Bidwell House Museum Offers High School Summer Internships
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MONTEREY, Mass. — The Bidwell House Museum, a colonial historic house museum in Monterey, is offering high school students with an interest in history, particularly local Berkshire colonial history, the opportunity to become a Young History Scholar Intern this summer.
The museum will offer eight to 10 students the chance to get an inside view of the historic house and the operations of a nonprofit.
The Bidwell House Museum is a 1750s New England heritage site providing through its land, house and collection a personal encounter with frontier life in early America. The museum includes the fully furnished colonial homestead, several outbuildings and 192 acres of grounds with gardens, stone walls, foundations and hiking trails.
High school interns spend two weeks at the museum: in week one the intern learns about colonial Berkshire history, the Bidwell family, the house, the property and the collection, and how docents give tours; in week two each intern chooses a research topic and begins to give tours of the museum as a junior docent.
“Student interns learn to tell the story of the Bidwell House to visitors, and they get to meet people from all over the country, who are amazed at how smart and well educated Berkshire teens are,” noted Barbara Palmer, executive director of the museum. “Students gain skills in research, public speaking and working in a professional environment. It’s really a great skill builder for future studies and careers.”
Recent summer interns have come from the following towns and school districts: Lenox, New Marlborough, Monterey, Sandisfield, South Lee, Stockbridge, Tyringham, Lenox Memorial Middle and High School, Monument Mountain High School, and Mt. Everett Regional High School.
Thanks in part to grants from the Monterey, Lenox and Great Barrington Cultural Councils, the Tyringham Hop Brook Community Club, as well as private sponsors and friends of the museum, each high school intern receives a $200 stipend for the two-week internship. The museum is also seeking a college student for an eigh-week internship.
The internship application can be found on the museum’s website: www.bidwellhousemuseum.org. Deadline for applications is April 30 and applicants will be invited for an interview. Please call or email bidwellhouse@gmail.com or 413-528-6888.
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