For the fouth year in a row, students from Seton Hall Preparatory School were given the opportunity to work at Edison National Historic Site during the summer. A donation from the Charles Edison Fund made this intern program possible.

Five of us were selected for the summer of 1999: Les Walter, Jerome Davis, Greg Kornegay, Robert Polizzano and Leo Selvaggio. We were able to dip our hands into all kinds of work with the interpretation, curatorial and maintenance staffs. In just eight weeks we accomplished a lot.

The interpretation division certainly had a lot of work for us interns this year. We met and talked with incoming visitors who did not know the site is closed for restoration. We read through all of Edison's 1,093 United States patents, then divided them into categories such as electric light, phonograph and movies. Now, with just a click of a mouse, visitors to the Website can sort Edison's patents by category. We even designed a few Web pages ourselves, including this one. Some students also advised the rangers in designing the PARKS Program, a new high school program for the Site.

The curatorial staff granted us exposure to different historic artifacts. Leo explained it as "living and breathing history." The interns helped fight the moth infestation at Glenmont, Edison's nearby house. We vacuumed up hundreds of the "little critters" from many historic textiles. Greg said, "The moth larvae aren't as disgusting as you think." We also helped wrap, shelve, and catalogue over one thousand historic books in Edison's library. Jerome said, "Working with the books was fun, but they get awful heavy!"

The maintenance staff kept us busy with what we called the "beautification project." On the grounds of Glenmont we planted flowers, edged the gravel walking paths and kept historic trees alive that were heat-stressed by the Drought of 1999.

We learned the overall operations of a national park site. Even more important, we learned how to work together in a professional environment.