Five Years and Still Counting.
History has always been an important part of my life. Having grown up in Fort Parker State Park, surrounded by the history of Central Texas and the Civilian Conservation Corps, I was keenly interested in working with historic artifacts in some way for my career. I was happy to come to Baylor University in 2005, majoring in museum studies and history. Looking back now, I was either foolish or determined; Baylor was the only university to which I applied. Thankfully I was accepted!
As a museum studies major in the program 2005-2009, I was interested in pursuing a career in museum education. Crucial to my future career, I also took an archives class taught by Julie Holcomb in 2009 – the first archives course taught in the Baylor Department of Museum Studies, to my knowledge. At that time, I had no idea how that class would help shape my future profession.
After obtaining my bachelor’s degree in museum studies and history, I earned an MA through the Baylor History Department. In my two years there, the broad base of museum and public history knowledge I gathered while a museum studies undergraduate was put to good use. I also learned about the study of history through time, how to write and research more efficiently, and critical thinking skills that I still use today. One of my graduate assistantships during that time was working at the Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site, using my archival skills from the museum studies class to help write finding aids.
With my history MA degree in hand, I was approached by John Wilson, director of The Texas Collection, about working as an archivist to help preserve and provide research access to archival collections at The Texas Collection. A temporary one-year position turned into more, and now I’ve been working at The Texas Collection for five years. Every day is different: one day I might help researchers use our Civil War collections, another day I might move boxes of archival materials to make room for new collections, or I might help our graduate students write finding aids. I have also had the privilege of working with Julie Holcomb’s Museum Archives class, the same class I took as a senior at Baylor in 2009. In the current version of the class, every student enrolled comes to The Texas Collection and prepares a collection for use by researchers. But the most fun and rewarding part of my job is training, assisting, and empowering graduate student assistants as they discover amazing stories about people in historical collections. Preserving the many and varied stories of people is at the heart of what we do in preserving and writing history, whether in archives, museums, libraries, or history.
Written by Paul Fisher
One of Paul’s favorite documents in The Texas Collection is this handwritten report by Waco native and Confederate general James E. Harrison. The full document tells of his journey to the American Indian tribes in present-day Oklahoma, to see whether they would side with the Confederacy in the American Civil War. Images courtesy of The Texas Collection, Baylor University.