Grad Student Summer Interns Storm the Castle!

New Castle Historical Society preserves and interprets four centuries of Delaware history. With the help of Museum Studies graduate students, Ben Goldman and Aliza Alperin-Sheriff, that history is now more accessible to the public.

Ben Goldman, with the help of undergraduate intern, Abbey, took on the colonial-era Dutch House. Hundreds of objects in the historic house museum were cataloged, re-labeled, and entered into the Society’s collections management database.

Ben Goldman relabeling a collection object.

After every single object was documented, Ben tackled the daunting task of updating the “Room Books” that give information on collection objects for volunteer docents.

While Ben worked with the 17th century objects, Aliza Alperin-Sheriff worked on taking Historical Society into the 21st century.

During her internship, Aliza increased the Historical Society’s social media presence by creating a backlog of content. Her favorite creation is “Sunday Spotlight” which shares a featured collection object and its story on Facebook. 

In addition to her work with social media, Aliza worked with volunteers on rotating the Amstel House’s quilt collection. The quilts are switched out to protect them from prolonged exposure to light and other potentially damaging aspects of the environment.

Quilt in the Amstel Bedroom.

To see more photos of Ben and Aliza in action, visit New Castle Historical Society’s Facebook page.