Hello!
My name is Kaylee Redard and I am a first year Public History Masters student. I am from Reading, Massachusetts, my favorite color is blue and I have a cat named Rogue. I went to Franklin Pierce University for my undergrad, graduating with a Major in European History, double Minors in Public History and English, and a Women in Leadership Certificate. Before finding the Public History world I wanted to be a teacher so I started in Education, but soon realized the classroom was not where I was meant to be. I still love to teach, but I found education in museums is where I feel most at home. I enjoy the freedom of informal learning that Public History provides visitors, young and old.
My internships at the Longfellow House – Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site and at Susan B. Anthony’s Birthplace Museum gave me some experience with visitor education programs. At the Longfellow House I helped with the Junior Ranger program and at Susan B. Anthony’s I created some educational interactive sheets for visitors to use while they visited the house. It was at the Susan B. Anthony Museum that I first dabbled in digital history. The museum is very involved with the community and its history and I was instructed to find historic places, describe them and geo-locate them for an app they wanted to create. Laying the groundwork for this project was very exciting and different from other forms of education I had previously done. Through this app visitors could go beyond Susan’s home to the world around her.
Now I am the Digital Intern at the National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon and also a Visitor Services Associate at the new National Law Enforcement Museum. Both sites use digital methods to spread knowledge and interact with their visitors. Digital history is a great way to connect with visitors; especially in the technological world we live in today and I look forward to learning all I can.