Project Alumni – National Home Front Project

Simon Belcher ‘18, Project Alum

Simon Belcher, Class of 2018, majored in  history and chemistry at Washington College.

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After graduation, he joined  the Material Science and Engineering  graduate program at the University of Arizona.  Simon was a part of the National Home Front Project during the summer of 2016. He helped interview both veterans of World War II  and civilians who lived  on the home front. He also  indexed and transcribed the interviews. Simon was part of the NHFP audio editing team, where he prepared stories for presentation and publication on the project website.   

Erin Benz ‘16, Project Alum

Erin Benz graduated Washington College in 2016 with a major in American Studies and a minor in Art History.

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She took part in the  National Home Front Project in the Fall of 2015. While taking part in the program, Erin assisted in collecting stories about WWII by scanning photos and letters from interviewees and uploading the many stories collected into an organized digital system. Erin is currently earning her Master’s in Museum Professions at Seton Hall University and is the Museum Coordinator at Montclair History Center, New Jersey.

Brianna Bricker ’19, Project Alum

Brianna Bricker graduated Washington College in the spring of 2019 with a B.A. in economics. 

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She received an A.A. in history from College of the Canyons, in her hometown of Santa Clarita, California.  She has been working with the StoryQuest Oral History Program and National Home Front Project since the fall of 2017, where she has conducted interviews, archived materials, and worked on community outreach initiatives.  Her favorite part of working with the National Home Front Project is the opportunity to preserve the unique perspectives of everyone she interviews.

Rachel Brown ‘16, Project Alum

Rachel Brown, Class of 2016, worked on the National Home Front Project throughout her four years at WAC.

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First interviewing, transcribing, and archiving veterans’ stories, she later served as a student assistant during the summer internship programs in 2014 and 2015, helping organize collection drives and public exhibits of memories of the home front. Her interviewing experience stands her in good stead at her current position writing, editing, and producing articles for National Geographic.  

Abigail Burnett ‘20, Project Alum

I’m Abigail Burnett, Washington College Class of 2020! I am a political science and mathematics double major, with a minor in Hispanic Studies.

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I worked as a  National Home Front Project oral history intern my freshman and sophomore years, focusing on local interview collection. In addition to conducting oral histories and processing new materials, I helped to edit and transcribe stories in the archival backlog, so that they, too, could find their way onto our website. This was my favorite part of my work with the National Home Front Project because it gave me the chance to uncover histories that would otherwise be lost to the ages. 

Mairin Corasaniti ’19, Project Alum

Mairin is a senior at Washington College who calls Annapolis, Maryland home. She is a history major and Asian studies minor, and she has a passion for American and Chinese history, 1860s-1930s.

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She currently serves on the National Home Front Project Review Team and delights in cleaning up documents and audio files for public consumption. Mairin believes that all history, especially history as recent and relevant as World War II, should be accessible and humanized, and so she is more than grateful to be able to work with such a great team on such a meaningful project. Following her graduation from Washington College, Mairin hopes to build a career in public history or in educational programming at historic sites, monuments, and museums.

Andrew Darlington ‘19, Project Alum

Andrew Darlington is a Washington College student in the Class of 2019.

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Starting as a volunteer for the National Home Front Project in his freshman year, he worked as a team leader in the project during his sophomore and junior years. His favorite parts of his time with the NHFP were conducting interviews, working with interns and volunteers, and helping to share the untold stories of World War II.  Majoring  in political science and minoring in history, Andrew hopes to continue working in a public history-related field after graduation. 

Julia Fuchs ’22, Project Alum

Julia Fuchs is a Girl Scout Gold Award Recipient and studied at Washington College as a History and Anthropology major.

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After college, Julia aspires to earn a PhD in Archaeology focusing on Egyptology and work as a head curator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art—a goal she began working towards in Spring 2019 through her work with the Research and Interpretation Team at the Starr Center. Julia also served as a National Home Front Project interviewing intern in Summer 2019 by helping record World War II stories in her hometown of Middletown, New Jersey. 

Heber Guerra-Recinos ‘20, Project Alum

Hello! My name is  Heber Guerra-Recinos, and I am a Class of 2020 double major in English and art and art History, with a minor in creative writing.

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I am from Spring Valley, New York. Over the summer of 2018, I was a National Home Front Project intern. With my team, I would interview World War II veterans who served on the American Home Front about how their lives were impacted by this global conflict. I was the archivist of my team, and was responsible for transcribing, organizing, and maintaining the photographs and audio files for our interviews. 

Emily Holt ‘19, Project Alum

Emily Holt is a graduating senior at Washington College with a major in English and a minor in Business Management.

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She was an oral history intern with the Starr Center in the summer of 2016, and used the interviewing skills she developed in the program to go on to work for the college’s marketing department as a staff writer.

Patrick Jackson ’19, Project Alum

My name is Patrick Jackson and I am a Class of 2019 history major.

