The Internships

The following table summarizes the internships the parish has hosted.

1. Cristin Vivona’s project involved studying the colonial era letters that the missionary priests at Christ Church wrote to the Society of the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) in Foreign Parts. This was the organization based in London that arranged for missionary priests to go to the colonies to help with budding Anglican churches there. These letters, usually written on a semi-annual basis, revealed many interesting interactions with the congregation. Her research paper was entitled, “Gossip, Friendship, and Lawsuits: The Effects of Relationships on Eighteenth Century Christ Church in Shrewsbury” She delivered a talk based on this research at the Shrewsbury Historical Society.
   

   

   Cristin Vivona

2. Kerri Sullivan provided invaluable assistance in archiving items properly. While her time here was short we acquired acid free storage boxes and placed our most valuable books into these.
3. Amanda Lopes and Caitlin Gunther project was an anthropological study of the linkages among parishioner families in the colonial era. In order to do this study effectively they needed to enter the Marriages and Baptisms from our Parish Register of the time into a database for analysis. They wrote a wonderful paper entitled, “An Anthropological Analysis of Christ Church Shrewsbury from 1733 to the Revolution”. Their most enduring contribution to Christ Church History is the database. This is now a resource for future work derived from this invaluable tool. It has been used most recently to spur an analysis of slavery at Christ Church in the colonial era. Their transcription is wonderfully accurate and complete. This work was also mind-numbing and we thank them deeply for this effort.
   

   

   Amanda and Caitlin with Parish Historian Bob Kelly

4. Todd King researched the graveyard database and wrote a paper about some aspects of the transition of the Anglican Church in America to Episcopalianism, entitled, “The Evolution of the Anglican Church after the Revolution”.
5. Taylor Cavanaugh worked on a graveyard project. She studied the evolution of gravemarker artistry and the reasons for the changes over the years. Her research paper was entitled, “Explanation for Changes in Eighteenth Century Gravemarker Iconography”. Taylor presented the results of her work at the Shrewsbury Historical Society.
   

   

   Taylor Speaking at The Shrewsbury Historical Society

6. Amanda Kontor, a Communications major, had an internship project outside of historical research. Amanda created four multimedia videos describing aspects of church life. These were an
   Introduction to the Parish, Our History, Our Graveyard, and Our Spiritual Life. These are YouTube videos as follows.
   
   Introduction to Christ Church: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt7AdNj1hk8
   Christ Church History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ggFsBpID8g
   The Christ Church Graveyard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im51q2bw6sk
   Our Spiritual Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM5dlJU6dS4

   The videos included aerial photography, music, narration and interviews with the Rector and the Parish Historian.

7. Campbell Adair Lee’s internship project was a marriage of Art and History. In 2017, on the 300th anniversary of the printing of the Vinegar Bible, Campbell researched the beautiful illustrations in the Bible. She wrote a paper and presented her findings at a special event at the church entitled The Art of the Vinegar Bible. The paper and the charts for the talk are on the church web site.
   

   

   Campbell Adair Lee

8. With the 250th Anniversary of the Church Building and the 300th Anniversary of the Graveyard in 2019, Emily Blaser and Najah Pryor took internships to create a communication plan for the
   celebration of these milestones. This included a communications plan with a special emphasis on social media communications instruments. With early events in 2018 (October Graveyard Month) the interns were able to execute a portion of the plan and develop some learnings from them.
   

   

   Emily and Najah

In addition to these internships, there was one additional partnership in the Spring of 2018. This was a Monmouth University project performed by 5 students in Dr. Richard Veit’s Public Archaeology class in the Spring of 2018. The project created a Graveyard Self-Guided Tour Brochure that included Notable Figures, Gravestone Artistry, and Special Graveyard features.