Winterthur Program in American MaterialCulture Class of 2017

Winterthur Program
in American MaterialCulture
Class of 2017
Sarah Berndt first discovered her love of material culture as a child while
wandering the aisles of her grandmother’s antique shop. Originally
from Indiana, she received a B.A. in anthropology and art history at
Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. As a member of a threeperson research team in eastern Germany, Sarah studied Romanesque
fieldstone churches and how their function within their communities
changed over time. In addition, she conducted ethnographic research on
the Midwestern antique trade. Interviewing antique dealers, she focused
on how objects accumulated value as they circulated through networks
of people. During this scholarly research, Sarah became interested in
what people chose to surround themselves with and why. Similarly,
internships at art and heritage museums confirmed her desire to work
in the field of material culture. Her interests include the practice of
contemporary collecting and how communities change over time.
Sarah Berndt
Growing up on a farm established during the eighteenth century in
southeastern Pennsylvania, Trevor Brandt became interested in material
culture as he explored his house’s provenance with his father and went
antiquing with his mother. These early experiences shaped his interests
in history and objects. He received his B.A. at The Pennsylvania State
University, majoring in history and political science with minors in
classical studies and German. He spent a semester in Athens, Greece, and
worked as a research assistant for several interdisciplinary professors in
the humanities. An internship at a museum in his junior year introduced
Trevor to a branch of history that he had never previously considered
as a career track. By the time he graduated as valedictorian of Penn
State’s history department, Trevor had completed a thesis examining
connections among language, religion, and group identity in medieval
southeastern Europe. At Winterthur, Trevor hopes to further his ability
to study questions of group identity by mapping the intersections among
the religions, groups, and material cultures of Pennsylvania’s early
German settlers.
A native of the Baltimore area, Michelle Fitzgerald became fascinated
with mid-Atlantic history and style at a young age. She graduated from
the University of Maryland with degrees in theatre and history, and
a focus on the gender politics of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
Britain. At Wilton’s Music Hall in London, the discovery of longforgotten possessions left in the Victorian-era building sparked her
interest in material culture. As a curatorial assistant at the Maryland
State Archives, Michelle completed research on ceremonial protocol
and the confiscated property of loyalists. She also worked on several
exhibits featuring the archival collections, including the restoration
of the Maryland State House’s Old Senate Chamber to its appearance
when George Washington resigned his commission. During her time
at Winterthur, she looks forward to continuing her exploration of the
furnishing and British-American connections of historic civic sites.
Outside of her studies, Michelle enjoys horseback riding, traveling, and
collecting historic prints.
Michelle Fitzgerald
Growing up in New England, Emelie Gevalt developed an initial interest
in historic properties through regular visits to the Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow house, Old Sturbridge Village, and her grandmother’s
eighteenth-century Litchfield County home. Each of them provided
ample fodder for creative re-imaginings of early American domestic life.
In later years, Emelie would further pursue her curiosity about private
homes and collections through an internship in the education department
at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Emelie’s interests eventually
led her to a position in Christie’s Estates, Appraisals & Valuations
department in New York, where she worked for seven years. In her most
recent role as Senior Account Manager, Vice President, Emelie served as
a team leader and primary client contact for a wide range of large-scale
consignments and valuations, spanning categories such as American
paintings, Chinese works of art, antiquities, and American furniture.
Previously, Emelie was a curatorial assistant for a private foundation and
collection in New York. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale with
a B.A. in History of Art and Theater Studies. Emelie has also studied at
the Sorbonne and is trained as a classical singer. She looks forward to
exploring her interdisciplinary interests during her studies at Winterthur.
Trevor Brandt
Emelie Gevalt
Elisabeth “Libby” Meier was raised in Madison, Wisconsin, the
departure point for many of the family road trips that nurtured her
interests in history, museums, and ships. She graduated from the
University of Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in history. Her thesis,
which won the department’s Barnard Prize, examined the role of
Chicago’s harbor system in mediating the development of the city’s
built environment. Both before and after graduation, Libby has explored
maritime material culture from a number of perspectives. Most recently,
she has worked with collections at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime
Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland, and Auburn Heights Preserve in
Yorklyn, Delaware. She has also worked as an interpreter at Mystic
Seaport demonstrating nineteenth-century maritime skills, and served
as a deckhand on an eighteenth-century replica, the schooner Sultana.
In her spare time, Libby enjoys reading, stitching, cooking, and simply
messing about in boats.
A native New Englander, Lan Morgan’s visits to historic sites regionally
and abroad fostered her early passions for American and French culture.
She explored the cognitive processes linking people to their visual
environments while majoring in communication and art history at the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Additional studies at Oxford
University, and in Siena, Italy, illuminated the ways in which regional
aesthetics move across geographic boundaries. After graduation,
Lan worked at Sotheby’s New York in the European Decorative Arts
department, and most recently, was a Curatorial Fellow for American
Decorative Arts at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. While
cataloguing the Wadsworth’s historic collections, Lan became fascinated
by the relationship between American objects and their European
influences. She has a particular interest in examining the social and
intellectual networks that influenced transatlantic exchange between
France and America in the nineteenth century. At Winterthur, Lan looks
forward to developing her object-analysis skills and expanding her
knowledge of the cross-cultural influences that shaped American design
and aesthetics.
Lan Morgan
Growing up as a member of a military family, Kristen Semento
experienced American culture from a national and international
perspective. Throughout her travels, she investigated variations in
the regional cultures she encountered. Kristen strengthened these
interests academically at the University of Texas at Arlington where she
graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History.
Kristen completed award-winning research on surrealist French film
during her internship with the McNair Scholars Program. A second
internship under the university’s head of collections developed her
knowledge of materials through work with the Mac Stiles glass
collection and the Dowdey-Campbell African Art collection. Apart from
her academic studies, Kristen greatly enjoyed her six-year career as a
veterinary technician where she cultivated her passion for animals and
medical science. As a fellow at the Winterthur Museum, Kristen looks
forward to undertaking research on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
wartime field medicine, oddities, and period fashions. Kristen’s other
interests include drawing, Japanese culture and illustration, and interior
design.
Alexandra Ward’s passion for history led her from her home in
Maryland to Gettysburg College. During her senior year, she worked as
a Student Conservation Assistant in her college’s Special Collections.
From beautiful, yet functional, endbands that strengthen a book’s
structure to hidden fore-edge paintings, Alexandra became intrigued by
the craftsmanship that went into books and bookbinding. Her efforts to
preserve and protect these rare books fostered a deep appreciation for
objects and their ability to connect us to our past. Alexandra graduated
cum laude from Gettysburg College with honors in both History and
Philosophy. Following her interest in history and material culture,
Alexandra worked for Historic Annapolis, Inc., where she helped catalog
their collection and guided. In her free time she enjoys being outdoors,
especially out on the water kayaking or snorkeling. Alexandra is also
an avid world traveler. While at Winterthur, she plans on deepening her
understanding of books as art and exploring other aspects of American
material culture.
Alexandra Ward
Elisabeth Meier
Kristen Semento
Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, Class of 2017