Investigating a Ruin, Ocean City Storm, May 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)M, MdHS.

“This is the worst disaster in the history of Maryland in my time,” declared Maryland Governor Millard Tawes in March of 1962 as he surveyed the remnants of Ocean City by helicopter following one of the most destructive storms to ever hit the eastern seaboard of the United States. The nor’easter that bombarded the Atlantic coast for five days beginning on March 5 – known variously as the Great Atlantic Storm of 1962, the Storm of the Century, the Five High Storm, the Great March Storm of 1962, and the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 – devastated beaches and communities from North Carolina to New York, and caused damage as far north as Maine.

The unexpected and unusually powerful storm was caused by the confluence of two intense pressure systems off the coast and a “spring tide,” which resulted in  record high tides, heavy rains, hurricane force winds, tidal surges, and massive flooding. On Long Beach Island, New Jersey more than 80 percent of the structures were damaged or entirely destroyed. Waves over 40 feet in height were recorded at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and off New York City. The U.S. destroyer Monssen, which was being towed along the New Jersey coast, was run aground. Over the course of five days, the storm claimed more than 30 lives, left more than 1200 others injured, caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, and left countless homeless.

For the some 1500 residents of Ocean City, the storm was a nightmare. On the evening of March 5, residents were taking shelter from what they thought was a typical nor’easter, which generally move through an area fairly quickly. But this storm proved unique – it remained parked off the coast for some 36 hours.  By the end of Tuesday, the winds had picked up and the protective dunes had been washed away by the first of what would be five high tides over the duration of the storm. At the storm’s peak on March 7 – Ash Wednesday –  the high tides were nearly nine and a half feet above average low tide. (In comparison, the highest tides of the powerful hurricane that hit Ocean City in 1933 were just over seven feet.)

Along with the high tides came a continuous hard rain, 60 mile an hour winds, and 25 foot waves – Ocean City was soon torn apart. Cars were buried in up to five feet of sand. Houses were ripped away from their foundations and into the sea. Up to eight feet of sand was washed from the beaches in some areas. More than 350 businesses and residences were damaged, with 50 establishments completely leveled. Assateague Island, the slender 37 mile barrier island that stretches from the southern tip of Ocean City into Virginia, along with Chincoteague Island in Virgina, were completely submerged by the storm surges.

On March 7, the first of the National Guard units arrived on the scene to help with the rescue and cleanup operations and also to prevent the possibility of looting. They set up headquarters in the Ocean City Elementary School. The townspeople also rallied to help their neighbors reach safety. An ad hoc network of CB radio hobbyists helped coordinate rescue efforts, communicating with rescue volunteers and sending out messages to trapped residents directing them to hang white sheets from their windows as signals. Most of the residents were evacuated by Wednesday evening. Many of those whose houses were not entirely swept away returned home to find their furniture gone and their living rooms and kitchens completely submerged.

Despite the utter destruction, the town made a quick recovery through the determination and hardwork of residents, volunteers workers, and state and federal agencies. On Memorial Day, less than three months after the disaster, Ocean City was open for business.

The repercussions of the ’62 storm are still evident today. Like the 1933 hurricane, which refashioned Ocean City into a major Atlantic fishing port, the storm that hit in 1962 had far reaching consequences, ushering in a period of rapid expansion that turned the town into the vacation destination that today sees more than 8 million annual visitors. It also simultaneously led to an increased public awareness about the environment.

In 1964, the Citizens Committee for the Preservation of Assateague Island was formed to garner support for the establishment of Assateague Island as a National Park.
Flyer, Citizens Committee for the Preservation of Assateague Island Papers, MS 38, MdHS.

Prior to the storm, plans had been in place to build a private resort community on Assateague Island. In the 1950s, a group of investors from Baltimore and Washington, DC purchased a 15 mile stretch of the island with designs for a resort community to be called “Ocean Beach.” By the early 1960s, 5850 lots had been sold, although only 30 buildings were ever actually built, along with one paved road dubbed “Baltimore Boulevard.” The storm washed out most of the road and wiped out nearly all of the houses, and along with them, any further plans for development. In 1965, after three years of Congressional deliberations and renewed pressure by private developers to acquire the land, the U.S. Congress passed an act establishing the Maryland section of the island as the Assateague Island National Seashore.

On a lighter note, without the storm, a sequel to one of Maryland’s most celebrated children’s books may not have been written. In 1947, Wisconsin born author Marguerite Henry penned her Newbery Honored book, Misty of Chincoteague. The book relates the semi-fictional tale of Misty, a wild horse raised on Chincoteague Island by a local family, the Beebes. During the storm of 1962, the real Misty was forced to wait out the storm in the family’s kitchen after her barn was flooded. A few days after the storm, the horse gave birth to a foal, which the Beebes named Stormy. The following year, Marguerite Henry wrote  Stormy, Misty’s Foal, the third in a series of books about the wild horses of Assateague. (Damon Talbot)

Click on the slideshow below to see more photographs of the aftermath of the storm taken by A. Aubrey Bodine.

Guard in tilted house, Ocean City Storm, May 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)N, MdHS.

