Since the 2008 recession, more and more businesses and nonprofits employ unpaid internships as a way to offset costs, justifying this policy by contending that the experiences of the interns are payment enough. In 1992 about 17% of graduating students reported participating in some type of internship, paid or not. By 2008 the National Association of Colleges and Employers reported at least 50% of all graduating students completed some type of internship. This means that every year thousands of students provide millions of hours of labor as interns in a variety of industries, including public history. The New York Times estimates that as much as half of all internships are unpaid.[1] Since this significant rise in the number of internships, various institutions have questioned the legality and ethical implications of hiring students to work 15-35 hours a week for no pay. Recently, public historians have questioned the ethical implications of their own reliance on unpaid internships. However, despite their flaws, unpaid internships provide valuable intellectual and physical labor to one of America’s most vulnerable populations: rural America. Rural public history sites provide important services to some of America’s most underserved populations, and interns help sites meet their primary responsibilities of community education, engagement, entertainment, and service.
Public history sites in rural America provide much needed resources to the rural poor. Rural areas across the country continue to struggle with multi-generational poverty and under-employment. The USDA argues that low educational attainment is a direct product of both chronic under-employment and poverty. The chances of a child living in poverty or deep poverty are about one in four, and while urban areas mostly have recovered from the recession of 2008, rural America has not. These problems are amplified for people of color in these areas.[2] According to the American Alliance of Museums, only 26% of all museums are in rural areas.[3]
Public history sites in rural areas area are already under considerable strain because of their communities’ struggles. Rural spaces are also often cultural deserts, meaning that these areas offer little in educational enrichment, community outreach, or diverse entertainment. Across the United States, 175 counties have no museums in them at all, an absence that is especially a problem in southern states.[4] The public history sites that do serve these populations are geographically isolated and underfunded as many communities skew public resources towards more urban areas.[5] Because of the isolation and poverty of rural populations, the museums and other public history sites that serve those people may need special accommodations that supersede the ethical dilemmas of unpaid internships in order to meet their most important objectives of education and service. These spaces provide valuable resources to their communities. Many museums in these parts of the United States struggle to attract both qualified professionals and graduate level student interns, adding to the intellectual burden. These spaces are also victims of something called the “brain drain,” or the flight of highly trained or educated people, amplifying the issue. Because rural spaces already struggle to provide museums and other public historic sites to their communities, those that do exist deserve special consideration and assistance, and this includes incorporating unpaid student interns as a regular source of physical and intellectual work.
However, the relationship between intern and public history site is not all one sided. Internships, paid or not, do provide valuable opportunities for students to put their theoretical knowledge into practices, working in a professional setting, and under the supervision of experienced and qualified individuals. Internships in rural public history sites allow students to learn not only practical applications of museum and public history theory, but also how to serve a diverse community with its own unique challenges that are different from an experience in an urban or suburban setting. At what is likely to be only one of a small number of sites in the area, interns learn the different ways their communities expect more basic support in terms of education, entertainment, and service. Finally, because a public history site is often one of just a few public service sites in the area, many of these sites emphasize cooperation between groups, again providing a unique experience urban and suburban sites may not offer.
Museums such as the Georgia Museum of Agriculture in Tifton, Georgia, where I did my graduate-level internship, studied as a part of my dissertation, and now currently work to assist, need to focus primarily on best providing for their communities. When public history sites in these areas of the country use unpaid interns, it helps them achieve their ultimate objectives, an achievement that outweighs the potential for the internship to exploit student labor. The primary objectives of all public history sites is service to its community, but because those in rural areas are at a disadvantage themselves, serving an especially vulnerable and underserved community provides interns with unique and valuable experiences.
~ Elizabeth Worley Medley, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College
[1] Steven Greenhouse, “The Unpaid Intern, Legal or Not,” The New York Times, April 2, 2010.
[2] Lorin Kusmin, “Rural America at a Glance” (USDA, 2015 2016).
[3] “Museum Facts,” accessed February 1, 2017.
[4] “There Are More Museums in the U.S. than There Are Starbucks and McDonalds – Combined,” Washington Post, accessed February 1, 2017.
[5] “The Grass Is Always Greener When You’re a Rural Museum | Museums Association,” accessed February 1, 2017.
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