Editor’s note: This is the thirty-third entry in a series on how historians—especially contingent historians and those employed outside of tenure-track academia—do the work of history. If you know of someone we should interview, or would like to be interviewed yourself, send an email with the subject line HOW I DO HISTORY to pitches@contingentmag.org.
Lynne Calamia (@lynnecalamia.bsky.social) is the Executive Director of Roebling Museum. Here’s how she does history.
Lynne on a tour of a steel mill in Central, PA. All photos provided by Lynne Calamia.
What is your current position and where are you working?
Maybe it’s because I watched too much Antiques Roadshow as a kid, but I’ve always been interested in sharing history with the public. For more than a decade, I’ve worked in the field of Public History, gaining hands-on experience in museums, historic sites, and archives.
Currently, I serve as the Executive Director of Roebling Museum, a small museum in Roebling, New Jersey with just two staff members (and a lot of volunteers). We tell the story of a former steel mill and company town, best known for its role in building iconic suspension bridges like the Brooklyn Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, and George Washington Bridge. Working in a small museum can be challenging—big dreams, but often understaffed and underfunded—but it’s the right fit for me. I love the variety, and in a small museum, you wear many hats: curator, fundraiser, collections manager, plumber, marketing coordinator, and more.
Before Roebling, I was the Executive Director of a historic Quaker meeting house in Old City, Philadelphia, one of the busiest tourist areas in the region. The Quaker Meeting House and Roebling Museum are very different environments, but in both roles, my focus has been on growing small non-profits into more sustainable organizations.
How did you get interested in museum work or public history?
I’ve always been curious about everything, wondering what it would be like to live in different times and places. Old things at museums, thrift stores, garage sales, and even in family photo albums helped me to imagine how it would feel to do laundry the way they did back in 1905 or consider what I would do if a war broke out and I had to choose sides.
In public history, I get to dive into the complicated details of the past and then share them in a way that’s fun and engaging. For me, public history is a lot like stand-up comedy—it’s about making people laugh, feel something, and learn all at the same time.
Lynne leading a tour of steel mill equipment to kindergarten class from a local school district.
What is your earliest memory of a historical event?
What do we mean by “historical event”? My earliest memories are more about local and family moments than big national events—and that’s probably true for most people I talk to in my work. One of my earliest memories is sitting in my grandma’s living room, staring at her gallery wall (before those were cool!) and asking who all the people in the photos were. There was one photo of her grandparents that I loved—it looked like a far-away scene from an old movie , but I know now that it was taken in Queens, NY.
If I dig deep, I kind of remember the Gulf War. My mom took me to visit a friend from elementary school who moved to Chicago, and we saw an IMAX movie about the oil fields being on fire because of the war. And then there was a big hurricane when I was about 7—I grew up on an island and hurricanes were a big deal. My dad sent me outside to bring in the garbage cans, and I was terrified the wind was going to sweep me away.
Does any of that count as history?
Tell us about your undergraduate and graduate experiences. Where did you complete your undergraduate and graduate studies? How did they affect what you are doing now professionally?
I didn’t like school. I wasn’t a good student and don’t remember feeling particularly encouraged to apply to college. My mom offered to cover the costs if I stayed home and went to community college, so that’s what I did. For the first time, I could pick the classes that actually interested me, which was a completely different experience from high school. I took classes about local history, marine biology, women’s history, and gender studies—anything I wanted.
After two years, I transferred to Stony Brook University to finish my BA, and that’s where I got my first A in any class, ever. I double-majored in women’s studies and history, and I realized that I did enjoy learning, I just didn’t enjoy the way it was presented to me in high school.
I wrapped up my BA and decided to apply to graduate school. I’m the first person in my family to earn a PhD, so I had no idea how the process worked or what to expect. I applied to American Studies programs because I wanted the flexibility to study history without too many restrictions (and one of my favorite professors had an American Studies degree). It was a big leap for me—I’d never lived away from home—but I packed up and headed off to Penn State.