Submerged Auto, Ocean City, March 6-7, 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(2)G, MdHS.

Flattened Cottage, Ocean City Storm, May 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)C, MdHS.

Interior Damage, Ocean City Storm, March 6-7, 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(2)LL, MdHS.

House Upset, Ocean City Storm, May 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)G, MdHS.

Crowd, Ocean City Storm, March 6-7, 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)QQ, MdHS.

Guard by upended building, Ocean City Storm, May 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)K, MdHS.

Emergency furniture, Ocean City Storm, March 6-7, 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(2)T, MdHS.

Emergency Housing, Ocean City Storm, March 6-7, 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(2)Y, MdHS.

Investigating a Ruin, Ocean City Storm, May 1962, A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B498(4)M, MdHS.

Sources and Further Reading:

Avedissian, Eric, “The March Storm of 1962″, Ocean City Sentinel, February 29, 2012.

Citizens Committee for the Preservation of Assateague Island Papers, 1964-1965, MS 38, MdHS

Corddry, Mary, City on the Sand: Ocean City, Maryland, and the People Who Built It (Tidewater Publishers: Centreville, Md, 1991)

Dance, Scott, “50 years ago Ocean City was washing away,” The Baltimore Sun, March 5, 2012.

History of Misty of Chincoteague

National Park Service – History of Assateague

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – The Greatest Storms of the Century in the Greater Washington-Baltimore Region

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/lwx/Historic_Events/StormsOfCentury.html

Salvini, Emil R., “The Great Atlantic Storm of 1962,” NJTVOnline, March 6, 2012.

Samenow, Jason, “Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962: 50 Year Anniversary,” The Washington Post blog, March 6, 2012.

http://www.njtvonline.org/njtoday/2012/03/06/the-great-atlantic-storm-of-1962/

Communists Celebrating, PP141.274 (Z4.141), not dated, MdHS.

In honor of the first Monday of September also known as Labor Day, this week we bring you, our loyal worker-readers, a selection of photographs of your fellow historic laborers plying their respective trades. From ditch digger to pencil pusher, each did his or her part, though admittedly not always in equal measure. May these photos remind you why we really celebrate this federally recognized holiday.

HEN.00.A1-102 Four unidentified women working in factory, Paul S. Henderson, undated. Paul Henderson Photograph Collection, MdHS.

MC8179 Hollingsworth Building. 227 Holliday Street. Workers in front. Men posing in front of William Hollingsworth, Machinist and Manufacturer. Unknown photographer, ca. 1900, MdHS.

PP79.294.2 Launching a ship. Not dated. Robert F. Kniesche Photograph Collection. MdHS.

PP79.299.1 Launching ship. Robert F. Kniesche Photograph Collection. MdHS.

PP79.351 Unidentified worker at loom, Hooper Mills. Baltimore, Maryland Not dated. Robert F. Kniesche Photograph Collection. MdHS.

PP79.405 "Crop pickers, Fallsway and Madison. Waiting to be picked up to go to work about midnight." September 17, 1959. Robert F. Kniesche Photograph Collection. MdHS.

PP230.706 Unidentified fort wall being constructed by African Americans. Civil War Photograph Collection, 1861-1935, MdHS.

Subject Vertical File: Baltimore - Custom House, interior view, ca. 1965, MdHS.

Subject Vertical File: Baltimore - Distilleries Baltimore Distilling Company 1925, MdHS.

Subject Vertical File: Baltimore - Distilleries - Baltimore Distilling Company 1925, MdHS.

Z24-1326 Edwin H. Bennett Queensware Factory Employees, ca. 1875, MdHS.

Z24.1535 World War II 1939-1945 - Industry - War Worker, MdHS.

MdHS images:

HEN.00.A1-102 Four unidentified women working in factory. Paul S. Henderson, not dated.

MC8179 Hollingsworth Building, 227 Holliday Street. Unknown photographer, ca. 1900.

PP79.294.2 Launching a ship. Robert F. Kniesche, not dated.

PP79.299.1 Launching ship. Robert F. Kniesche, not dated.

PP79.351 Unidentified worker at loom, Hooper Mills. Baltimore, Maryland. Robert F. Kniesche, not dated.

PP79.405 Crop pickers, Fallsway and Madison.  Robert F. Kniesche, September 17, 1959.

PP230.706 Unidentified fort wall being constructed by African Americans. Civil War Photograph Collection, 1861-1935.

SVF Baltimore – Custom House, interior view, ca. 1965.

SVF Distilleries – Baltimore Distilling Company, 1925.

Z24-1326 Edwin H. Bennett Queensware Factory Employees, ca. 1875.

Z24.1535 World War II 1939-1945, Industry – War Worker.

Baltimore Hotels Inns & Taverns Belvedere Hotel 1934 Interiors Barroom, Unknown photographer, SVF, MdHS.

The hotel was named after a mansion built by General John Eager Howard during the Revolutionary Period. Located at Calvert Street between Eager and Chase, it took its name from the great view of the river and the bay. The name itself comes from the Italian words for “beautiful sight.” It’s hard to imagine now what that must have looked like. The hotel, which sits west of the spot where the mansion stood until 1886, was completed in 1903 and cost $1.7 million. The bar opened on December 14, 1903. It was then known simply as the bar room or bar at the Belvedere and would not take the name Owl Bar until after World War II.

