Keep Yourself Alive | Endowment Intern Sarah

An artifact that was found at the outbuilding site at Fort Hill. It is the body of a small porcelain doll.

Hey, all you people, keep yourself alive (or something like that). I have been insanely busy the last couple of weeks with work and keeping myself alive, which is really just a metaphor for me trying not to drown in work. “Drown” might be dramatic (it is also another metaphor, because I am not actually swimming in my work), but I actually really enjoy trying to keep myself afloat because I like being busy. Hence, the very late week five blog post. For all of my fans out there, - hi, Mom and Dad – last week was awesome. I spent the first half of the week completing the video on drag racer Pete Hill. And then, Wednesday I got to leave the office for the day. That’s right; we drove up to Clemson for a shoot. Now, since I am a lifelong Gamecock, going to Clemson usually isn’t my first choice, but I was more than happy to spend the day out of the office and I actually learned quite a lot.

In Clemson, we spent the day shooting video and interviews for the Knowitall.org virtual tour series, Let’s Go! This was a great experience to see what all goes into creating a virtual tour for these spaces. The space we chose sits at the center of Clemson’s campus: the historic home of the Calhoun and Clemson families, Fort Hill. I will give you some quick facts about the history of the property, so you can understand why we chose it. Fort Hill was home to South Carolina politician John C. Calhoun and his family, and was eventually passed down to his daughter, and favorite child, Anna Maria, who was married to Thomas Green Clemson. Clemson, a mining engineer and a former Superintendent of Agricultural Affairs for the United States Department of the Interior, was a huge supporter of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts, which donated public lands and funds to start colleges dedicated to the science and agriculture. So, upon his death, Clemson willed that his home be “always open for the inspection of visitors,” and he gave over 800 acres and $80,000 to the state of South Carolina to establish a public scientific and agricultural college at Fort Hill. This brings us to today: Clemson University. I bet you didn’t think you were going to get a history lesson, but if you made it this far, congratulations.

I can’t believe I am saying this, but I actually enjoyed my time in Clemson. For those of you who know me, this is a rather shocking revelation. Of course, the last time I was there I was 12 years-old and the Gamecocks beat the Tigers 29 to 7, so I enjoyed it that time too. Overall, this was a fun and interesting experience. There was an open trench associated with the Archaeological Field School at Fort Hill, where I got to see an outbuilding that a group of students discovered last summer, as a part of the field study. This summer, they have found more artifacts in their continued exploration of the area. It was really interesting to learn a little bit about the archaeological process and to see some of the artifacts that had been found. I also learned how the Matterport camera works and constructs a 3D space and got to take a lot of pictures. I have always been happiest behind the lens of a camera taking pictures or recording video, but I am second happiest when learning about history. So, I guess you could say it was a double dose of happy.

The last two days of the week were spent editing more videos, which is another thing I enjoy doing. All-in-all, it was a pretty great week filled with good times and even some laughs. Since, this blog post for last week is so late, I already know what happened on this week’s episode of “Sarah’s internship experience,” but I won’t give anything away. You will just have to wait until Monday to find out what happened.