In conjunction with Prof. Lisa Goff and the Institute for Public History, the Nau Center is pleased to offer six summer internships in 2019. All five internships from this past summer will return and we are adding a sixth in partnership with Antietam National Battlefield Park. Internships will take place in-state in Charlottesville, Richmond, Fredericksburg, as well as Sharpsburg, Maryland.
Please visit the IPH website to apply and for details on other internships being offered by a variety of institutions in Virginia.
Here are the descriptions of our six internships.
Internship #1: Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park
Fredericksburg, Virginia
One internship available
National Park Service intern
Terms: In partnership with the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History, the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park is seeking an undergraduate intern with a background in nineteenth-century American history to work at the national park. This internship pays $7.25 an hour--$3,480 for the summer (40 hrs a week for 12 weeks). Internships start and end dates will be determined by the NPS supervisor. The summer internship includes housing at the Park. This internship is generously funded by the Carl Sewell family.
Goals: Duties will be determined by conversations between staff at the Park and at UVA's Nau Civil War Center and could include research, engagement with visitors to the Park, and preparation of historical papers, and work for the NPS websites.
About the National Military Park: The National Park Service unit headquartered in Fredericksburg encompasses four major Civil War battlefields, cemeteries containing soldiers from the United States and the Confederacy, monuments from the commemorative era, and historic structures dating from the 18th through the 19th century. The site interprets a wide range of events, including the battles of Fredericksburg (1862) Chancellorsville (1863), the Wilderness (1864), and Spotsylvania (1864); the experience of black and white refugees; the trauma of civilians caught in the path of war; and postwar activities that recalled and interpreted the conflict.
Internship #2: Richmond National Battlefield Park and Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site
Richmond, Virginia
One internship available
National Park Service intern
Terms: In partnership with the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History, the Richmond National Battlefield Park and Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site is seeking an undergraduate intern with a background in nineteenth-century American history to work at the national park. This internship pays $7.25 an hour--$3,480 for the summer (40 hrs a week for 12 weeks). Internships start and end dates will be determined by the NPS supervisor. The summer internship includes housing on Park Service land. This internship is generously funded by the Lockhart family.
Goals: Duties will be determined by conversations between staff at the NPS units and at UVA's Nau Civil War Center and could include research, engagement with visitors, preparation of historical papers, and work for the NPS websites.
About the National Park Service sites: These two National Park Service units headquartered in Richmond administer several major Civil War battlefields from 1862 and 1864-65, the Chimborazo Medical Museum, prisoner-of-war installations, portions of the Tredegar industrial site, several national cemeteries, monuments from the commemorative era, historic structures from the 18th and 19th centuries, and the Maggie L. Walker house. The two sites interpret military events and civilian life during the Civil War, the process of emancipation, race relations during Reconstruction and the late 19th century, and the development of commemorative traditions relating to the war.
Internship #3: Antietam National Battlefield Park
Charlottesville, Virginia and Antietam, Maryland
One internship available
National Park Service intern
Terms: In partnership with the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History, the Antietam National Battlefield Park is seeking an undergraduate intern with a background in nineteenth-century American history to conduct historical research on Civil War soldiers who fought at Antietam. Intern should be able to work independently and write clearly for a public audience. This internship pays $10.00 an hour--$3,000 for the summer (30 hrs a week for 10 weeks). Travel to and from Antietam will be required at the beginning and end of the internship. The NPS site will reimburse these expenses up to $1,000.
Goals: The purpose of this internship is to research primary on-site materials at the University of Virginia and any relevant digital materials that provide written accounts from those who participated in the Battle of Antietam about their motivations, views, involvement and reactions to secession, the enslaved and the Emancipation Proclamation. The intern will be supervised by the Chief of Resource Education and Visitor Services at Antietam and Nau Center Managing Director William Kurtz while at UVA.
Outcome: The end product of this project is a better understanding of how those who participated felt about why they fought, and this revolutionary outcome of their battle. This research will inform future exhibits and programming at Antietam.
