Undergraduate Profile: Eva Overton

Eva Overton is a third-year History major and History of Art and Visual Culture minor. Through a 2024-2025 Humanities EXCEL Fellowship, Overton worked with the San Lorenzo Valley Museum to catalogue various historical materials through research, transcription, and other methods. This opportunity helped Overton gain first hand experience in historical work outside of the classroom. Overton shared about her work in a Humanities EXCEL showcase site and we are republishing the interview here.

Hi Eva! To get started, could you share a bit about yourself and the San Lorenzo Valley Musuem?

Hi! I’m Eva, a third-year College Nine affiliate majoring History minoring in the History of Art and Visual Culture. I’m affiliated with College Nine, and when I’m not buried in an archive, I love reading and cross-stitching. This is my first hands-on experience in the historical field, and it’s been incredible to learn from real materials. 

I hope to work at a historical site someday, and I’m especially interested in preservation and restoration. This internship has been a perfect first step.

The San Lorenzo Valley Museum, operated by the San Lorenzo Valley Historical Society, preserves and shares the rich history of the San Lorenzo Valley. With two locations in Boulder Creek and Felton, the Museum offers free admission and is supported by public funding and generous community contributions. It’s a nonprofit institution that balances education, preservation, and community engagement.

I’ve been working under the guidance of Lisa Robinson, the museum’s president. Lisa has an incredible background in both science and historic preservation, and it’s been inspiring to learn from her knowledge and experience.

Thank you! Can you tell us more about your Humanities EXCEL Fellowship and how it connects to your academic journey in the humanities?

At the San Lorenzo Valley Museum, I’ve been cataloging photographs, letters, documents, and objects using the PastPerfect database. My tasks involve researching materials, transcribing handwritten notes and postcards (which has definitely improved my ability to read less-than-perfect penmanship), and preserving the stories tucked into every artifact.

One of my favorite parts has been discovering the little personal details—like envelopes with timestamps, addresses, and hastily scribbled reminders—that help place objects in context. I’ve spent time with materials from the Sittman, Kaufeldt, and Fraser collections. 

This job has also turned me into a bit of a detective. Whether it’s tracing family trees, digging through old newspapers, or trying to guess why someone kept a certain postcard, I’ve learned that historical research is about patience, curiosity, and knowing when to follow a hunch.

This internship has helped me see how the work we do as humanities students applies outside of the classroom. As a History major and History of Art and Visual Culture minor, I’ve studied big-picture narratives and artistic movements—but here, I get to focus on the personal, the everyday, and the tangible.

Handling original documents and trying to preserve their stories has made me more aware of how history is made and remembered. It’s also made me reflect on the value of everyday materials—letters, envelopes, photographs—as keys to understanding individual lives and the broader past. It’s one thing to read about social history in a textbook, and another thing entirely to hold a postcard that someone sent to their daughter in 1905.

This internship has reaffirmed my interest in working with historical sites and collections. I’m walking away from this experience with a better sense of what stabilization work involves—and a lot more respect for the power of envelopes.

Have there been any specific materials you’ve come across that stood out to you?

One of the most meaningful projects I worked on involved piecing together the story of Evelyn and Cleo Rodgers, two girls who lived at the IOOF Orphans’ Home and had a close relationship with their grandmother, Annie Peery, a woman they continued to write to and call “Mama.” I transcribed several letters and documents related to them, including a graduation announcement addressed to Annie, a school report card, and personal correspondence that showed how much they missed her and how connected they remained over time. These materials were emotional to work with, and it was powerful to see how archival objects can preserve the bonds between people.

Throughout the internship, I also cataloged items like century-old postcards, drawings, letters, and annotated photographs. One memorable artifact was a child’s drawing of a witch—an example of the personal, everyday items that make the collection so unique. Every object, no matter how small, added to the story of life in the San Lorenzo Valley. 

How has your Humanities EXCEL Fellowship helped you gain new skills, experiences, and perspectives?

This internship has been incredibly formative—it was my first time working in a formal office setting with structured hours, which gave me a taste of professional life in the historical field. The 45-minute commute along winding mountain roads offered time to reflect and appreciate the stunning scenery—almost enough to make me forget the hairpin turns! More importantly, this experience helped me realize something fundamental about how I work best.

Even though I love history and found the materials fascinating—everything from family letters to century-old documents—I also learned that I don’t want a career that keeps me in front of a computer all day. The cataloging work was important and rewarding, but often repetitive. This clarified for me that in the long term, I want a job that lets me engage with objects more directly—handling them, preserving them, restoring them—not just documenting them.

What would you do differently if you were to go through the experience again?

If I could do it over, I’d write everything down from day one. When you’re learning a lot of new processes at once, it’s easy to assume you’ll remember everything—but that’s rarely the case. I found myself having to ask for clarification more than once, and I definitely could have saved myself some stress by creating a written system for cataloging early on.

I also wish I had documented my own step-by-step process—collection name, accession number, object ID, condition report, measurements, all of it. Not doing that meant I forgot to record measurements for about a week and a half, and I had to go back, unpack the artifacts I’d already shelved, and update the records one by one. Lesson learned: future Eva will take detailed notes!

Banner image: A photograph from the San Lorenzo Valley Museum depicting the Boulder Creek Union High School class of 1916.

The Mellon Foundation, The Helen and Will Webster Foundation, The Humanities Institute, the UCSC Humanities Division, and individual donors generously support the Humanities EXCEL Program. If you’re interested in learning more about Humanities EXCEL paid internships, please contact hum-experiential-learning@ucsc.edu.

This interview with Eva Overton has been lightly edited and was originally posted here.