Deborah A. Wold
(Deb)
Public Historian
Museum Professional. Material Culture Steward. Historic Foodways Academic.
My Story
History is not just about dates and places but a story about people. A lot can be learned about the past through the eyes of an individual, their experiences, and personal journey.
My journey to where I am today was a winding road with pit stops along the way. My discovery of history happened when I was very young. Historical fiction was my fantasy world, my escape.
I grew up in a history-rich family.
My paternal great-grandparents immigrated from Norway at the turn of the 20th century. I did not know my great-grandparents or grandparents, but my Norwegian heritage has been passed down through generations.
I was lucky enough to have a deep-rooted American heritage on my mother’s side of the family. We are European mutts on the maternal side; however, I have the privilege of a deep American heritage on this side of the family. Multiple family units traveled across the country during the Westward Expansion, and the original homestead from the late 1870s is still in the family. I visited the homestead where my grandparents, an aunt and uncle, and cousins lived in Oregon every summer from Alaska, where I was born.
I grew up during the nursing shortage of the ‘90s. My career goal in high school and early college was to become a nurse. I struggled academically through math and science classes but was determined. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I switched schools partway through undergrad and completed an AA in Health Service Management. Through these experiences and an unexpected health crisis, I decided the medical field was not meant to be.
After making this decision, I felt like I had a new lease on life. I was working and taking classes at my local community college, trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life. The question on my mind was, “What do I really enjoy doing?” However, it was not until I took a trip to visit a sister out of state and we decided to follow the Idaho portion of the Oregon Trail that I figured out what I wanted to do. While driving alongside the trail, we were caught in a rainstorm and a flash flood. The dirt road washed out, and the car got stuck in the mud. Instead of helping my sister dig us out, I was standing in the rain excited, enjoying the moment because I was experiencing what the pioneers experienced almost 150 years ago. This is when I decided I wanted to work on historical sites and experience the places that people in the past have experienced. Walk in their footsteps. I wanted to be an archaeologist and delve into the hands-on, tangible aspect of history.
Around the same time, I caught the TV mini-series “John Adams”. Watching the dramatization of our country's founding renewed my passion for my country’s history, which I had not felt since 9/11. I almost simultaneously discovered that I was related to John Adams on my mother’s side. Through these experiences, I decided that if I took history classes, I would focus on the history of the United States.
I had agonized about which program I wanted to enter, anthropology or history because I knew I wanted to further my education. I enjoyed cultural anthropology and wanted to apply the cultural side of study to history. I decided to transfer to an anthropology program in California with minors in archaeology and history. Once I completed physical anthropology and remembered how well I did when memorizing bones in my human anatomy classes in pre-nursing school, I decided to concentrate on my archaeology minor in osteology.
During my undergraduate studies, I had ample opportunities to explore my interests. In my American West and Colonial America history classes, I started to explore the food history of those periods. I remember how much I enjoyed my nutrition class in pre-nursing, and I still enjoy medical shows such as “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” and “Diagnosis Murder.” I became curious about how food affected the body and what that looked like for our ancestors.
I also had hands-on experience during my undergraduate. The archaeology minors program was founded after a mammoth was unearthed during a dorm construction. The site was a continuous student learning center. I became a student lead for the site by the time I graduated, along with a 2nd year Teaching Assistant for the archaeology professor. Between my junior and senior years, I attended Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello Archaeological Field School through the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA, as a requirement for graduation. The five-week field school solidified my interest in Colonial America, artifacts, and the East Coast. I also discovered I enjoyed cleaning artifacts, making them beautiful again, and using detective skills to identify the object. During my last semester of undergrad, I had the opportunity to be an intern at the National History Museum of Los Angeles County Vertebrate Paleontology department, which enhanced my interest in osteology and archaeology or museum lab work. After graduation, I entered an independent study program in Historic Anthropology at the MA level for about a year before I obtained a four-month internship at The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs South Dakota Inc. in Hot Springs, SD. Here, I continued enhancing my laboratory and excavation techniques and visitor interaction skills.
