Archives Concentration

The Archives Concentration is designed to make local, regional, national and international histories public through research projects and professional training. Through a combination of academic course work, practical experiences and independent research projects, students learn about the institutions and repositories that shape our knowledge and understanding of our collective pasts through the collection, preservation, interpretation and display of artifacts, manuscripts and representation of historic sites.

Announcements

On This Page

Requirements & Courses
Advisory Committee
Forms
Apply
Contact

Back
to Top

Requirements & Courses

Required Courses & Internships

The Archives Concentration is open to any student by application and includes the following requirements:

A partial-credit gateway course (ARX 140 or 141)
Four existing courses offered in departments or programs that involve significant archival research (courses are approved by the ARX advisory committee). (A student may count a maximum of three courses toward the concentration that she also elects to count toward the major.)
The capstone seminar, involving an independent research project, usually an exhibit, and a presentation at Celebrating Collaborations.
Two practical experiences or internships

Internships

Internships are an integral element of the Archives Concentration. Students complete two internships (paid or supported by Praxis) that enable each student to acquire practical, first-hand knowledge of the professional work of archivists, curators and archival researchers. Concentrators are eligible to receive a second summer of Praxis funding through Smith’s Praxis Plus program. Students can also support internships through the Rosenthal Fund.

To count toward the concentration, an internship will:

Consist of at least 100 hours of work (or 220 hours if receiving Praxis funding)
Let students gain skills in processing collections, writing finding aids or subject guides, or making exhibits or creating social media with archival materials in at least one of their internships
Be supervised by a professional at least once a week
Be approved by the concentration adviser
Come from a wide array of local, regional, national and international opportunities that are identified and/or approved by the concentration. Students are responsible for researching and securing appropriate internships.

Other Practical Experiences

Some other experiences such as working for faculty members in archival projects through CFCD grants or Quigley fellowships may also qualify as one of the two practical experiences.

If you already completed one or more practical experiences (internships, paid or volunteer work) before entering the Archives Concentration, you are still eligible to receive credit for these experiences.

You will need to document your experience as follows:

Complete the Practical Experience Approval Form with your concentration adviser
Submit the Superviser Evaluation
Write a reflection paper (about two pages) that addresses the following questions:

What were your main duties and accomplishments during your internship, volunteer or work experience?
What aspects of your experience were most valuable?
What insights did you gain about yourself and your preferred working style?
What did the experience help you to think about your future career goals?

Gateway & Archives Courses

Gateway Course

The gateway course to the Archives Concentration introduces students to area sites of potential research and internships, and introduces students to the Smith and Five College network of archivists, faculty researchers and potential advisers for senior projects.

ARX 141 What I Found at the Archives
This lecture series serves as an introduction to the methods and discoveries of archival research. The course highlights faculty members and archivists describing their puzzles and insights in encountering archival materials. Requirements includes active participation in class, weekly readings, and short written assignments. This course serves as a gateway for students in the Archives Concentration. Graded S/U only. {H} Credits: 1 Normally offered each spring

Capstone Seminar

ARX 340 Taking the Archives Public
The capstone seminar brings together a cohort of concentrators to explore contemporary issues at the intersection of archives and public history. The seminar readings focus each week on case studies about contemporary challenges in preservation, access and interpretation of archival materials. In a variety of media, students analyze how these materials become part of a meaningful and usable past for general audiences. In addition, each concentrator completes an independent project, usually an exhibit that draws upon concentrators’ own expertise developed through their coursework and their practical experiences. Enrollment limited to 15. {H} Credits: 4
Kelly Anderson
Normally offered each spring

Electives in the Concentration

The courses listed here may be counted as electives toward the Archives Concentration only when you have completed an archival paper or project for the course. Not all of these courses are offered each year. Consult the Smith College Course Search for current offerings and times.. Five College courses that meet these criteria may be counted toward the concentration. You should discuss all of your courses for the concentration with your ARX adviser.