About the National Battlefield Park: Antietam National Battlefield is located in western Maryland, 10 miles south of Hagerstown in Washington County. The battlefield is approximately 3,000 acres in size. More than 100,000 Union and Confederate soldiers fought at Antietam. The most important outcome from the battle was President’s Lincoln’s issuance of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
Internship #4: Nau Civil War Center Digital Research
Charlottesville, Virginia
One internship available
Digital history, database and website development, archival research
Terms: Undergraduate student with background in American history. The intern will work directly under the Nau Center's digital historian assisting in efforts to gather data and information as part of the Center's various digital projects. Those projects include studying black Civil War soldiers from Albemarle County, UVA students who fought for the Union, and a study of Civil War prisons. Intern should demonstrate strong organizational and analytic skills, ability to work independently, and write clearly. This internship pays $10 an hour--roughly $3,000 for the summer (30 hrs a week for 10 weeks).
Goals: Primary responsibilities include data entry, research in digital databases and at UVA's Special Collections Library, writing essays about the Civil War and the 19th century, and other tasks to be determined in conjunction with the Nau Center digital historian.
Outcome: The intern will be expected to complete specific tasks as outlined above. At the end of the summer, the intern will have an understanding of the technical processes involved in the digital humanities and have practical experience in researching the American Civil War.
About the Digital Research Center: Our studies of "UVA Unionists" and "Black Virginians in Blue" began in 2015 as a way to tell another side of our local community's Civil War story, which in the past often has been dominated by the Confederate "Lost Cause" narrative. Very little is known about what black men from central Virginia did during the conflict and we hope to uncover a larger story tracing their lives from the antebellum period, to the war, to Reconstruction and the end of the century. Similarly, UVA students who fought for the Union were left out of the university's Civil War story. Prisoners of war is a neglected topic in Civil War scholarship, and he hope to create a digital map that will be useful to scholars and the general public alike.
Internship #5: Virginia Museum of History and Culture
Richmond, Virginia
One internship available
Manuscripts processing, Civil War archives
Terms: Upper-level undergraduate student with a strong history background; familiarity with Virginia Civil War and social history a plus. Accuracy and attention to detail required. This internship pays $10 an hour--roughly $3,000 for the summer. Intern must provide own housing.
Goals: Duties will include sorting, arranging, analyzing, re-housing, and describing Civil War-era papers.
Outcome: Under the supervision of archival team members, the intern will be part of a major effort to process a significant group of Civil War-era manuscripts, with the goal of producing finding aids that will guide researchers to the materials.
About the VMHC: The Virginia Museum of History and Culture (formerly Virginia Historical Society) maintains a strong commitment to educational outreach, exhibitions, and other programming, but is perhaps best known for its research library and collections. Those collections include manuscripts (personal and family papers, business and organizational records), printed materials and rare books, and museum artifacts. A commitment to preservation of and access to its richest resources has led to an initiative to process these materials.
Internship #6: Daughters of Zion Cemetery
Charlottesville, Virginia
One internship available
Research in historical records, website design and maintenance
Terms: The intern will conduct research on the cemetery’s early decades (1873-1900), in particular on the people buried in the cemetery who were born before or during the Civil War. Another focus will be the histories of the founders of the cemetery. This internship pays $10 an hour—roughly $3,000 for the summer.
Goals: The cemetery, a unique form of built landscape, offers a rich and largely unexplored site for documenting and interpreting the history of enslaved and free blacks in Charlottesville both before and after Emancipation. Founded during Reconstruction by the Daughters of Zion Society, a sororal organization, the private cemetery provided a dignified alternative to the segregated Oakwood Cemetery across the street; as such, it offers a unique framework for interpreting the history of the antebellum African Americans who founded self-help organizations and promoted African-American commerce, education, and entrepreneurship during Reconstruction. It also provides material for closer analysis of sororal African-American organizations, which have not received as much attention as their fraternal counterparts.
Outcomes: The intern will work closely with a UVA faculty member, as well as the Preservers of the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, to develop specific outcomes for the internship, which may include a website and written research reports. The chief outcome will be new, primary research that amplifies the Civil War and Reconstruction history of the cemetery, and by extension, Charlottesville.
About Daughters of Zion Cemetery: The cemetery was founded in 1873 by a group of African-American women who wanted to provide private burial services and a cemetery for black Charlottesvillians. The Daughters of Zion Society also owned a community center, called Zion Hall, which housed many local civic and religious groups and events. After decades of neglect, another group of committed local women, the Preservers of the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, formed in 2015 to restore the cemetery. Their approach to restoration, which includes restoring its public memory as well as its physical beauty, constitutes a new paradigm for presenting the public history of African-American spaces.