Internship Spotlight: Hannah Murray - 78th Fraser Highlanders

This summer, I had the opportunity to intern with the 78^th Fraser Highlanders, a historical and cultural association dedicated to the preservation of the memory and legacy of the Scottish soldiers of the 78^th Fraser Highlander Regiment and their descendants. The 78^th Fraser Highlanders were first raised in 1757, coming to North America to fight in the Seven Years’ War. Although the Regiment was soon disbanded following the end of the War, many Scottish soldiers remained in North America and the Regiment was re-raised in the middle of the 20^th century as a cultural and historical organization.

Throughout her internship with the 78th Fraser Highlanders, Hannah Murray compared various digital archival documents with one another. Here, she compares the names on two different army subsistence rolls from 1763.

I began my internship with the 78^th Fraser Highlanders with a broad interest in how migration impacts the social and cultural traditions of groups and individuals; by the final week of my internship, I’ve been able to apply this broad interest, harnessing a greater understanding of how the original members of the 78^th Regiment built a home and contributed to a nation in Canada and beyond. As I prepare to enter my fourth year at McGill, where I am pursuing a double major in history and international development studies, my time with the 78^th Fraser’s has been an invaluable experience, strengthening my conviction to continue pursuing history following the conclusion of my undergrad.

When I began applying for internships this past winter semester, I knew I wanted to look for a historically focused internship, and ideally, one based in Montreal and related to the history of Quebec. After studying in Montreal for the past three years, one of my goals for this summer was to get involved in a more locally-based history to better understand both the city and province where I live. In addition, I hoped to find an internship that would give me the chance to work with physical and digital archives, allowing me to gain experience working hands-on with historical documents. Although I do not plan to receive academic credit for this internship, I hope to pursue graduate studies in history and the experience I gained working with the 78^th Fraser archives this summer has been indispensable.

During the first week of Hannah Murray’s internship with the 78th Fraser Highlanders, she explored the historic Maison Louis-Joseph Forget, the 19th century building where she worked throughout the summer.

One of the highlights of my internship this summer revolved around my everyday experience working inside the beautiful Maison Louis-Joseph Forget. The 78^th Fraser Highlanders are just one of many organizations that use the house as their headquarters. Although I was the only 78^th Fraser intern this summer, I worked closely alongside two Black Watch interns and occasionally with the CFFM interns. Working with and getting to know the various other interns and staff at the Maison Forget was truly a highlight of summer!

Hannah Murray reading a book from the Forbes library collection housed at the Maison Louis-Joseph Forget, which she spent the first month of her internship organizing.

My responsibilities as an intern primarily centered around organizing and indexing both physical and digital archives, as well as collaborating with a team of historians who research Scottish-Canadian history. As a history student, I’ve only just begun to discover how the discipline is changing as technology advances – there are countless benefits to digitizing historical archives in terms of preservation and accessibility. This summer, I got to see and experience the digitizing process in action! My first task of the summer revolved around organizing the 78^th Fraser’s physical library collection of various monographs and army records. Once I finished this, I moved on to the digital world of the Fraser’s archives, indexing and reading through various primary sources available via online platforms such as OneDrive and Dropbox.

The nature of my internship with the 78^th Fraser’s was relatively flexible and self-paced in terms of when and where I worked – which proved to be both a benefit and a challenge, as at the beginning of my internship, I often found it difficult to motivate myself and keep track of my tasks. However, to mitigate this I created a spreadsheet to keep track of my daily hours and the tasks I completed each day, as well as any questions or ideas I had. This greatly aided me in staying motivated and holding myself accountable. As someone who hopes to continue studying history, this was also an important lesson to learn, as a great deal of archival work and historical research is self-guided and relatively independent.

Throughout her internship with the 78th Fraser Highlanders, Hannah Murray organized and indexed various archival documents and historical monographs. Here, she prepares to sort through a box of archives.

My time working with the 78^th Fraser Highlanders this summer was a fantastic experience. I am extremely thankful to my supervisor, Lieutenant-Colonel Bruce D. Bolton, for his guidance and expertise this summer. In addition, I am thankful to the Arts Internship Office as well as the St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal and the McEuen Scholarship Foundation for their generosity in funding my Internship Award in Canadian-Scottish Studies, which greatly aided me in being able to stay in Montreal this summer. I am excited to see how research on the 78^th Fraser Highlanders progresses in the future and am extremely grateful to have been a part of the organization this summer!