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I joined the National Home Front Project in my first weeks of college as a volunteer and stayed on with the project through my freshman year. I rejoined StoryQuest Oral History Program in my junior year by working for the Korea and Vietnam veterans interview project. Then, I returned as an archivist for the NHFP. During my time with the project, I learned a variety of skills, including the operation of recording equipment, audio editing, and archival processing.

Fatimata Kane ’19, Project Alum

I am Fatimata Kane, a Washington College Class of 2019 sociology major. I am part of the National Home Front Project local interviewing team.

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We conduct oral histories with people who have lived through World War II and share their experiences through our project website. I also help by processing the interviews for our archive.

I joined the NHFP in summer 2019. I really like being a part of this program because it has given me a chance to break out of my shyness and be able to speak with a diverse population of people. I also have gotten a chance to improve my communication, collaboration, team work, and technical skills. I enjoy working collaboratively and independently to fulfill the mission of the project. The work we do is important because we give people a platform to tell us their stories and share their experiences with us, which we can then share with a larger audience. We provide people with an opportunity to reflect on their lives and give the current generation advice. By sharing these World War II stories with the public, we are giving students a chance to learn about their history and learn about things they may not have known before.

Alex Ramos ’20, Project Alum

Hi everybody! I’m Alex Ramos and I  worked as  a National Home Front Project team leader from  August  2016  to May  2018.

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 I  major in economics and history, with a minor in European Studies, and will graduate Washington College in 2020.  I  worked  primarily as an  audio technician  for the program by editing the interviews into  consumable clips for the website and ensuring the levels were standardized.  I have also conducted  dozens  of NHFP  oral histories,  both as  audio technician and  lead  interviewer.  These interviews  range in scope  from people who were infants at the time of the war  to those who worked on the Manhattan Project or  landed at D-Day. 

Samantha Robinson ‘21, Project Alum

Samantha Robinson is a member of the Class of 2021 majoring in history and computer science.

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During the summer of 2018, Samantha worked as an archiving intern for the National Home Front Project. In this position, she helped to organize and process interview files, and update spreadsheets. She also assisted with writing abstracts, indexes, and transcripts for the oral histories. After graduating, she would like to work as a librarian or an archivist.

Sven Sommer ’15, Project Alum

My name is Sven Sommer. I was born and raised in northern Germany close to the Danish border. In fall 2015, I did an exchange semester at Washington College.

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During this time, I had the huge honor to join the National Home Front Project. I was part of a group interview with Mr. Sy Ellenhorn about his experiences during World War II in Italy. I also conducted an interview with a charming older lady who worked in Maryland during this time. Moreover, I told the story of my grandmother who experienced World War II in East Prussia, suffered from hunger, lost her home, buried her starved siblings, and was expelled from East Prussia by the Russians in 1947.   

Cassy Sottile ’20, Project Alum

I’m Cassy Sottile, Class of 2020. During the summer of 2018, I was one of the National Home Front Project local interviewing interns, and worked on a team with Kelsey Quinn, Kate Voynow, and Elijah McGuire-Berk. 

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The system we worked out meant that all of us cycled through the roles for the project. I was the lead interviewer for some of the people we talked to, but mostly I was on note-taking duty and asked additional questions as I thought of them. Upon returning from the interviews, I transcribed the stories and put together the archival document for every oral history my team conducted. As part of making these documents, I not only transcribed the stories, but also created an index for every interview. I also wrote the abstracts that included a brief biography of the interviewee, their key terms, and the main talking points.

I enjoyed working on this project because I liked the fact that I got to interview these people about their memories from World War II on the home front. Recording history is such an important task that I think some people take for granted, and the fact that I got to experience those stories first-hand was so awe-inspiring to me. I learned more listening to their stories in person than I could by reading from a book. As a journalist, my favorite part of my job is getting to interview people about their stories, and the fact that I was able to combine that with history made this experience so memorable and fun for me.    

Faith Stahl ‘19, Project Alum

Faith Stahl is a history major, with art and European studies minors. During the summer of 2018, she served as an archival processing intern for the National Home Front Project.  

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In this role, she helped to organizing the project’s spreadsheets and backlog interview files. She also worked on writing indexes and transcripts for these interviews. After graduating in 2019, Faith plans to pursue graduate school for museum studies and records management, and eventually work overseas.   

Kate Voynow ‘20, Project Alum

Hello! My name is Kate Voynow and I began working with the National Home Front Project during my freshmen year in the fall of 2016.  

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Over the following years, I was lucky enough to speak with veterans and home front civilians from the Second World War, learn how to conduct interviews, and archive material ranging from badges to ration books. For the summers of 2017 and 2018, I helped the National Home Front Project local interview team collect stories from both here in Chestertown and Seaford, Delaware. It’s been a wonderful experience and I recommend it to all!   