First-Year Courses

FYS 104 Podcasts and Archives
FYS 120 Writing Home
FYS 149 An Even Playing Field: Women, Sport and Equity
FYS 153 The Bollywood Matinee: Gender, Nation and Globalization through the Lens of Popular Indian Cinema
FYS 161 Immiagration and the New Multiethnic Societies
FYS 179 Rebellious Women
FYS 171 Women Writing Resistance
FYS 182 Fighting the Power
FYS 184 Educating Women
FYS 187 Writers and the Body: Health and Illness in African Diasporic Women's Literature
FYS 192 America in 1925
FYS 197 On Display:Museums, Collections, and Exhibition
ENG 119 What's for Dinner?
ENG 199 Methods of Literary Study

Interterm

All offered during interterm for 1 credit, S/U only
Mini Archives Research Courses

Graded S/U. Enrollment limited to 20. 1 credit

ARX 105 Class Matters: Organizing for Economic Justice
ARX 106 Oral Histories and Archives
ARX 107 Making Teaching and Learning Tangible: Understanding Children Through Archives

Afro-American Studies

AFR 202 The Black Archive
AAS 243 Black Activists Autobiography
AAS 237 20th-Century Afro-American Literature

American Studies

AMS 201 Introduction to the Study of American Society and Culture
AMS 203 Women, Sex and Gender in Early America
AMS 210 The Democratization of Clothing in the United States, 1780-1930
AMS 220 Curating American Memory
AMS 221 New England Material Culture
AMS 237 The Material and Visual Culture of Consumerism in America, 1750-1914
AMS 302 New England Material Culture: Historic Deerfield
AMS 341 America in 1925 (Richard Millington)

Art History

ARH 101 Writing Art/Art Writing
ARH 267 Gender, Sexuality and the Built Environment
ARH 291 Be My Valentine: Ephemera, Ephemerality and Affect
ARH 300 Studies in American Art: Collecting American Art at Smith: The Seelye and Tryon Era

East Asian Studies

EAS 200 Methods and Approaches to East Asian Studies: Korean Diaspora: Korea Inside & Outside
EAS 350 Modern Girls and Marxist Boys: Consumerism, Colonialism, and Gender in Early 20th-century East Asia

Education and Child Study

EDC 341 Child in Modern Society

English

ENG 120 Colloquia in Literature: Reading and Writing Short Poems
ENG 199 Methods of Literary Study
ENG 135 Introduction to Creative Nonfiction: Writing about Sports
ENG 275 Witches, Witchcraft, Witch Hunts
ENG 299 Green Victoria
ENG 299 Crafting Creative Nonfiction
ENG 312 Converts, Criminals and Fugitives: Print Culture of the African Diaspora, 1760–1860
ENG 341 Poetry of War

Exercise & Sports Studies

ESS 100 Playing the Game intro to Exercise and Sport
ESS 550 Women in Sport

French

FRN 360 The Year 1830
FRN 254 France Before the Revolution

Government

GOV 205 Urban Politics
GOV 311 Politics of Urban Social Movements

History

HST 240 Stalin and Stalinism
HST 246 Memory and History
HST 249 Early Modern European History
HST 252 Women and Gender in Modern Europe, 1789-1918
HST 253 Women and Gender in Contemporary Europe
HST 266 Emancipation and the Afterlife of Slavery
HST/SWG 270 Oral History and Lesbian Subjects
HST 275 Introduction to Public History
HST 278 Decolonizing US Women's History
HST 280 Women Writing Resistance
HST 286 Recent Historiographic Debates in Gender and Sexuality
HST 289 Aspects of Women's History
HST 313 Problems in East Asian History
HST 355 Smith College Relief Unit
HST 371 African American Women in Slavery and Freedom
HST 383 Domestic Worker Organization
HST 390 Teaching History

Jewish Studies

JUD 110j Elementary Yiddish: Language and Culture

Landscape Studies

LSS105 Introduction to Landscape Studies
LSS 200 Socialized Landscapes
LSS 240 Cultural Landscapes and Historic Preservation
LSS 300 Rethinking Landscape

Presidential Seminars

Cultural Literacy
PRS 317 Fearing Haiti

Psychology

PSY 374 Psychology of Political Activism
PSY 375 Political Psychology of Gender

Program for the Study of Women and Gender

SWG 105 Intro to LGBTQ Histories
SWG 150 Introduction to the Study of Women and Gender
SWG 200 The Queer 90s
SWG 222 Gender, Law and Policy
SWG 223 Sexual Harassment and Social Change
SWG/HST 270 Oral History and Lesbian Subjects
SWG 271 Reproductive Justice
SWG 305 Queer Histories and Cultures
SWG 314 Documenting Queer Lives
SWG 312 Queer Resistances: Identities, Communities and Social Movements
SWG 370 Women Against Empire

Theatre

THE 154 "Reading" Dress: Archival Study of Clothing

Selection of Recommended Five College Courses

The following are Five College courses that are recommended for Archives Concentration credit. Consult current course catalogue to check availability.

