A Day in the Life: Historic Preservationist

Read Sabra Smith’s archived tweet feed here: http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/SabraSmith_Feed.pdf

Our national historic landmarks would be lost, ordinary objects from the past if it weren’t for historic preservationists. Learn about this unique and interesting career path when Sabra Smith (Penn Design ’07), contributes to @PennCareerDay on Thursday, March 17th.   To find out more about Sabra, read below and don’t forget to follow her on St. Patrick’s Day!

Sabra Smith

Sabra Smith is currently a Historian (Architectural) at the National Park Service’s Northeast Regional Office in Philadelphia.  When her term is up in three years and she’s looking for a new job, you can count on hearing from her.  Her career started out in publishing and public relations in New York City.  She comes late to historic preservation, but finds crumbling old buildings to be even more interesting than Norman Mailer.   Doing a sidewalk survey during her UPenn studio project, she observed people recoil when asked about things “historic.”  Her blog, My Own Time Machine: People, Places and Things, tries to remind people that history is about stories and can be lots of fun.  Follow her on Twitter for the day and you’ll hear about the National Historic Landmark vessel Olympia, John Coltrane’s house, women’s history, Franklin Fountain (ice cream for everyone!), and her kids.

Sabra graduated in 2007 from the School of Design with her master’s degree in historic preservation.  Her thesis was “Dead Men Tell No Tales:  How Can Creative Approaches to Communication Keep Historic Sites from Going Silent?”

Find Sabra on:

LinkedIn.
Twitter.
Wordpress – here & here.
Etsy.

 

 

 

 

 

Author: Shannon Kelly

Shannon Kelly is the Job & Internship Coordinator in Career Services.