A History Intern at Work

A familiar site in the Archives and Special Collections this semester has been the presence of Bryce King, a UMass Dartmouth senior history major completing his “Learning Through Engagement” 5B requirement in history by interning with Sonia Pacheco in the Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese-American Archives.  Bryce spent 130 hours working in the archives, processing the papers of Portuguese-American author Julian Silva of San Francisco, and getting a start on the personal and professional papers of anthropologist Dr. Stephen Cabral, both collections received recently by the archives.

Julian Silva, a fourth-generation Portuguese-American, published several works of fiction, including his first novel, The gunnysack castle, which was republished by Tagus Press in 2007.  Dr. Stephen Cabral is an anthropologist who has taught at UMass Dartmouth, Bristol Community College, Bridgewater State University and Roger Williams University.  He is known for his photography, and knowledge of Portuguese feasting customs in the Azores, Madeira Islands, and New England.

To process the papers, Bryce went through each folder, replacing them with acid free versions, and noting the contents and dates of the materials.  When the Silva papers were complete, he started on the papers of Dr. Stephen Cabral.  When asked what was most interesting in the two collections, he noted one of his favorite courses taken at UMass Dartmouth was actually a summer course on the social history and culture of New Bedford, taught by none other than Stephen Cabral!

Bryce plans to ultimately be a history teacher. By the time he graduates in December of 2018 he will have completed the 4 plus MAT program and be ready to work.  He already knows the value of primary sources in k-12 education, but this internship has given him a close-up view of how archives are collected and processed for access.  We thank him for all of his hard work!

Judy Farrar, Archives and Special Collections Librarian
This entry was posted in Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese-American Archives, New Bedford History, Portuguese, Uncategorized and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.