Amherst College

American Studies

AMS 274 Native American Literature: Decolonizing Intellectual Traditions

English

ENG 62 Writing and Reform
ENG 75 The Unprinted Page: Working with Manuscripts
ENG 274 Native American Literature: Decolonizing Intellectual Traditions

History

HIST 84 Seminar in U.S. Cultural History: Class and Culture Wars at the Turn of the 20th Century

Hampshire College

Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies

HACU 235 "Odd" Women: Gender, Class and Victorian Culture

Social Science

SS 121 Biography and History: Radicalism, Anti-Communism, and Internationalism in the 1950s
SS 235 Queer Publics

Mount Holyoke College

Gender Studies

GNDST 333f U.S. Gender History Research Seminar

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Art

ART 297 Monuments and Memorials

History

HST 397 Introduction to Public History
HST 497 Mining the Museum: Adventures in the Theory and Practice of Museum Work
HST 397 Public History Workshop
HST 397 Special Topics: History of Reproductive Rights in the U.S.
HST 791 Seminar in U.S. Women's and Gender History

Capstone Seminar Projects

Capstone Seminar

In the capstone seminar for the Archives Concentration, ARX 340 Taking the Archives Public, students create online exhibits of archival materials from the Sophia Smith Collection and College Archives.

To access the following exhibits, you must first log in to sophia.smith.edu. Access is limited to Smith email addresses only.

Veronica Douglas, UMass Works Because We Do: The Graduate Employment Organization 1990-2020
Sky Karp, Trans Faculty and Staff at Smith: An Oral History Project

Examples of On-Campus and Local Opportunities

Paid internships at Smith repositories (SSC, SCA, MRBR), several each year, including CDO, SWG (SSC), Fraenkel (SSC). Most are term, some summer.
Internship Program at the Smithsonian Institution
Volunteer work in a regional historical society—Historic Northampton, Forbes Library local history collection, the Coolidge Library, Old Deerfield.
Volunteer work gathering and processing the archives of a Smith student club, organization, publication, for donation to the campus archives.
Quigley research assistantships in SWG that involve archival research
STRIDE work on the Smithipedia

Digital Archives

Jewish women’s history archives
Women and social movements archives
George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media

Editing Projects in Archival Collections

Margaret Sanger Papers Project (NYU)
Emma Goldman Papers (Berkeley)
Eleanor Roosevelt Papers (GW)
Stanton-Anthony Papers (Rutgers)

Praxis Opportunities Throughout the United States

Hormel Collection on gay and lesbian history (San Francisco Public Library)
Lesbian Herstory Archives, Brooklyn
Swarthmore Peace Collection
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (New York)
Mary Baker Eddy Library, Boston
American Antiquarian Society, Worcester
Rockefeller Archives Center, Sleepy Hollow New York
Iowa Women's Archives at the University of Iowa
Hunter College Center for Puerto Rican Studies, NYC
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York Public Library)
Newberry Library, Chicago
Huntington Library, California
National Library of Medicine's History Division, Bethesda Maryland
The Chemical Heritage Foundation Archives in Philadelphia

International Internships

NGOs based in Geneva
Sexuality archives located in Amsterdam
Women’s Library of the London Metropolitan University
Mass Observation Archives at the University of Sussex
International Information Centre, Amesterdam
Archives for the Women’s Movement, Amsterdam

The Rebecca Samay Rosenthal ’07 Fund supports student internships and capstone research in the archives and book studies concentrations.

