Work – Peter Sohmer

Archives

Currently, I work with the Winthrop Group on archival projects for clients, including universities, large foundations and nonprofits, and families.
In 2021, I worked with the Historical Society of Woodstock in Woodstock, NY to accession and process their collections. The finding aids I wrote are available through their website and provide, for the first time, public-facing description of the Society’s archives.
My capstone paper for the NYU Archives and Public History program was titled “Digital Archives and Privacy: Challenges and Current Practices.”
As a graduate student assistant in NYU’s Archival Collections Management, I worked on collections including the Records of the Office of the President (John Brademas), the Bill Koehnlein Papers, and the MRNY Downtown Clubbing Collection.
During an internship cut short by COVID-19 at the NYC Public Design Commission Archives, I digitized records related to the WPA Federal Art Project.

I performed historical research for an upcoming biography of an important, but overlooked, New York City preservationist.
For a prominent foundation, I performed research to find archival records of the foundation’s founder and his family.
In 2020, I edited and wrote entries for the New York Preservation Archive Project’s Preservation History Database, including writing the entry on the Historic Districts Council.
For a group project for the Creating Digital History course at NYU, I created the prototype Omeka site The Price of Freedom: Loyalism, the American Revolution, and the Flight from NYC.
At the Skyscraper Museum, I worked on a number of exhibits on urban history and land use, including a digital reconstruction of Heritage Trails New York and the exhibitions SKYLINE and MILLENNIUM.