When Brittany Newman was first approached about taking over as executive director for the Golden Museum and Archives in 2019, she had no idea she would be tasked with preserving history as it happened when the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded months later.

At the time, she was running the summer camp at the museum and was covering for long-time curator Colleen Palumbo at the fall fair. Newman had been kicking around the museum for 10 years at that point, having first come on board in the summer of 2009 as Kids Camp coordinator for her first real job out of university.

After a year of training alongside Palumbo throughout 2020, the curator stepped into retirement and Newman assumed her new position in April 2021.

鈥淲e do our best to tell as much as many of the stories as possible here because Golden is hugely diverse and we have a crazy amount of history here that people wouldn鈥檛 imagine that we did,鈥� said Newman.

鈥淲e learn a lot from the past and the more we kind of explore it, the more insight we have into the way that people are and why they are, why they are where they are, and why Golden is what it is.鈥�

Palumbo says at the time of her retirement that she felt the museum was being left in good hands with her successor.

The role of the executive director is many-faceted, from curating family trees, helping tourists looking to learn more about the community they鈥檙e visiting, to working with the town when the ice flows jam up on the river to help determine the best way to mitigate the problem.

Currently, Newman is working closely with the group trying to preserve the Swiss Village, something she says has helped show the importance of the role of the museum in the community.

She鈥檚 also working to preserve the impact of COVID-19 in Golden in the digital age for use in a future exhibit 10, 20 or maybe even 50 years down the line.

So far, she鈥檚 collected old Rotary hand sanitizer bottles, masks, Facebook posts and Physician of Golden updates.

鈥淯ntil you鈥檙e really in a position where you鈥檙e going to lose something you don鈥檛 realize how important community history actually is,鈥� she said.

鈥淭hinking about how in 20 years and 50 years, how are people going to display this?

鈥淗ow are they going to share this because we鈥檙e living through something that is actually going to make it into a history book. It鈥檚 been a very surreal experience.鈥�

She says working with the archives, she sees the importance of the museum and preservation, citing a journal entry from almost a century ago that reveals old weather patterns and how the environment in the Golden area has changed.

As for where she sees her position taking her, she says she wants to see the museum continue to foster itself as a community space for everybody to come and learn or share a story, something that started when Palumbo was still the executive director.

Newman says that it reflects a larger shift in the industry since she first came on board in 2009.

鈥淲e used to be there simply to be experts in history,鈥� she explained.

鈥淣ow, we鈥檙e shifting to a place to provide safe civic dialogue.

鈥淲e鈥檝e gone from being a museum that has different eras and different rooms to being a museum that actually tells stories that includes our, our community and our storytelling.鈥�

She says another shift she鈥檚 noticed is the world of history opening up to being more inclusive and accepting of everyone, regardless of gender, sexual identity, or any other form of identity.

While fieldwork and work on the research level such as professors and studies tend to be more male-dominated historically, Newman says roles like hers have always tended to skew more toward females, but over the last decade she鈥檚 seen more balance.

However, being a woman in history doesn鈥檛 come without its battles.

鈥淚t鈥檚 just like a woman in any sort of business, it鈥檚 always a struggle when you鈥檙e in a room full of especially older generation men to make sure that your voice is being heard and you鈥檙e not being talked over,鈥� she said.

鈥淚 think a lot of women struggle with that, regardless of the position they鈥檙e in, but as we continue to educate, we can see it changing in society a little bit at a time.鈥