Two of the Coolidge Foundation’s hardest working team members are our summer interns Marisol Balderas and Isaac Oberman. Read about their projects and work below.
My name is Marisol Balderas, and I have interned at the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation for the past two summers. My first internship at the Foundation was just before my final semester of undergraduate coursework, and I returned for another summer as I prepare for my first semester of graduate school at Hillsdale College’s Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship.
I have been enamored of Calvin Coolidge since my freshman year of high school. Even then, his modesty and his principled commitment to the rule of law and the Constitution strongly appealed to me. I read as much as I could about him, including Coolidge by Amity Shlaes. The Coolidge Foundation’s website was an invaluable resource to me in my research. It was there that I was able to easily access many of Coolidge’s speeches online, along with articles written about him. Those proved helpful in writing my undergraduate papers, which often cited Coolidge.
Naturally, I was very eager to discover that I would have the opportunity to work for the organization that is dedicated to promoting the legacy of Calvin Coolidge. I was not disappointed. As part of my internship last summer, I researched the influence of Charles Garman’s philosophy on Coolidge’s political principles, which allowed me to explore an aspect of Coolidge in greater depth than I had previously.
Working for the Foundation has been a wonderful experience for me. I have learned a lot and enjoyed the pleasant and welcoming work environment, so much so that I returned for a second summer.
Perhaps the greatest highlight of both internships has been traveling to Vermont to assist with the Foundation’s programs there. Not only was it wonderful to finally visit Coolidge’s bucolic home, but it was also great to meet so many bright young people at the Coolidge Cup and the Senators Summit who have come to share my admiration for Calvin Coolidge. Finally, I love working at the beautiful Coolidge House in Georgetown, D.C. and it is a delight to work with the Coolidge Foundation staff. They are all friendly, interesting, and intelligent people. I could not be happier working for an organization that promotes the legacy of my favorite president and attracts so many great people to it.
My name is Isaac Oberman, and I am one of the interns working at Coolidge House in DC this summer. I grew up in a rural town in south central Wisconsin and have a deep appreciation for agriculture and the Midwest. I currently attend Yale University and will return this fall to start my junior year pursuing a bachelor’s degree in economics. At school I am very involved in a variety of clubs, including the Yale Political Union, the oldest collegiate debating society in the United States, as well as the Buckley Institute, a myriad of Christian and pro life organizations, and I also serve as the president of the Yale Dairy Club. It was through the aforementioned Buckley Institute that I was connected with the Coolidge Foundation and who graciously sponsored my Coolidge internship.
This summer I have been able to really dig into the mind of our thirtieth president. I have been working on a transcription project digitizing Coolidge’s speeches from his time as mayor of Northampton through to his presidency. Being able to see him formulate his arguments and wax poetic on the values of the American Founding or the importance of free markets has been helpful for me in thinking about how I write and form ideas.
Additionally, I have had the privilege of restoring a collection of glass ‘magic lantern’ slides from the 1920s that catalog Coolidge’s presidency. In cleaning and documenting them for the Foundation’s collection, I have been able to immerse myself in the time period and familiarize myself with Coolidge in his everyday life. The Foundation staff have all been very welcoming and imparted me with much political knowledge, not to mention a plethora of Coolidge facts. I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity to support the legacy of Calvin Coolidge and to help inculcate his values in the Coolidge Scholars, Senators, and debaters that I have had the privilege of meeting.