A summer full of work

Every summer, we are fortunate to have several student workers on board with us. This summer, we also had two interns. Our student workers and interns are some of our greatest assets, and much of the work we do would not happen without their dedication (and willingness to humor our staff). We'd like to highlight some of their work as the fall semester begins.

Caity Mellicant is a graduate student of linguistics. Her areas of interest are currently bilingualism and language contact with a focus on East Asian languages. Caity has been a student worker at Special Collections for a few years. This summer, she scanned several volumes of the Favrot family paper transcriptions for digitization.

Kevin Fontenot is a PhD candidate finishing his dissertation, a biography on former Governor Jimmie Davis. This summer, Kevin processed the papers of Tulane professor Karlem "Ducky" Riess, author Joel Fletcher, and some letters from Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard. Kevin has spent many summers in Special Collections.

Liz Skilton is a graduate student in History. Specializing in gender and environmental history, she is currently researching the creation and impact of a hurricane culture in and around Louisiana. Like Caity and Kevin, Liz has also worked at Special Collections in summers past. This summer, Liz was a one-person scanning machine. She created more than 1,500 high resolution master scans of items from several of our major collections, such as the John Kennedy Toole collection, the George and Katherine Davis collection of Confederate photographs, the Carnival collection, and the Lindy Boggs ambassadorial papers. We plan to make many of these images available in digital exhibitions over the next year.

Maxwell Means is a senior double majoring in English and Economics with a minor in Math. Currently, Max is finishing his degree, and preparing for a run at a PhD in Economics. Max was one of our summer interns, and processed several collections and individual items. Max rehoused poet Sidney Lanier's papers, and processed the WWI letters of Louisiana native Sergeant William P. Ewell, antebellum slave owner letters, and a Civil War diary.

Lindsay Luken is a senior majoring in history. She is currently applying to law school, and hopes to pursue a career in corporate law. Lindsay was our second intern this summer, and she processed the Al Lippman collection of Civil War letters and postal covers. The correspondence collection contains several letters from Union soldiers fighting in Louisiana. The postal covers represent Union sentiment, and depict caricatures of Confederate figures such as PG.T. Beauregard and Jefferson Davis.

Posted by Eira Tansey



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