Historic House Cleaner
Department: Operations – Rosenbach
Reports to: Director of Operations
Salary: $200 a day, approximately two days a week
Position Summary
The Historic House Cleaner has the primary responsibility of ensuring high-quality cleaning of the historic house at The Rosenbach Museum & Library. This is a part-time position that reports to the Director of Operations. The Historic House Cleaner will also communicate regularly with The Facilities Superintendent and The Curator and Senior Director of Collections.
Responsibilities
Weekly general cleaning of the entire historic house (four period rooms, hallways, and three small exhibition galleries):
- Dusting, including furniture, bookcases, exhibition cases, selected lighting fixtures, and non-fragile objects as instructed
- Vacuuming floors in all rooms, hallways, and stairs
- Clean doors, knobs, and railings (high-touch areas)
- More thorough cleaning of any areas in need
Other tasks on a regular cycle:
- Dusting curtains and curtain hardware, window frames and glass
- Dusting door and base trim, wall moldings
- Dusting HVAC grilles
- Washing floors in hallways, exhibition galleries, and period rooms as instructed
- Cleaning entry vestibule of period house; dusting wrought iron gate and cleaning protective acrylic cover as instructed
Cleaning exterior glass of bookcases in period library as instructed
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
- The ideal candidate would have experience working with historic and/or fragile objects in a museum or domestic setting
- Understanding of cleaning materials and techniques appropriate to preservation of historic materials
- Ability to partner with and receive instruction from museum staff for optimal care of museum objects, observation of security protocols, and interaction with staff and visitors
- Respect for historic environments and historic objects
- Respect for confidentiality of information about the museum’s work, security, and collections
- Ability to recognize signs of pest infestation, damage to historic objects or structures, and movement or absence of museum objects and reporting observations to appropriate staff
COVID-19 Requirements
The Rosenbach Museum & Library requires all employees to be vaccinated.
About The Rosenbach
The Rosenbach Museum & Library is a community that engages with and celebrates the art of the written word using our collection of rare books, manuscripts, and historical objects. In the spirit of our founders, the Rosenbach brothers, we invite people from all backgrounds to join us in the pursuit, understanding, and enjoyment of great stories. The Rosenbach plans to expand its reach to a global community that is united by the meaning, beauty, and enjoyment of the written word. We create more access to history and literary classics and reveal underrepresented stories from our collections; we engage longtime readers and intentionally welcome new ones; we develop excellent, audience-driven programming inspired by our collections; and we collect rare books, manuscripts, and related objects for the purpose of sharing them with a diverse public.
Applications
In the spirit of our founders, the Rosenbach brothers, diversity, equity, and inclusion are core values, essential elements of how we engage with each other as employees and the members we serve. We are committed to building communities that dismantle stereotypes and prejudices and working toward a more equitable, inclusive, and just world.
The Rosenbach museum and library is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.
Please send a resume and letter of interest with the subject line “Historic House Cleaner” to [email protected].
Marianne Moore Collection Intern
Funding provided by Arts Intern
The Rosenbach’s literary collections include virtually all of the manuscripts and papers of Modernist poet Marianne Moore (1887-1972), as well as her personal library, thousands of photographs, and the contents of her Greenwich village living room, thus making the Rosenbach the undisputed center for the study of this important American writer. The Moore Collection is a unique literary repository, preserving intact a comprehensive record of a writer’s intellectual development. The Rosenbach has become a pilgrimage site for students and lovers of twentieth-century American art and literature, and the Moore papers are the heart of this collection.
In addition to the papers, Moore’s Greenwich Village living room is permanently installed on the third floor of the historic Rosenbach house and is always on view to visitors as part of the Rosenbach house tour. The over 2,500 personal objects from the Moore room, ranging from furniture to figurines to postage stamps have been cataloged and are also a fruitful source of inquiry for interested researchers.
The overall goals of this internship are a systematic inventory and physical numbering of the photographs in the Moore collection; reformatting sections of the Moore Papers Collections Guide (finding aid) to incorporate new series information and cross-references; digitizing selected portions of the collection including poetry manuscripts and a personal notebook; complete the numbering of Marianne Moore books (MML) and create basic Excel records for Moore Library books not in online catalog; and catalog the phonograph records related to Marianne Moore. Through this examination of all sections of the Marianne Moore collection, the intern will gain an understanding of Marianne Moore and her importance as an icon in mid-20th century, and develop a Hands on Tour about Moore as a proto-feminist figure.
Applicants should be interested in poetry, Modernism, material culture, studies of gender and sexuality, and Library Science.
Skills required: must include ability to work with complex numbering systems; ability to work with spreadsheets; attention to detail, and ability to make connections between written content, material culture objects, and historical events.
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS:
• Students must be be pursuing a bachelor’s degree. Summer applicants must be enrolled for Fall 2022.
• Students must either reside or attend college in the same city as the organization that hosts them. These boundaries vary in each of Arts Intern’s eight participating cities.
• Students must have an Expected Family Contribution (EFC) of less than $5,000. This number is on the Student Aid Report on the FAFSA form. To see what it looks like, click here.
Applying for this internship is a two-step process. Applicants must must complete a brief eligibility survey and upload the required documents .https://studioinstitute.submittable.com/submit/220478/arts-intern-philly-2022
Once this application is reviewed and approved by Studio Institute, applicants forward the confirmation email, along with their resume and a cover letter expressing interest and qualifications in the position to [email protected]. The Rosenbach will make decisions regarding interviewing and hiring.