During her undergraduate years, Rebecca, known as Becca, was a student assistant in the Mortimer Rare Book Room, where she processed the correspondence in the Sylvia Plath Collection under the direction of Karen Kukil, associate curator of special collections. After graduation, Becca tried her hand at music promotion and banking before returning to her first passion—archival work. She was in the process of earning her graduate degree from Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science before her untimely death in October 2012, at the age of 27. Friends and family established this memorial fund in 2014 in the hopes that each recipient will honor Becca's multitalented gifts and extraordinary appreciation of special collections, becoming devoted archivists and librarians in her stead.

How to Apply

To apply for the Rosenthal Fund, please download and fill out the application below.

Rosenthal Fund Application

For more information, please contact Beth Myers, director of special collections.

Recent Recipients of the Rosenthal Fund

Tanya Pearson ’16: Women in Rock Oral History Project, awarded funds for capstone research
Sarah Orsak ’16, Archiving Gretchen Phillips, awarded funds for an internship
Jenny Park ’18, Women’s Suffrage Movement Tactics, awarded funds for capstone research

Advisory Committee

Members of the Archives Advisory Committee serve as advisers to students in approving course selection and internships and may be consultants to independent research projects in the capstone seminar for the concentration.

Kelly Anderson
Lecturer in the Study of Women & Gender and Lecturer in Archives, Director of the Archives Concentration
413-585-2975

Carrie Baker
Professor of the Study of Women & Gender
413-585-3606

Darcy Buerkle
Associate Professor of History
413-585-3724

Maureen Callahan
Sophia Smith Collection Archivist
413-585-2981

Alex Callender
Assistant Professor of Art
413-585-3384

Leslie Fields
Head of Special Collections Public Services
413-585-2908

Andrea Moore
Assistant Professor of Music
413-585-316

Christen Mucher
Assistant Professor of American Studies
413-585-3737

Elizabeth Myers
Director of Special Collections
413-585-2978

Samuel Ng
Assistant Professor of Africana Studies
413-585-6787

Cornelia Pearsall
Professor of English Language & Literature
413-585-3346

Andrea Stone
Assistant Professor of English Language & Literature
413-585-3455

Nanci Young
College Archivist, Smith College Archives
413-585-2976

Forms

Declaration of Concentration

Students who have been accepted into the concentration and received their adviser’s name need to fill out the
Program of Study Declaration Form.
This is the last step in making the concentration official in Workday.

Practical Experience Forms

After discussing the proposed practical experience with their advisers, students need to fill out the corresponding practical experience approval form in order to have the experience count towards the concentration requirements:

Summer Internship (100 hours or more)—Internship Credit Application
All students undertaking a summer internship of at least 100 hours are eligible to receive academic credit (0.25 credits per experience) that will appear on their transcript. We encourage all students who qualify to apply for internship credit. Students applying for Praxis funding don’t need to fill out this form, and should instead use the “Praxis with Credit” form below.
Unpaid Summer Internship (220 hours or more)—Praxis with Credit Application
All Smith students are eligible to receive a stipend payment for one normally unpaid internship through the Praxis program at the Lazarus Center. These internships must take place during the summer, and must comprise at least 220 working hours. Students in Concentrations are eligible to apply for Praxis a second time– Praxis Plus. When applying for a Praxis internship, the applicant must specify if the internship counts towards a concentration and should fill out the “Praxis with Credit” application.
Other Internships and Practical Experiences
Students whose internships do not meet the above requirements because they take place during Interterm, during the school year, or for any other reason, should fill out the following forms.
Prior to starting the internship please fill out the Practical Experience Approval Form.
Upon completion of the practical experience please fill out the Practical Experience Completion Form.
Retroactive Credit for an Experience
Students who completed a practical experience relevant to the concentration prior to being accepted into the cohort should discuss the experience with their concentration adviser as soon as possible. Once the experience is approved, students must fill out the Practical Experience Completion Form and check the “Retroactive Experience” box on the form.

Advising Checklist for Graduation

Students are required to submit a completed Concentration Advising Checklist at the start of their final semester. This form documents the completed components of the concentration requirements, and must be signed by the student’s concentration adviser. Completed form should be sent to the registrar’s office (registrar@smith.edu) and to the administrative coordinator for concentrations (concentrations@smith.edu).