Despite still being chock full of dead animal heads, the bar is as cozy and charming as ever. The Owl Bar today. Photo taken from Truffles Catering web site.

Originally a men’s only establishment, the clientele ranged from high society gentlemen to workaday businessmen with some New York bookmakers peppered in. Barroom brawls were frequent and sometimes reported in the pages of The Sun. No one knows exactly when the owl theme or name set in, but legend has it that during the Prohibition Era the bar was a speakeasy where two prominently displayed ornamental owls served to tip off patrons. An eye blinked on each owl when liquor was available and the coast was clear of feds. One of the owls still sits on the bar today.

Imagine Robert Mitchum waiting to have a little talk with you in the barroom. He’s not happy that you’ve kept him waiting. Baltimore Hotels Belvedere Hotel Chase at Charles Street Bar, SVF, MdHS.

The photo above shows a room that has since been altered. Today the right side serves as a small dining room, while the left side has been walled in and made part of the kitchen. Notice the cigar counter at the back of the room. It’s since been replaced by a four-top table.

The entrance room of the bar as it appears today.

It’s hard to say if this was the bar’s entrance when this photo was taken in the early 20th century. But take a look at the cigar counter. Baltimore Hotels Belvedere Hotel Chase at Charles Street Barroom Detail, SVF, MdHS.

The dates on MdHS’s Vertical File photos are somewhat dubious. A couple of them are labeled 1934, yet could very well have been taken earlier. In Kristen Helberg’s book, The Belvedere and the Man Who Saved It, which is so far the definitive history of the hotel, the MdHS photo below on the left is labeled “The Bar Room, 1908.” We can find no clues in our records that explain how she determined the year.

Kristen Helberg’s book dates this photo ca. 1908, but the information in our Vertical File says 1934. Who knows why? Baltimore Hotels Inns & Taverns Belvedere Hotel 1934 Interiors Barroom 2, Unknown photographer, SVF, MdHS.

Baltimore Hotels Belvedere Hotel Chase at Charles Street Barroom 2, Photographer and date unknown, SVF, MdHS.

Regardless of the date discrepancies, the above photos work nicely with the modern day panoramic view below to illustrate the degree to which time has changed the main barroom.

“Owl Bar Pano, Belvedere Hotel, Baltimore.” Borrowed from the Scott McLeod’s Flickr page.

Here are some details of the old bar that may provide date clues, but will certainly leave you pining for the way things once looked. If there are any experts skilled at dating cash registers from black & white photographs, please contact MdHS.

A wise owl sits atop what seems to be a simulated woodgrain cash register. Not a good era for cash registers. Detail of Baltimore Hotels Inns & Taverns Belvedere Hotel 1934 Interiors Barroom, SVF, MdHS.

Now this is a classy register. Detail of Baltimore Hotels Inns & Taverns Belvedere Hotel 1934 Interiors Barroom 2, SVF, MdHS.

Where might the sleepy drunken chandelier gnomes have gone off to? Possibly the luckiest secondhand shop in Baltimore. Detail of Baltimore Hotels Belvedere Hotel Chase at Charles Street Barroom 2, SVF, MdHS.

Finally we leave you with a slideshow that you can call up on your smartphone while enjoying a cold one and a pizza sitting in the Owl Bar. Enjoy! (Joe Tropea)

SVF Baltimore Hotels Inns & Taverns Belvedere Hotel 1934 Interiors Barroom Unknown photographer, 1934 8 x 10 inch film negative Subject Vertical File Maryland Historical Society Special Collections Department

SVF Baltimore Hotels Inns & Taverns Belvedere Hotel 1934 Interiors Barroom 2 Unknown photographer, 1934 8 x 10 inch photo print Subject Vertical File Maryland Historical Society Special Collections Department

SVF Baltimore Hotels Belvedere Hotel Chase at Charles Street Barroom 2 Photographer and date unknown "Parker, Thomas, and Rice" (architects) listed on folder 9.5 x 7.5 inch photo print on linen Subject Vertical File Maryland Historical Society Special Collections Department

SVF Baltimore Hotels Belvedere Hotel Chase at Charles Street Barroom Photographer and date unknown "Parker, Thomas, and Rice" (architects) listed on folder 9.5 x 7.5 inch photo print on linen Subject Vertical File Maryland Historical Society Special Collections Department

SVF Baltimore Hotels Belvedere Hotel Chase at Charles Street Barroom Detail Corner showing cigar and cigarette counter Photographer and date unknown "Parker, Thomas, and Rice" (architects) listed on folder 9.5 x 7.5 inch photo print on linen Subject Vertical File Maryland Historical Society Special Collections Department

SVF Baltimore Hotels Inns & Taverns Belvedere Hotel Interior barroom Possibly Hughes Company, ca. 1910 "See glass negatives" 8 x 10 inch copy print Subject Vertical File Maryland Historical Society Special Collections Department

Sources:

Kristen Helberg, The Belvedere and the Man Who Saved It, Pumpkin Publications, 1986.

