and the trust’s director Mr. Connolly instructed me on preliminary Quaker history; by working with them I learned many basic aspects of Quaker culture, how the Society of Friends functioned in history, and how their customs influenced relevant cultural landscape. Laura gave me detailed instructions on my research as my supervisor, specifically arranging my bibliography in formality. By working with those specialists, I become proficient in the documentation of public history. I learned how Quakers manage their worship organization and file their meeting records, so I could look through the records I want more efficiently. I have a deeper understanding of Quaker aesthetics, and how this aesthetic is embodied in Quaker architecture as well as burial grounds. I grew more acquainted with the progress of landscape research, especially the arrangement of the bibliography at the early stage. I feel impressed that Quaker’s unique testimonies and organizational forms distinguish them from other Christian organizations and play a great role in Philadelphia’s history. This experience is a great help to my future research on public history. It encourages me to seek further on the path of combining public history studies with urban landscapes to understand the great legacies of our cities truly.
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