Other Projects (2007 – Present)

Walking Tours for the City of Dubuque (2007-2011) I volunteered as an Archivist with the Dubuque County Historical Society during the summers of 1999, 2004, and 2005. I was able to use my knowledge as a collector of antique and reproduction clothing and my experiences on costume crew at my High School and the Grand Opera House to identify and label the Historical Society’s shoe collection. My architectural interest in historic preservation was used to label and preserve old maps and other delicate documents. I worked as a Brochure Researcher for the Dubuque County Historical Society in conjunction with City of Dubuque Planning Office from May to August 2007. I gathered historical data from sources such as archives, court records, diaries, news files, photographs, books, pamphlets, and periodicals to put together five walking/driving tours. The Brochures were funded by a Preserve American Grant and published in 2011 with pictures and condensed site descriptions. Hard copies are available at the National Mississippi River Museum and the Dubuque Welcome Center. I will attach the uncondensed site descriptions as pdfs after I research some questions emerged during revisions. In 2009, the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium, run by Dubuque County Historical Society, asked me to turn a goflcart into a steamboat for the Dubuque Community Y’s annual Halloween parade, and my design ended up winning first place for organizational floats.

Co-Curator and Research Assistant, Village to Grounds: Architecture after Jefferson at UVA (2009-2010) 2009 marked the 100th anniversary of the completion of the McKim, Mead, and White expansion to Central Grounds at the University of Virginia. Out of this grew the idea for a retrospective of the various architectural cycles that have occurred in the 184 years since the Jefferson campus was completed. I was part of a team of six that met fortnightly from February  2009 until 26 September, when the exhibit opened in the main gallery of the Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature, and Culture, and the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia. It was on display through July 2010. I started out writing first drafts of building descriptions. Then I moved to culling Special Collections for items to include in the exhibit. After that I arranged for the scanning of items we would be using facsimiles of, verified our digital orders, and compiled a DVD of images for each of the 9 sections in the exhibit to be sent to the panel designers. With another team member, Emilie Johnson, I did a spatial comparison of male and female residence halls built at UVa midcentury. Emilie and I did the research together and then she wrote and presented a paper on the subject for the symposium connected with the exhibit. I used a similar process to the spatial study I did of the Bell Museum at the University of Minnesota, viewable in my Drawing and Design portfolio on the Undergraduate Projects page, to do a comparison of the ground floor plans of Mary Munford Hall and McCormick Road Dormitories at the UVa. The exhibit is closed now, but parts of its were digitized. If you go to Modern Suburban University and scroll down you’ll see a small image “Comparison of ground floor plans of Mary Munford Hall and McCormick Road Dormitories Typical Unit Compiled from MSS 6848-p and RG-31/1/2:47.051” if you click on it, you’ll see a comparison of men’s and women’s residence hall spaces. My last tasks were arranging for the transfer of some items we borrowed from an Architect, and writing exhibit labels. After the physical exhibit closed it was archived at Architecture After Jefferson . At the Symposium in November 2010, I did a presentation of the Romantic Picturesque era of the University. I will post pdfs of the papers and presentation after I get them converted from word and powerpoint to pdf.

I can help you with Historic Register Nominations, Tax Credit and Grant Applications, and any other research involving genealogical information, historic or current census data, property data or Sanborn or Baist Maps. To contact me about consulting in any of the areas advertised click here.