A Diaspora of Postcards: Documenting the Postcard Collection of The Magnes
Francesco Spagnolo, Curator
Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life
Applications for Spring 2025 are closed for this project.
The Magnes collection includes approximately four thousand postcards dating from the last decades of the 19th century through the latter decades of the 20th century.
Due to their compact size, ease of use, aesthetic immediacy, and ability to quickly connect individuals on a global scale, postcards have had a pivotal role in Jewish life since their invention in 1861.
The postcards in the Magnes collection are related to a variety of aspects characterizing social relations in modern Jewish life. They are greeting cards sent on the occasion of major Jewish holidays (Rosh ha-shanah and Hanukkah) to connect with far-away relatives and friends, depictions of Jewish sites and customs worldwide, of historical events (from the Dreyfus Affair to the Holocaust and the foundation of the State of Israel), pocket-size musical scores for songs in Hebrew and Yiddish, and a public forum for social commentary, at times tainted by anti-Semitism or by the challenges presented by emancipation, and by immigration to America.
Role: The Undergraduate Research Apprentice will conduct in-house and on-line research about the postcard holdings of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. URAP students will learn museum best practices for collection assessment and cataloging; assisting with inventorying, digitizing, re-housing, researching, fact-checking existing information in museum database, and cataloging of museum postcards. Research work will be directly supervised by curatorial assistant and curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. The research apprentice will have the opportunity to work “hands-on” with primary sources from the global Jewish Diaspora. The apprenticeship offers a unique chance to learn about collection research, exhibition preparation, and print and online publication work, operating in a collaborative environment and with cutting-edge digital humanities tools and perspectives.
Hours: 6-8 hrs
Related website: https://www.flickr.com/photos/magnesmuseum/albums/72157624130106653
Related website: http://magnesalm.org