Miranda Leclerc Intern Introduction

Hello! My name is Miranda Leclerc and I am the Archaeology Intern for this summer at Strawbery Banke! I am from Ashby, MA and I will be a senior next year at Simmons University. I am a double major in History and International relations with minors in Economics and Women and Gender Studies. At school, I am a Resident Advisor and work as a peer supporter in our violence prevention office. 

I am excited to work at Strawbery Banke as I am particularly interested in the material culture of domestic (work)spaces. Until recently, my specialization was in women and gender history. I switched to material culture over COVID when I taught myself to sew and design historic clothing and volunteered to catalog historic clothing and quilts from the late eighteenth to mid-twentieth century at the Townsend Historical Society. This week, I applied my passion for craft history when I did my first ceramic mend of German salt glazed stoneware sherds at the New Castle Historical Society!

Since my school doesn’t have a classics or archaeology program, I am combining classes in museum studies, internships, and histories of women, gender, and sexuality. I believe this perfectly encapsulates the power of material culture, and sites such as SBM, to preserve and tell the diverse stories of underrepresented communities who didn’t have the resources or power to create or archive written records, the traditional historical text. 

Last year, I was a Curatorial Intern at the Gibson House Museum in Boston where I interpreted the Victorian Era butler’s pantry, which you can learn more about in my StoryMap (https://arcg.is/04aTK4). I also published a research piece on Victorian era food molding, interpreting the collection of food molds in the Gibson House’s kitchen pantry and its implications on domestic work. Additionally, I received a research grant and presented in Simmons’ undergraduate research symposium. My project was on Charlie Gibson as a queer public figure in Boston during the turn of the twentieth century, and the role of material culture in facilitating queerness and Victorian masculinity. 

Over the summer, I will be a teaching assistant for the Virtual Field School and the in-person Lab School over the next couple of weeks. Additionally, I am cataloging artifacts excavated from the Sherburne House in 2019, which is helping me improve and expand my ability to identify ceramics. For my primary project this summer, I hope to help with the interpretation and furnishing of the Yeaton-Walsh house, which will reflect the lives of the Irish Welch family in the mid-1800s.