Cummings Collections Fellowship

The purpose of the Cummings Collections Fellowship is to develop and populate a PastPerfect database of the objects in the Royall House and Slave Quarters collection and include any documentation that will help determine loan or ownership status, restrictions, provenance, and condition. In the process, any objects stored in unsafe conditions will be rehoused.

Stipend for 2019 is $5,000.

Hours are flexible, approximately 250 hours.

The collection of household furnishings at the Royall House and Slave Quarters is comprised of individual gifts, purchases, abandoned loans, and a single large bequest of furniture. The records for the collection are uneven; there is little information about the history of any object unless a written record is physically attached to it by means of a note card, tag, or label. Additional documentation includes inventories, appraisals, information from board meeting minutes starting in 1906, and uncatalogued correspondence with past donors. A modern inventory of the collection was started in 2004 and most objects have been tagged with a new inventory number. There are approximately 750 objects in the collection.

Qualifications: Knowledge of collections management practices and experience with PastPerfect or a similar database.

How to apply: Send resume and cover letter to President@RoyallHouse.org.

The Royall House and Slave Quarters is a museum in Medford, Massachusetts. In the eighteenth century, the Royall House and Slave Quarters was home to the largest slaveholding family in Massachusetts and the enslaved Africans who made their lavish way of life possible.