At Penn State, I zipped through my MA program, working in archives for the first time and thinking I might become an archivist. After graduation, I went back home to NY and tried to find a job in the public history field, but instead ended up working at a chain coffee shop longer than I expected. That’s when I joined AmeriCorps and landed a role at the New Jersey State Museum, working on a multi-year community outreach project. Around the same time, Penn State launched a PhD program in American Studies, and I joined the second cohort of students.
After finishing my PhD coursework, I was hired as the Executive Director of a historic site in Philadelphia (mentioned above), where I worked full-time while writing my dissertation.
Looking back, my time in college and grad school really set the tone for the kind of pace I’d eventually face working in museums. In grad school, being expected to read three books a week while working was understood to be normal and achievable. It mirrors the overwhelming workload placed on small museum Executive Directors and eventually led to burnout at my first museum job. I’d like to say I’m better at setting boundaries now.
What’s a typical workday/work week look like for you?
Does everyone say that no two days look the same in the public history field? Well, it’s true.
Running a small museum is the best and the worst all at once. Last week, for example, I signed over 1,000 fundraising letters for our annual appeal, ran a webinar on how to create a cemetery tour, ran a board meeting, attended a workshop on donor retention, led a tour for a group of alumni from a Massachusetts college, and met with donors to discuss a new project we’re excited about.
This week? I’m signing another 1,000 fundraising letters, chatting with a public historian whose digital project I admire, renting heavy machinery to install an outdoor art exhibit, meeting with a local family about an antique chair they want to donate, and hosting a community Touch a Truck event for children and families.
It’s a whirlwind, but that’s what keeps it exciting!
How has the COVID-19 pandemic shaped or affected your work at the Roebling Museum?
I joined the staff of Roebling Museum in February 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting to unfold. Our museum typically reopens each March, so I was immediately thrown into crisis mode alongside the board. It was an opportunity to start building relationships with them through a flurry of Zoom calls as we navigated our response.
There are no silver linings to the pandemic but being closed to the public and temporarily furloughed to part-time allowed me time to read books about Roebling and review organizational documents that I wouldn’t have gotten to otherwise. I also took the chance to revamp the website and disrupt our usual calendar of events by introducing new programming. We focused on outdoor community events, testing new low-cost ideas like themed walking tours and art installations, which allowed us to engage our audience and get feedback on new programs while adhering to health guidelines.
Additionally, when we did finally reopen a year later, I was able to reduce our hours to something more manageable for our volunteers and staff. The museum was founded by volunteers and started with a full slate of programs and exhibits, but as volunteers dwindled over the years, the programs were expected to continue at the same rate. Now that we’ve funneled visitors to a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday schedule, we have adequate coverage and can host school groups on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when we are closed to the public.
50+ high school volunteers from a local Hindu Faith-based nonprofit participating in outdoor art installation during covid.
What are some of the changes you made at the Roebling Museum you are most proud of?
One of the changes I’m most proud of at Roebling Museum has been our work to shift the focus from the technical, industrial history of the steel mill and STEM education programs to really dig down into the stories of the people—(im)migrants, workers, and families—who made Roebling what it is. Our history is still in attics and basements, and I do a lot of community outreach to learn more about Roebling from the people who lived the stories.
A moment that particularly stands out for me was when Doris, a Black woman in her 90s who was born in Roebling, visited the museum for the first time. She asked one of our volunteers why there weren’t any pictures of Black people in our exhibits. The volunteer got me from the office and I showed her our new exhibit, which was curated by members of the community as part of our worker-centered interpretive approach. I showed her a handful of photos and employee records of Black workers in our exhibit, and she started to tell me her family’s story. I ran back into the collection and brought out a drawer of employee records that are slated to be digitized. We were able to look through and find cards that belonged to her uncles, father, and even her brother. She said, “that can’t be my brother, he never worked at the mill!” It was a powerful, shared moment of discovery, where history became personal and emotional, and alive.