Fred Rasmussen, “Here’s a Toast to the Great Hotel Bars,” The Baltimore Sun, March 26, 2005.

Chinese American Family at Dinner, March 1958, A. Aubrey Bodine, MdHS, B502-H.

The story of race in Baltimore has traditionally been presented as a black and white issue. Particularly in discussions about the Civil Rights Era, the focus has been on the interaction between these two racial groups, with Jewish residents representing an ethnic middle ground between them.

In researching this pivotal time period in the city’s history, I was surprised to come across a 1945 Baltimore Sun article in which NAACP represetative Juanita Jackson Mitchell stated that Chinese students “are permitted to enter Polytechnic Institute, where Negroes can’t enter.”(1) How could that be so? Some might point to the stereotypes that we are exposed to today, such as the image of the quiet, academically driven, Asian-American student. However, these stereotypes were less prevalent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many West Coast cities, most notably San Francisco, struggled with how to deal with large Chinese immigrant populations. School systems were in a particularly awkward position, as most municipalities only had provisions that addressed the segregation of “colored” or “negro” children. San Francisco’s first “Chinese School” was established in 1859, with subsequent state and city laws gradually curtailing the rights of the growing community. Asian-descended children were formally and informally segregated throughout the western states, as whites feared their exotic customs and supposed moral deficiencies. In 1882, President Chester Arthur signed the Exclusion Act, prohibiting Chinese workers from entering the country.(2)

These developments had little effect on Maryland’s tiny Asian, mostly Chinese, population. By 1900, the state’s Chinese inhabitants numbered less than 500, 426 of whom resided in Baltimore.(3) While visiting Baltimore’s public schools in 1911, Stanford University education professor Dr. Elwood P. Cubberly was surprised to encounter just a single Chinese child, whom he was told was “the only one in the schools of the city.” He remarked that “in San Francisco we have hundreds of these children and they present a most difficult problem.”(4) Fourteen years earlier, fifteen year old Hom Let had become the first Chinese student admitted to a Baltimore school.

Chinese immigrants began to arrive in Baltimore as early as the 1880s. The first “Chinatown” was centered around the 200 block of Marion Street, bound by Fayette Street to the south, Park Avenue to the east, Howard Street to the west, and Lexington Street to the north. Following World War I, it moved to the 300 block of Park Avenue.
Mrs. James Hom with abacus, March 1958, A. Aubrey Bodine, MdHS, B502-C.

Although hailed by The Baltimore Sun as “the first Chinese pupil to be entered in Baltimore’s Public Educational Institutions,” Hom Let’s acceptance into the Baltimore school system 1897 caused an immediate controversy.(5) The California-born boy was enrolled at Primary School Number 10 on Hollins Street—what is today James McHenry Elementary/Middle School in Old West Baltimore. According to the article, he was initially placed in the first grade, where the other boys “did not treat the new pupil as fairly as they should have done,” as they were intrigued by his “queer-looking silk trousers.” Hom Let’s admission sparked an almost immediate debate over where Chinese students would fall in the city’s binary racial environment. Several civic leaders commented on his status. Mayor Alcaeus Hooper, who did not object to his admission, cited “the intelligence of the race in mastering all studies.”(6) Others remarked that there was no specific ordinance to prevent the Chinese from attending white schools, but feared the abuse that Let might receive from his classmates. The newspaper account also included the opinions of Chinatown residents, who were happy with his placement as “negroes are seldom well liked by the Celestials [Chinese].” However there was no specific explanation as to how he was formally enrolled in the white school.

The issue would be officially addressed by the Baltimore city school board in March of 1898. School Commissioner John T. Foley proposed that a separate school be established for Chinese Baltimoreans, specifically for English language training. However when the plan was forwarded to the City Solicitor, he determined that any public school designation outside of “white” or “colored” was legally prohibited. The Solicitor further stated that “only the children or wards of naturalized Chinamen can attend the schools free of charge.”(7) By this time another Chinese student had joined Hom Let in the school system.(8)

The few Chinese children in Baltimore would continue to utilize the city’s white schools unmolested until 1913. That year, Benjamin Jew, a recent immigrant, was refused entry by the principal of the Number 5 Public School located at Broadway and Ashland Avenue. The principal had rejected the child specifically on “the ground that he was not white.” Benjamin was eventually accepted into the school after his Sunday school teacher—also an instructor at the public school—intervened on his behalf. Other church members also appealed to the Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Charles J. Koch. As to the child’s non-citizen status, Koch would ambiguously state that “I presume that he was sure of his ground.” Instead of further addressing that technicality, the School Board President declared that he would rather not venture an opinion as to the child’s right to attend a white school.”(9) Again it seems that local officials preferred to ignore the Chinese students’ tenuous position, barring a surge in their numbers or a public uproar from white Baltimoreans. An increase in the Chinese population became unlikely when the United States Congress further restricted immigration in 1924 by passing another Exclusion Act that permitted only the children of native born Americans to enter the country.(10)

In 1927, the federal government attempted to resolve the school issue after a Chinese family in Mississippi protested their daughter’s exclusion from the local white, public school. The Supreme Court ruled that the division was between the “pure white or Caucasian race on the one hand and the brown, yellow and black races on the other.”(11) The young Mississippi girl could either attend the colored school in Bolivar county or opt for a private option. It doesn’t appear that the verdict had any bearing on the situation in Baltimore, where the minority group’s status continued to be determined by the whims of the community or the local principal. In fact, the success of Chinese students in the city’s most prestigious public high schools soon became a subject to celebrate in the papers.

