Annie Bell Shepherd Curatorial Internship Spring 2024: African American Women’s History Research

Annie Bell Shepherd Curatorial Internship was created to honor Annie Bell’s legacy and the history of so many who migrate and dream of a better future. Annie Bell Shepherd was born on September 12, 1912 in Mississippi during the Jim Crow era. During the Great Migration, Annie Bell moved north to pursue a better life and settled in Detroit, Michigan where she worked, became a devoted homemaker, caretaker, and education advocate. After she retired, she dedicated the rest of her life to serving her community. The Annie Bell Shepherd Internship celebrates Annie Bell’s commitment to education and provides opportunities for individuals interested in gaining curatorial experience in a museum setting. This internship resides within the Office of Curatorial Affairs (OCA) at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) which facilitates the intellectual work of the Museum by collecting artifacts, ensuring collection preservation and stewardship, conducting research and scholarship, and sharing the rich history and culture of African Americans and all people of African descent with a diverse public in accessible, multifaceted ways including exhibition, digitization, and publication. 

The Annie Bell Shepherd Curatorial Intern will serve as research assistant for women’s history projects and events during. The intern will research topics, objects, and digital resources related to Black women and women of color for upcoming exhibit and collections content. The intern will also serve as administrative support for Women’s History Month programming at NMAAHC in March 2024. This internship is designed to introduce candidates to the intersection of women and gender history and museum studies, which will demonstrate how and where Black women and women of color effected change and power, and how this can be interpreted in the museum setting. Over the course of the internship, the intern will develop creativity and imagination by finding new ways to tell stories inspired by NMAAHC’s collection and research initiatives. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about audience engagement, exhibition design, and telling stories through researching museum objects as well as the people who created and used those objects. The ideal candidate will have a demonstrated interest in African American history and culture, research experience, and strong, writing and organizational skills.

Duties Include (but are not limited to):

• Collaborate with a curator and a collections specialist on cataloging women, gender, and sexuality in the collections management software, TMS
• Conduct research on new and existing objects related to Black women’s history
• Creation of a Collection Story for the NMAAHC website
• Provide correspondence, curation, and programming support for Women’s History Month at NMAAHC
• Assist with the development of public programming related to NMAAHC’s annual conference on women leaders