In April, UNI history student, Maia Maxwell of Des Moines, shed light on the history of a recent donation to the Garnavillo museum as well as on some articles that have been on display at the museum since it opened. Maia, is in the UNI History Department’s “Public History: Field Experience” course, and spent 16 hours researching the history of the artifacts, compiling background reports and suggesting exhibit label content. Since Maia had chosen to work remotely, photos of the artifacts and any background information known were submitted to her by Garnavillo Historical Society board member, Jane Thein, site supervisor, to aid in her research.
Maia researched an antique wall phone donated by Rev Bruce Hanson, a J.O. Crosby
family owned bicycle donated by the Roggman family, the museum’s collection of irons, and a cast iron tool, its purpose unknown.
The course, required of all history and history teaching majors at UNI, is designated as a “service-learning” class and addresses the question “What do historians do?” Projects are submitted from organizations to the UNI History
Department and students select the project they’d like to do. Some projects are conducted at the organization’s site and some are completed remotely. Either way, the students are required to complete 15 volunteer hours toward the project. The Garnavillo Historical Society has been involved with the UNI program since 2015. “We submit projects every year, both for the Spring semester and fall. However, located where we are, students don’t always select our on-site projects because of the travel involved. But we have had a number of students work with us remotely, which has been a great help as well, ” Jane Thein stated.
At the conclusion of her Garnavillo project, Maia stated she really enjoyed researching the artifacts. “It was really amazing to finally find a time period or manufacturer of an item after I’d been researching it for a while.”
Be sure to visit the Garnavillo Museum this year to see what Maia learned about her researched items!