Lilian Whitehead

Biology major Lilian Whitehead wants to work for a museum of science or natural history someday.

Thanks to her work-study position as a research assistant with UMass Lowell’s Center for Lowell History, she is getting hands-on experience with preserving and archiving special collections — and developing a newfound appreciation for the city’s past.

“I was so lucky to find a position that fulfills my financial needs and engages my interests outside of my major,” the Westford, Massachusetts, native says. “It’s a little incongruous with biology, but it’s a great experience for the direction I want to go in for my career.”

Whitehead found the position on JobHawk, the university’s student employment site, during her first semester on campus. The Student Employment Office made it “accessible and easy to apply,” she says.

Thousands of French Canadians migrated to Lowell in the late 1800s to work in the city’s mills, and Whitehead joined an ongoing project at the center to preserve this history. The project is led by Mercédès Baillargeon, an associate professor in the World Languages and Cultures Department in the College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Tony Sampas, head archivist for the UML Library.

Whitehead spends eight hours a week scanning and digitizing photographs, newspapers, books and other materials from the center’s extensive French Canadian and Franco American collections. One of her favorite projects so far has been digitizing a 1916 book commemorating the St-Joseph and St-Jean-Baptiste Churches, two of the city’s earliest French Canadian parishes.

“It has tons of fascinating images of cultural events, clergy and the church interiors,” she says. “It’s all available to flip through online now, forever preserved.”

She is also preserving the center’s collection of French-language newspapers by transferring them from binders to boxes made of acid-free materials.

“That is one of the more technical skills I’ve learned here that has been really useful — something they teach you as a practicing archivist,” she says. “If you want any of this stuff to last, it has to be preserved properly.” 

 Whitehead plans to work at the Center for Lowell History throughout her undergraduate years, much to the delight of Sampas.

“She brings a scientific method in analysis, attention to detail and also just plain enthusiasm,” Sampas says. “The work she does is top-shelf.”

“I totally fell in love with the center. If you love libraries, it’s the place to go,” says Whitehead, who has also enjoyed learning more about the city where she’s earning a degree.

“As someone who didn’t grow up in Lowell, it has definitely helped me to connect to Lowell,” she says. “Learning more deeply about these groups definitely humanizes Lowell as a city more.”