Poly Cracker, 1931, Yearbook, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. Enoch Pratt Free Library: Maryland Department.

When Sec Ai Lew graduated from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in 1931, an article in The Baltimore Sun stated that he was “called a brilliant student by members of the faculty, liked by all of his classmates.”(12) Lew had immigrated to the city when he was six years old, though his primary education experience is not discussed in the article. The Poly Cracker yearbook from that year similarly sung the young man’s praises, asserting that “when he came to America he did not know A from Z in English, but he now puts some of the native butter-and-egg men to shame with his grammatical accuracy.”(13) That same year the newspaper noted that Lillian Chin and Ruth Oy Lee graduated from Western High School, where each participated in multiple extra-curricular clubs just as their white classmates did.(14) Neither situation was presented as a controversy, but the Chinese students were a notable curiosity. Nor did The Baltimore Sun make any mention of their opportunities as compared to those for African-Americans in the city.

Polytechnic’s State Championship Soccer Team of 1931. Sec Ai Lew, bottom row, right.
Poly Cracker, Yearbook, 1931, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. Enoch Pratt Free Library: Maryland Department.

As with other ethnic groups, Baltimore’s Chinese community experienced a boom during the 1940s as migrants sought to enjoy the war-time prosperity. For Leslie Chin, who emigrated from China at age ten, it meant a temporary hiatus from elementary school after his uncle pulled him out of school to work in the kitchen at “ChinaLand,” his restaurant at Eutaw and Fayette Streets. In an oral history interview conducted in 1977, Chin recalled that all the young men who would have held kitchen jobs were drafted into service, requiring school age children to fill the void. This was technically illegal, but, as Chin joked that “they had no way to find me … because I was hidden in the kitchen (laughs).”(15) He did not attend school again until after the war when he entered Baltimore City College in 1946. When asked about his experience with prejudice as a child, Chin said:

“I never had that feeling, but when I talked to other people, they had, yes (I) think prejudice is there and as I look into it, I can see. But from my personal experience, I know I didn’t, even when I finished school …When I (was) in school I had a lot of friends and I go to parties. The childhood experience with Hobines. I feel no discrimination.”

Greenbag, 1949, Yearbook, Baltimore City College. Enoch Pratt Free Library: Maryland Department.

Living with a German-American family, the Hobines, clearly affected Chin’s acculturation process and comfort level with white classmates. He did not seem shy in his pursuits in high school, participating in sports and serving in the school’s executive board and as a homeroom president.(16) It is likely relevant that City College, like Polytechnic and Western, was a selective college preparatory school which white students chose to attend. The experience for Chinese students might have been more openly hostile at a neighborhood institution, as it was for African-Americans that integrated the zoned schools of south and southeast Baltimore following the 1954 Brown vs. Board decision.

Even after World War II, Chinese-Americans never formed a numerically significant community in Baltimore City. Considering the blatant discrimination and violence that Chinese-Americans faced in California and other western states,  integration of the city’s white public school system was relatively painless for Maryland’s Chinese students, due in large part to their small numbers. While certainly a trying experience, the childish abuse that Hom Let received in 1897 could never rival the severe hostility that African-Americans would suffer through to attend the same schools. In Baltimore, whites viewed Chinese students as a novelty or curiosity rather than the threat that larger minority groups could represent.

Even as federal restrictions have been eased and immigrant populations have established a significant presence in most major cities, Baltimore has largely maintained its bipartite racial status. Today, black and white students make up nearly 94 percent of the city’s public school system. At the beginning of the 2012 school year, students of Asian descent numbered 888, or just over one percent.(17) Despite their limited presence, Chinese students raised interesting questions for the Baltimore City Public School System, perhaps foreshadowing both white and black reactions to mid-century desegregation efforts. (David Armenti)

David Armenti is the Student Research Center Coordinator at the Maryland Historical Society.

Footnotes:

(1) “NegroesRequestSchool Control: Seek Full Charge of Colored Education in City,” The Baltimore Sun, 16 February, 1945.

(2) Leslie Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore (Baltimore: Greater Baltimore Chinese American Bicentennial Committee), Maryland Historical Society Library, PAM 12367.

(3) Historical Census Browser, University of Virginia Library, County-Level Results for 1900.

(4) “Investigating School System,” The Baltimore Sun, 10 March 1911.

(5) “Hom Let Goes to School,” The Baltimore Sun, 18 February, 1897.

(6) “Is He White or Colored?,” The Baltimore Sun, 19 February, 1897.

(7) “Cannot Teach the Chinese”, The Baltimore Sun, 22 March, 1898.

(8) “Harry Hom Let’s Progress”, The Baltimore Sun, 23 March, 1898.

