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Haldane Graduate Expanding Horizons At The Foundry School Museum
Michael J. Deegan, Jr., 19, of Cold Spring, has been working as the assistant curator at the Putnam County Historical Society & Foundry School Museum, 63 Chestnut Street, throughout this summer.
A graduate of Haldane Central High School in 2000 and a resident of Philipstown since birth, Deegan is about to begin his sophomore year at the University of Rhode Island where he has a double major in history and anthropology, with a specialization in the latter in archaeology.
Because of his interest in history, Deegan sought summer employment at the museum, which maintains a collection of over 10,000 works of art, historical documents, and other objects related to Putnam County and the Highlands. Deegan has helped to reorganize many parts of the collection, including paintings, maps, photographs, tools, and books. In the process, he has discovered numerous forgotten objects. He has also catalogued many items and assisted with research inquiries. "What I have learned," Deegan says, "are the proper museum procedures in maintaining, cataloguing, researching, and exhibiting a collection."
For two weeks earlier in the summer, Deegan participated in an under water archaeological field study in Bermuda involving the excavation of an eighteenth-century ship and the discovery of a probable French slave ship sunk in 1754. After college and then graduate school, Deegan hopes to work for a cultural resource management firm, evaluating the archaeological importance of sites prior to new building.
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