Jackie Killian
HISTORIAN | MUSEUM PROFESSIONAL
You may have seen my work presented in these venues, and I'm grateful to them for their financial support and platform to present my research: Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library; Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; the Decorative Arts Trust; the Colonial Dames of America; the Historic Natchez Foundation; and the American Glass Guild. You can read more in the LECTURES section of my CV and at the Select Projects links.
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I am a facilitator. A storyteller. An advocate.
My career in historic sites and museums began as intern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2000 and I now have over two decades of experience in a breadth of cultural environments. I'm experienced in curation and collections management, fundraising, budgeting, and people-and project management. I've developed familiarity with museum administration and finance managing institutional fundraising for the largest special exhibitions program in Philadelphia at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Earlier this year, I joined the Academic Affairs Division at Winterthur Museum, where I am Assistant Director of Academic Programs. I hold dual Master's degrees from Bard Graduate Center in the history of decorative arts and design and from the University of Delaware-Winterthur Program in American Material Culture. My academic training in art and architectural history spans ancient and contemporary cultures, and I have a focused knowledge of objects produced and used in the Atlantic World ca. 1600-1940. As a historian, my interests lie at the intersection of material culture, landscape, and labor. Furniture is my avenue into understanding how people lived and made a living through what they have left behind. I study objects closely and add a data-driven methodology to restore the voices of people and histories that others have not. I have explored subcontracting along gender lines in 19th-century New York's stained glass industry. My digital project "Town & Country: Early New Jersey's Carpenters & Joiners" visualized my 2014 M.A. thesis that included biographies for over 200 previously unknown furniture-makers and woodworkers bound by the ties of religion and craft. I am now identifying skilled enslaved Black artisans and their integral role in northern Alabama's cabinetmaking industry. |
