Join us as we continue to hear from our students who completed internships this past spring semester! Both graduate and undergraduate student worked in the field of historical spaces in a variety of capacities. This blog post is authored by History student, Burkart, whose internship involved cataloging the first and only costume-mask manufacturer before World War II. 

I am a first year graduate student for the Department of History and will be graduating next May. I gained my Bachelors of History from BGSU as well last year. I am interested in a wide range of history, including ancient and social and cultural history. My graduate program includes a public history certificate and my capstone will be tied to this internship. I interned from February to April in 2026 at the Hancock Historical Museum in Findlay, Ohio, under the curator and archivist, Joy Bennett.

I was given the opportunity to work with the American Mask Manufacturing Company’s collection, a company that operated from 1884 to 1969 and manufactured different types of costume-masks, like Halloween, theater, masquerade, and Mardi Gras. They were the first and only mask manufacturer until after World War II and shipped merchandise across the country and continent. I was recommended to pursue this collection in my undergrad and it piqued my interest because I have always enjoyed costuming history as well (and I love Halloween!).

This collection needed to be re-cataloged with updated metadata and accession codes. I learned how to work their catalog system, CatalogIt, and added them to the established collection in the catalog, though much of the existing objects had to be updated as well, not just the un-cataloged items. I worked mostly with their archival materials and found a lot of useful information within it, which is what inspired my larger project aspirations, including correspondences, checks, and newspaper clippings. This company is entirely absent in costuming and Halloween’s history and I am interested in reconciling that. I am looking forward to further research, even though my internship is complete!