(9) “Chinese Boy in Class”, The Baltimore Sun, 18 September, 1913.

(10) Leslie Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore

(11) “Chinese Must Go To Colored Schools,” The Baltimore Afro-American, 26, 1927.

(12)“Chinese, Who Left Home At Age Of Six, Graduated From Poly,” The Baltimore Sun. 16 June 1931.

(13) Poly Cracker, 1931, Yearbook, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. Enoch Pratt Free Library: Maryland Department.

(14) “Two Chinese Girls Receive Diplomas,” The Baltimore Sun, 19 June, 1931; Westward Ho, 1931,Yearbook,WesternHigh School. Enoch Pratt Free Library: Maryland Department.

(15) Leslie Chin, Interview by Stephen Knipp, Maryland Historical Society, OH 8223

(16) Greenbag, 1949, Yearbook, BaltimoreCityCollege. Enoch Pratt Free Library: Maryland Department.

(17) 2012 Maryland Report Card, Baltimore City, Demographics Data Summary, Enrollment.

Maryland’s most famous witch: The Blair Witch… on VHS. The Blair Witch Project & The Curse of the Blair Witch, Moving Image Collection, MdHS.

The perilous waters of the Atlantic Ocean condemned Maryland’s first witch. The Charity of London set sail for the New World in 1654 from England with her crew and small group of passengers looking to settle the new colony. Mary Lee was one such passenger, but she never set foot on Maryland’s shores.

Travelers knew that the trip across the ocean was a dangerous endeavor, but this crossing proved particularly hazardous. Choppy seas and violent winds plagued the Charity of London’s journey from the start. An attempt to make land in Bermuda had failed due to crosswinds, “and the Ship grew daily more leaky almost to desperation and the Chiefe Seamen often declared their Resolution of Leaving her if an opportunity offered it Self….”(1) The passengers and crew grew more agitated as the ship weakened and the weather refused to yield. Rumor took hold amongst the crew that a witch had conjured the storms. Father Francis Fitzherbert, a Jesuit traveling to Maryland aboard the Charity, recalled the sailors reasoning that the foul weather “was not on account of the violence of the ship or atmosphere, but the malevolence of witches.”(2)

The sailors decided that Mary Lee was that witch and petitioned the captain to put the woman on trial. The storms delayed the proceedings, so two seamen decided to take matters into their own hands. They seized Lee and searched her body for the Devil’s markings. They found a damning mark—a protruding teat from which the Devil and his familiars could supposedly feed—a well-known sign of witchcraft at the time. She was subsequently hanged and her corpse and belongings dumped overboard. The Charity landed in St. Mary’s City, Maryland worse for wear but in one piece and without a witch.

Accounts of witchcraft, such as the story of Mary Lee, were common in the 17th century. An anti-witch hysteria had recently swept across Europe, and the English crown enacted several statutes criminalizing sorcery. The Devil and black magic were real and present dangers in everyday life, and witches could summon that dark power with the mere mumbling of a curse.

These old world superstitions and religious convictions immigrated with the colonists. Witchcraft left an indelible mark on Maryland’s early court cases and became embedded in local folklore. Maryland never saw witch hunts on the scale of Salem, Massachusetts, but men and women alike were accused and convicted of witchcraft. Sources vary on the exact number of prosecutions, but only about 12 people were brought to trial over a hundred year period, compared to 19 executed in Salem in 1692 alone.

Text from Violl’s trial documents. Notice that she was “seduced by the devill wickedly & diabolically….” “Witchcraft, trials for, in Maryland. [manuscript] : Document, 1702/3 1712,” MS 2018, MdHS. (Click to enlarge.)

Accusations of witchcraft often arose from town disputes. These cases typically unfolded in the same manner. An argument would erupt between neighbors, and shortly thereafter one of the begrudged would fall mysteriously ill or his or her chickens would be suspiciously killed one night. Such is the story of the last witch ever tried in Maryland—Virtue Violl of Talbot County. Violl found herself on trial in 1715 in Annapolis after a quarrel with a fellow spinster, Elinor Moore. Moore accused Violl of cursing her tongue, which rendered her unable to speak. The jury however was not convinced of her guilt and acquitted her of all charges. Falsely accused witches were not without recompense. They could sue for defamation of character, and a few were awarded damages, which was often a few hundred pounds of tobacco.

Moll Dyer Rock, not dated. (not part of MdHS collection)

While few witches met their untimely end in Maryland, local folklore is rife with legends of evil sorceresses and superstitious antidotes for bewitchments. Glass bottles containing sharp objects, such as pins, and urine were buried under the entrance of a home to prevent a witch from entering the property or cursing its inhabitants. These so-called witch bottles have been unearthed in archaeological digs across the state. The urine “was the most important ingredient in witch bottles, as it is the agent with which the spell is turned back upon the witch.”(4) They were also buried upside down to reverse the black magic. Another trick to keep witches at bay was to place a broomstick across the threshold of a home’s entrance. A witch supposedly could not exit the dwelling without counting the broom’s bristles, thus revealing his or her identity.