​After moving back to Oregon in 2014, I contemplated graduate school. I completed generalized searches a few times over the years as I had been thinking about graduate school since 2012; however, the timing was not just right for me. In 2016, it felt like the time was right for me to search for graduate schools out of state. The search was postponed again due to life circumstances until 2018. I took a year to search for the programs that allowed me to combine history, archaeology, anthropology, and my love of artifacts. The COVID pandemic interrupted this journey as my GRE was rescheduled multiple times. I ended up taking it at home. I applied to 12 different graduate programs nationwide, being accepted into 9 throughout 2021. I started my first semester at University of West Georgia that fall with the projected graduation date of Fall 2024.
After a year of online classes, I moved across the country to Georgia during the summer of 2022, where I had the opportunity to have in-person classes. I was a graduate research assistant at the Antonio J. Waring Archaeology Lab that fall semester. As the semester was wrapping up, I had the opportunity to transfer my graduate research assistant position to the collections department at the Atlanta History Center, which was a year-long commitment, including summer. I wrapped up my hands-on experience as a collections intern during my graduate studies at the Center for Puppetry Arts.
During my time in the Museum Studies certification program and History MA in the Public History track, I concluded that material culture and museum work are what I enjoy. Even though I had a health problem rear its ugly head again, I maintained a 4.0 GPA, was awarded a scholarship, and asked to join two honor societies due to my work and grades.
When things get tough, I remember a statement from James Deetz’ In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life:
“It is terribly important that the ‘small things forgotten’ be remembered. For in the seemingly little and insignificant things that accumulate to create a lifetime, the essence of our existence is captured. We must remember these bits and pieces, and we must use them in new and imaginative ways so that a different appreciation for what life is today, and was in the past, can be achieved. The written document has its proper and important place, but there is also a time when we should set aside our perusal of diaries, court records, and inventories, and listen to another voice.
Don’t read what we have written; look at what we have done.”
In Small Things Forgotten is one of the most relevant books I have ever read, personally and professionally. I was introduced to it as an undergraduate and have read it seven times throughout my academic career. The quote above lights a fire in me. I read it every time I feel the flame lose life. Three other influential books I have read during graduate school were A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America by James McWilliams, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave by Ruth Schwartz Cowan, and All that She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles. Each book has influenced me in its own way. In Small Things Forgotten introduced me to material culture. Revolution in Eating has been the basis of most of my foodways research. I discover something new every time I read it. More Work for Mother was an eye-opening read, showing me how I could tackle foodways through a different vein: technology. Finally, All That She Carried taught me how to write about material culture and the stories they tell.
My passion is to tell these stories. Each item has a story to tell, no matter how small or trivial the object may seem. My interest in foodways expanded exponentially through my studies, research, and experiences between undergraduate and graduate studies. Primarily because of the explosion of secondary materials that became available between my initial undergraduate research a decade ago and today. I also learned that no matter what setting, material culture is what I want to be involved with at the end of the day. This could be in an archaeological lab setting or a collections department in a museum. If I combine these aspects in a niche way, I would.
While working at the lab, I came across this quote that was a combined thought process between my direct supervisor, Andy Carter, and the director of the lab, Nathan Lawres:
"Food is important. This statement transcends cultures. It is welcoming and uniting. It reminds us of family and fond memories. It can be a defining characteristic of our identity and is ingrained in the most important traditions we share."
Learning about food history can enhance our knowledge of the past and our culture. I dream of becoming the go-to consultant for foodways programs within the museum community. I can see foodways flourishing in the museum environment, enhancing stories and supporting exhibits. We all need to eat. Food is a universal language. Food is associated with almost every major holiday or event in the United States, from Thanksgiving to the Super Bowl. As I work towards this goal, I want the opportunity to enhance my skills and interests by working with material culture and foodways.