To make that moment possible, several things had to be set in motion:
- Building relationships with community members: The employee records that connected Doris to her family were preserved by a local resident who had kept them in his garage for 50 years. In 2021, I talked him into donating them to the museum. Thanks to a grant from the American Historical Association, we began digitizing the records, and his contribution was featured in a regional newspaper.
- Building relationships with community members: The new exhibit that Doris saw was curated by a committee of local community members as part of a Smithsonian program designed for small museums. Volunteers contributed to the research, design, and content, and we had advisory and fundraising committees made up of locals too. This kind of involvement not only brought new voices into the museum but also built excitement and spread the word about our work.
- Building relationships with community members: I’ve set the tone that we want to hear from people who’ve lived the history we tell. That’s why our volunteer that day knew to bring me out to meet Doris. What could have been a difficult conversation turned into an opportunity to learn her story, and she later invited me to tour Roebling with her and her friend. Together, they took me on a ride around town, showing me the house in the company town where she was born, the segregated school she attended, her church, and the Black section of the cemetery.
Connecting people to their family history through primary source records is incredibly powerful. At Roebling, we have the chance to play a direct genealogical role for certain people, and our mission goes beyond that. With our new programs and tours, we seek to tell stories in such a way that visitors who aren’t from Roebling can see their own family stories in the examples we use—from immigration/migration, hard work, working-class home life, and more. I want visitors to walk away saying, “My grandma had that phone,” or “My family came through Ellis Island too.” It’s about creating opportunities for people to connect to their own stories.
One of 13,000 employee records in the collection at Roebling Museum.
Working with volunteers and the community are a big part of public history work. What lessons have you learned from this aspect of the work? Or, what have you enjoyed most about working with volunteers and the community?
I think a lot about the difference between doing history at the public—like hosting a lecture, writing an op-ed, or designing exhibits—and doing history with the public. Sharing authority and interpreting history collaboratively means you’re not the only one responsible for generating ideas, completing tasks, and making decisions. When you involve the community in creating programs, exhibits, and tours, it brings fresh perspectives to the table, leading to more creative and engaging ideas.
In my experience, this collaborative approach comes naturally, especially in the small museum space where we rely heavily on volunteer support. It may take longer and you may have less control over the outcome, but the process is worth it. The input and enthusiasm contributed by volunteers and community members brings about innovative ideas that I wouldn’t have considered on my own. Also, it is a great way to build deeper relationships, bring in new supporters, and drive visitorship. The process of doing history with the public ultimately makes our work more meaningful, both for the museum and the community we serve.
How have you integrated social and cultural history into the Roebling Museum’s interpretation?
I’ve mentioned a few examples already but a lot of the work we’ve been doing is in service of another project that we are really excited about. A big way we’re integrating social and cultural history into Roebling Museum’s interpretation is through transforming a historic rowhouse into a museum. This rowhouse was originally designed for the company’s lowest-paid laborers—many of whom were Black or Eastern European immigrants—so it’s a perfect stage to tell stories of everyday life in the company town.
Since acquiring the house in 2020, we’ve been working behind the scenes on multiple grant-funded projects. We’ve conducted focus groups, surveys, extensive historical research, and developed a preservation plan. Our goal is to capture not just the work lives of Roebling’s residents, but their home lives too—the day-to-day realities of living in a company town.
This fall, we invited the public to open-house style events where they helped shape the future of the museum. These programs gave community members and tourists a chance to hear about our new research, engage with primary sources, and provide feedback on the stories we might tell in the space. The interactive aspect of these events allowed people to explore the house and feel connected to its history, making them collaborators in the process.
Roebling Museum’s main building is a former steel mill office and is a natural space for telling the story of hard work and steel mill history. The rowhouse, however, shifts the focus to the social and cultural side of living in a working-class community. There we can talk about everyday experiences, living conditions in a company town, the relationships between neighbors, and the realities of raising a family with a steel mill literally in your front yard.