Many tales of witches have surfaced over the years. Each county seems to have its own wicked woman who tortured the innocent townspeople and met a gruesome death for it. The legend of Moll Dyer out of Leonardtown in St. Mary’s County has endured the centuries. The details of Dyer’s story have changed and been embellished over time, but all accounts agree that in February of 1697 she was chased from her home by torch-bearing townsfolk. She fled into the woods where she froze to death after cursing the town. Dyer died kneeling upon a rock, which still bears the imprint of her hands and knees and can be viewed in front of Leondardtown’s circuit courthouse.

The dreaded book on display at MdHS. “The Blair Witch Cult,” blairwitch.com

No story about witchcraft in Maryland would be complete without mentioning the Blair Witch. The Blair Witch, Elly Kedward, terrorized the town of Blair, now Burkittsville, during the late 1700’s and was executed for her crimes. The following year, her accusers as well as many of the town’s children disappeared without explanation, and as a result the town was abandoned. Other weird happenings continue to plague the area and are attributed to the restless spirit of Kedward. The frightening occurrences culminated with the disappearance of three student filmmakers who visited the town to investigate the haunting. The footage found from their exploit was released as the film, The Blair Witch Project.

The legend of Kedward and the associated murders was, of course, pure fabrication. The Blair Witch Project holds a special place in our hearts here at the library, because of a connection, albeit false, to our collection. The film claimed that The Blair Witch Cult, a book published in 1809 which recounted the tale of the town doomed by Kedward’s curse, was held at MdHS and even featured in a exhibit. The movie’s website points out that the book was returned to private hands before the film was released but that didn’t stop curious moviegoers from inquiring about the dreaded book. Our wonderful reference librarian, Francis O’Neill,  fielded phone calls about the fictitious tome from all over the country and even from as far away as Belarus for many years after the movie came out. Each time, he would kindly and dutifully explain that book was entirely made up for the movie and never resided in our library. The movie itself is now a part of our growing Maryland-related film collection, along the films of John Waters and other local filmmakers. But please for Mr. O’Neill’s sanity, please don’t call about the Blair Witch! (Lara Westwood)

 Sources and Further Reading:

(1):Alison Games, Witchcraft in Early North America (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010) 133.

(2): William H. Cooke, “The Maryland Witch Trials.”

(3): Francis Neal Parke, “Witchcraft in Maryland,” Maryland Historical Magazine 31 (1936):283.

(4):Rebecca Morehouse, “Witch Bottle.”

“Witchcraft, trials for, in Maryland. [manuscript] : Document, 1702/3 1712,”  MS 2018, MdHS.

THEN: Flag seamstresses circa 1964. PP5 Women making replica of Star-Spangled Banner for New York World’s Fair, Box 2, MdHS.

NOW: Flag seamstresses circa today. Star-Spangled Banner Project, July 2013.

For the past few weeks, the MdHS campus has been teaming with dedicated volunteers working diligently on the Star-Spangled Banner Project. The project seeks to recreate Mary Pickersgill’s efforts to sew the 30 x 42 foot flag for Fort McHenry in a mere six weeks–all by hand. The replica will be flown at Fort McHenry during the Defenders Day celebration before visiting various locations around the state.

Little did we in the library realize that a similar endeavor was undertaken 50 years ago. In February 1964, over 100 stitchers and seamstresses began work making a replica flag to be displayed at the Maryland Pavilion of the 1964 World’s Fair in New York.  The exposition was scheduled to run April through October in 1964 and ’65, respectively. This flag project, overseen by the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House Association, was plagued with difficulties and soon became a PR nightmare. First, it was discovered that the Maryland Pavilion at the fair had no room for such a large banner. Officials worried that there might be no place large enough to display it. The commission appealed to the United States Pavilion at the fair who, after learning of the embarrassing publicity, agreed to take it without knowing whether its space could accommodate the flag either. The Maryland seamstresses began to doubt their flag would ever make the trip to New York.

But, Maryland officials truly wanted to fly their own flag at their own pavilion. The decision was made to erect a 75-foot pole in front of their pavilion and move the flag indoors—folded and encased—in the event of bad weather. A June 6 piece in The Baltimore Sun explained how the commission decided to decline the federal bail out “with appreciation.” The following day, which happened to be Flag Day and Maryland Day the the fair, Governor Tawes dedicated the replica at a brief ceremony. The ’64 flag currently resides at the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House at 844 East Pratt Street.

The Hutzer Photograph Collection, as with many of our collections, is chock full of such strange or incongruent, but delightful, discoveries. We expected to find pictures of the Hutzler family, the department store’s many locations, window and product displays—of which there are many. We did not expect to find this little time warp. But it’s not completely surprising that Hutzler’s would be involved in this type of project given their history of fabric and textile offerings. We must admit we can’t quite connect Hutzler’s with the project, so any information would much appreciated.

What’s stranger still is that we made this find at this moment in time. We’re happy to announce that the 2013 Star-Spangled Banner Project has run far more smoothly and seamlessly than its predecessor, so far. The project completed it Kickstarter campaign yesterday, raising over $10,000 in four weeks. Underbelly congratulates the 2013 stitchers and everyone involved.

