Internship Program

One of the meaningful and powerful ways that the Museum is able to preserve and interpret Northwoods wilderness heritage through learning opportunities inspired by Dorothy Molter is through our Small Museum Management [paid] Internship.

Each year, we hire 2 to 4 students who have a desire to learn more about the industry or are in undergrad and masters programs in museum studies, historic preservation or similar, and provide them with real-world experience and learning opportunities.

Securing summer workforce housing in Ely has been a big challenge for several years - both due to a lack of available housing and the increased cost of living - and by providing housing we are removing a significant barrier to applicants to our program.

By providing free housing and a livable wage, our interns can focus on being productive and attentive. 

Over the past four summers, in addition to working with the public, these young professionals have completed the following projects at the Museum:

• Cataloged all pages and images in Dorothy’s nursing school journal
• Completed an Accessibility Grant Project proposal, which was funded to establish a quiet area with sensory garden and pre/during visit sensory tools for visitors
• Cataloged all of Dorothy’s books individually with title, author, book info, inscriptions and imagery
• Updated and presented History You Can Taste root beer history and making programming in collaboration with the Ely Folk School
• Monitored and created content for Museum social media platforms
• Began a photo collection project to identify people in photos and update image descriptions
• Began an archive collection project to update content descriptions and re-digitize files
• Processing of donated historical items related to Dorothy Molter
• Creation of a new kitchen exhibit in the Winter Cabin for 2026
• Drafting an online process for crowdsourcing the transcribing Dorothy's guest journals to make them digitally searchable and publicly available

Through the Dorothy Molter Museum's SMM Internship we are quite literally leading the next generation of Northwoods stewards to make a significant contribution toward a better world through Dorothy’s legacy of perseverance, integrity and generosity.

As much as the Dorothy Molter Museum is part of Dorothy’s legacy, this internship program is all of our shared legacy.