Ripon professor, students contribute to local historical society exhibits

Ripon College students Bailey Zanck (left), Aftyn Reinwand (center) and Sarah Nakis are interning with the Ripon Historical Society this summer.

The Ripon Historical Society will hold an ice cream social from 1 to 3 p.m. Wednesday, July 21, at the Pedrick-Lawson House museum, one block from campus at 515 Ransom St., and the Pickard House, 508 Watson St.

This summer, Associate Professor of Art History Travis Nygard and three students have been working with volunteers to do research at the historical society. Bailey Zanck ’22 of New Berlin, Wisconsin, Aftyn Reinwand ’23 of Chili, Wisconsin, and Sarah Nakis ’23 of Lake in the Hills, Illinois, are interning as part of the Summer Opportunities for Advanced Research (SOAR) program, in which students do projects with faculty.

They have re-curated the experience at the Pedrick-Lawson House, now called “Ripon’s Pedrick-Lawson House: Artifacts, Architecture, and Anecdotes.” It includes items that can be touched, handouts to keep and a scavenger hunt. Many of the artifacts were excavated from sites within Ripon. The three Ripon students will give guided tours of the exhibit.

Nygard and the students also have created the exhibit “Remembrance, Temperance and Suffrage: What Women of Ripon Made, Wore, Drank and Thought” in the main historical society building, the Pickard House, 508 Watson St. This building is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Friday and Saturday.

“I could not be happier that students in the SOAR program have been working with the historical society,” Nygard says. “This good work will be seen on field trips by every second- and fifth-grader in the public schools, and the community at large can also appreciate it.”

Zanck is majoring in art history and museum studies with a minor in studio art. Reinwand is majoring in art history and museum studies with a minor in English. Nakis is majoring in history with minors in museum studies and French.

(Photo: Bailey Zanck, left, Aftyn Reinwand and Sarah Nakis)