Andrea Howard

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Before graduating in 2014 from Central Michigan University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History, I had the good fortune of interning with Marian Matyn at the Clarke Historical Library. During my internship, I spent most of my time on the Aladdin Housing Company collection, sorting through the personal records of Aladdin founder William Sovereign and his son, Will Sovereign, Jr. I loved finding unexpected things, like photographs of pilot Jeanette Lempke (William Sovereign’s wife) and her trailblazing flights in the 1920s. I knew pretty quickly that I’d also found a new career path. 

Fast forward about 9 years- I now have a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. After a brief stint as a Local History Librarian in Ohio, I am currently a Visiting Processing Archivist at Grand Valley State University. Drawing directly from my processing experience at the Clarke, I am currently working to process a large collection of zoning and urban planning materials. I’m excited to contribute to the field in the next couple of years by becoming involved in professional archival organizations and giving conference presentations. 

Sometimes I wonder where I would be if I hadn’t been flipping through a course catalog my senior year, looking for a history course and noticing the archives internship option for the first time. My internship at the Clarke taught me fundamental archival principles and skills and kindled my love for archives, but it did so much more than that. I developed a lasting friendship with Marian Matyn; I regularly turn to her for advice and encouragement and highly value her opinions and insights. That internship was also the only hands-on, official archival internship I had before entering the job market. I know that the experience I gained at the Clarke was instrumental to my job search success. If you’re on the fence about interning in the archives, I say go for it! You never know what you might find.  

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