Our House at 101 Second Ave.
What advice do you have for anyone who wants to work or volunteer in the public history field?
As someone who has built a career outside of academia, I’m often invited to speak with students or on conference panels about my path in the museum world. Before I start, I like to ask the organizer how much they want me to “scare” the audience, because there’s the upbeat, rose-colored version of my journey—and then there’s the more honest, off-the-record cautionary tale.
The reality is that working in museums, especially small ones, can be tough. There’s not a lot of jobs out there. Most people end up working weekends and are underpaid. Benefits like pensions or health insurance are luxuries many of us don’t have. I’ve had to relocate multiple times for jobs, and none of the museums I’ve worked for had an HR department.
That said, for those just starting out, I actually believe small and mid-sized museums are fantastic places to begin. Volunteering or working part-time at these institutions gives you a wide-ranging view of what it takes to make public history happen. Unlike larger museums, where departments can be siloed, smaller museums offer the chance to get hands-on experience in a variety of roles. You’ll quickly learn about everything from collections management to programming and even marketing. It’s a great way to get a full understanding of the field and figure out what you enjoy most.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about what public historians do and how they work?
In my case, everyone thinks I’m a curator, or someone who focuses primarily on caring for, acquiring, doing research on, and writing exhibitions about objects. I think that’s the only museum job title that the general public knows about!
If money and time were not issues, what’s a dream project you’d love to tackle at the Roebling Museum or the museum/public history field more broadly)?
I’d start by designing a system where museums and libraries are fully-funded, and their staff are paid fairly—with pensions and generous benefits. It’s something we desperately need in the field, especially for smaller institutions. The work we do is important yet so often under-resourced. I’d love to see a future where museum professionals don’t have to choose between their passion and financial stability.
Tell us about something you have read about the field recently that you think others might find interesting. Or, tell us about a museum or public experience you had recently elsewhere that you found compelling.
As a Public Historian, I’m constantly thinking about how to make history engaging and accessible. People come to museums not just for education but for an experience—they want to be entertained while learning. Our challenge is to take complex, sometimes dry information and present it in a way that sticks with visitors, making it fun, memorable, and meaningful. So, who’s doing that really well?
Lately, I’ve found a lot of inspiration in podcasts. My goal for our tours and programs is to feel like a conversation with a smart friend—someone who’s just learned something interesting and can’t wait to share it. That kind of relaxed tone creates an equal exchange where you’re all excited to explore the topic together. One podcast that captures this feeling is You’re Wrong About. The hosts, both journalists, dive into historical and cultural topics with humor, radical levels of empathy, and curiosity. They embrace not knowing everything, learning as they go, and it makes their discussions feel approachable and fresh.
I’ve also been rethinking what works in historic house museums as we transform a small, working-class home into one. Typical approaches to house museums don’t always translate when you’re dealing with a Hungarian immigrant’s or a Black family’s home next to a steel mill. So, I’ve been taking a lot of house tours lately, scribbling notes as I go, and considering how we can scale techniques in ways that feel authentic to our site. I’m also fascinated by how house renovation content does so well on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. People are drawn to personal stories and transformations, something we can definitely tap into.
Lynne giving a behind the scenes tour of a company town rowhouse.
What are you most excited about for the public history field in the next few years?
I’m looking forward to seeing how the public history field becomes more community-driven and collaborative. We’re seeing museums and historic sites move away from the traditional “expert-led” model and instead create space for communities to share their own stories and shape how their histories are presented. This shift not only brings in voices that have been underrepresented but also builds deeper connections between museums and the people they serve.
Importantly, it’s exciting to see funders and academics recognizing this shift as well. They’re increasingly supporting projects that emphasize co-creation and local storytelling, which signals a shift in how we think about and do public history.
