Natalie Smith (photo courtesy Danish Immigrant Museum)

Officials with the Danish Immigrant Museum in Elk Horn, say Natalie Smith, who graduated in May from the Museum Studies program at New York University in New York City, has begun her one-year position in the museum’s collection department under the supervision of Angela Stanford.  Smith said the internship is a unique opportunity for her to be immersed in artifacts pertaining to one cultural group while gaining additional experience interacting with a historic house collection. 

She says through her engagement with the museum and the community, she hopes to learn how present day Elk Horn and the surrounding area were influenced by the settlement of Danish immigrants.  Smith will be tasked with inventorying and cataloging the entire collection of 1200 artifacts in the Museum’s 1908 Victorian home known as Bedstemor’s House.  By the end of the summer of 2013, the object inventory will be completed.  After that, museum staffers will complete the photos and archival and library materials, giving them a 100% collection inventory.