Lunch with the Libraries & Museums - Humble Beginnings: A Brief History of Johns Hopkins University 

Allison Seyler is a public historian and archivist who has worked in a variety of institutions from a large state agency to a small museum, to a local library, and an academic library of a research university. She is currently the Program Manager for Hopkins Retrospective at the Johns Hopkins University. She earned both a B.A. in History and French and an M.A. in Public History at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

Allison leads the Hopkins Retrospective team as they engage in institutional history research, archival processing, and outreach. She founded the Reexamining Hopkins History Initiative which encourages and supports research by students, faculty, and staff geared towards illuminating inequities of the institution’s past. She is committed to investigating the university’s history in a way that is transparent and communicative, sharing records with the community that relate to the legacies of slavery at Johns Hopkins University and forging a path forward that involves repair. Additionally, Allison directs the Hugh Hawkins Fellowship Program and conducts oral history interviews with FLI (first generation and/or low income) students and other members of the community like staff, alumni, and faculty. Allison teaches both graduate and undergraduate students how to use and interpret primary sources, aiming to demystify and make the university archives more accessible. She is committed to helping folks rediscover ordinary peoples’ lives through the archival record and revealing to all how deeply relevant the past is to both the present and future.

Lori Beth Finkelstein is a lecturer in the MA in Museum Studies program and serves as the Philip Franklin Wagley Director & Curator of John Hopkins University’s Evergreen Museum & Library and director of Homewood Museum. Together, these museums interpret 100 years of Baltimore history and house permanent collections consisting of more than 12,000 works of fine and decorative art separately assembled by the Garrett and Carroll families of Baltimore. Evergreen is also home to the John Work Garrett Library, which houses over 30,000 volumes of rare books and manuscripts.

Prior to her work at Evergreen, Finkelstein was, from 2010 to 2018, the vice president  of education, interpretation, and volunteer programs at the AZA-accredited Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. From 2006 to 2010, she was director of education and interpretation at the Baltimore Museum of Industry. She also held positions at the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden in New York City and the Museum of Early Trades and Crafts in Madison, New Jersey.

Finkelstein has taught several undergraduate and graduate courses in museum studies, U.S. history, and public history at Johns Hopkins University, Stevenson University, and Seton Hall University. She received her master’s and PhD in U.S. history from New York University and earned a bachelor’s degree in North American Studies from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.