Leah Tams (’14): A Scene from a Summer Internship


As reported earlier, History major Leah Tams (’14) spent this summer working as an intern with the Smithsonian Institution Archives in Washington, D.C. She worked with the Institutional History Division, assisting in the development of public exhibits, programs, and archival collections. Leah also composed reports for the Smithsonian’s public blog, including an intriguing account of her own work on an online exhibit of historical postcards and—a classic archival mystery—the challenges of dating them. For more, see Leah Tams, “The Mystery of the Undated Postcards,” at The Bigger Picture – Exploring Archives and Smithsonian History (23 July 2013).

Image: Postcard of Continental Uniforms, 1942, by Curt Teich & Co., Linen, Record Unit 65, Box 16, Folder: Postcards, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Neg. no. SIA2013-07812. From Leah Tams’ post, cited above.

Looking Ahead to the Senior Thesis? Two New Archival Links at our Resources Page

We’ve added links to two new archival collections at our Resources page here at the UMW History and American Studies website.

The first is a link to a new online archive on the topic of the American influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. Developed by the Center for the History of Medicine and the MPublishing division at the University of Michigan, this collection is the “first comprehensive digital resource documenting the 1918-1919 American epidemic experience.” The archive is titled The American Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919: A Digital Encyclopedia and can be found at www.influenzaarchive.org.

In regard to a lighter but still culturally significant topic, we’ve also added a second link to the resources page – namely a link to an online archive of comics books that now lie in the public domain and are available in full-text scans for perusal. This online archive is titled Comic Book Plus. It currently contains over 14,000 comics, with publications beginning in the 1930s. See link above for more, or visit our Resources–Links to Online Primary Sources by Region page here for more online archives to explore.