THEN: These ladies didn’t know from Kickstarter. PP5 Replica of Star-Spangled Banner for New York World’s Fair, M.E. Warren Photograpy, ca. 1964, MdHS.

Now: Placing the stars. Star-Spangled Banner Project, July 2013.

*The Hutzler Photograph Collection is currently being reprocessed. The finding aid currently online, created in 2000, reflects only a small portion of the collection. Please check back in the coming months for a more accurate inventory list.

Sources

The Baltimore Sun, February 18, 1964: 6; April 30, 1964: 48; and June 6, 1964: 13.

Robert Kniesche at work.
Baltimore Colts vs Detroit Lions, October 2, 1961, Associated Press, PP79.2376, MdHS.(reference photo – copyright owned by the Associated Press)

When longtime Baltimore Sun photographer Robert Kniesche died in 1976, a colleague praised him as “one of the best cameramen The Baltimore Sun ever knew.”(1) Although far more obscure than his famous contemporary at The Sun, Aubrey Bodine, Kniesche left behind a body of photographic work that stands among the best produced by a Marylander photographer.

Born in Baltimore in 1906, Kniesche recognized his calling early on, and he left Baltimore Polytechnic Institute without graduating to pursue a career as a photographer. In the mid 1920s, The Baltimore Sun hired Kniesche on as a news photographer, his first stint with the newspaper. Kniesche joined the staff a few years after Bodine, who at the time was a commercial photographer for the paper.

Kniesche and Bodine became fast friends and often traveled around Baltimore together on picture-taking excursions. Together, they snapped photographs of many of the same subjects that would bring both of them acclaim later in their careers: images of the city at night, the harbor, and Baltimore industry. They were also drinking buddies. The pair, joined by Raleigh Carroll, a Sun reporter and Bodine’s housemate at the time, and another Sun photographer Leigh Sanders, lived “high and well on their $40 and $50-a-week salaries”(2) In the prohibition years of the 1920s, they frequented the various speakeasies in the area around Park Avenue where Bodine lived. Every year they would attend the annual Bal des Arts, a wild, costume themed party held by Charcoal Club, Baltimore’s historic art club established in 1885. According to one Bodine biographer, “a day or two before the ball they would get a supply of gin from the busy bootleggers. Bodine and Kniesche carried their gin and juice in two suitcases. They would meet in the basement of the Charcoal Club on Preston street to apply their makeup and start ‘to get a package on,’ an expression in those days for getting drunk.”(3) Over the course of their long careers, the two often found themselves in friendly competition in local and national photograph competitions.

Kniesche left The Baltimore Sun for a brief period in the late 1920s to work for the Chicago Tribune. He returned though in 1930, and aside from four years spent in the U.S. Navy during World War II as a pilot and flying instructor, where he attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander, Kniesche remained with the Baltimore paper for the next 40 years. In 1947 Kniesche organized the photographic department of the Sun owned WMAR-TV, the first television station in Maryland, and shot the first local films shown on the station. When he retired in 1971, he had been the chief of photography for The Sun’s morning, evening, and Sunday staffs for over two decades.

In 1957, the Press Photographer’s Association of Baltimore awarded Kniesche “Best in Show” for this photograph of the Ruxton train station. It was his second win in a row. The organization praised Kniesche in it’s annual publication: “Bob has always been known for his excellent aerial pictures but we’ll guarantee he rates tops in making Pictorial pictures as well.”
“Ruxton Station” (Whistle Stop, U.S.A.), 1957, Robert Kniesche, pp79.1466, z24-00611, MdHS.

As a photojournalist for Maryland’s leading newspaper, Kniesche documented virtually everything newsworthy, from presidential inaugurations, National Football League games, and aerial shows, to the opening of the oyster dredging season and city architecture. One of his early assignments after returning to Baltimore from Chicago in 1930 was to photograph the aftermath of Maryland’s first lynching since 1911.  On December 4, 1931, Matthew Williams, an African-American man accused of murdering his white employer, was lynched on the front lawn of the Salisbury courthouse on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Kniesche was with a group of reporters and photographers sent by The Sun to cover the event. In his memoirs, H.L. Mencken, Kniesche’s co-worker at the newspaper, wrote that, “all the reporters who were sent to Salisbury from the home office were threatened with violence and one of the photographers, Robert F. Kniesche, was saved from rough handling, and maybe even murder, only by escaping in an airship.”(4) Kniesche would go on to photograph the famed journalist on many occasions over the following decades.

Like Bodine, Kniesche was an artist and master craftsman. One reviewer noted that he seemed “to have made a fetish of focus, [delighting] in knife-edge precision.”(5) Both photographers had an affinity for certain subject matter and many photos that Kniesche took could be easily be mistaken for Bodine’s and vice versa: duck hunters silhouetted against an early morning sky; blast furnaces spewing out flames at Bethlehem steel; oyster tongers on the Chesapeake. Kniesche was particularly renowned for his aerial photographs and photographic essays. One award winning series of his photographs that accompanied a 1949 series of Sun articles entitled “Maryland’s Shame the Worst Story the Sunpapers ever told” helped expose the deplorable conditions then rampant in Maryland’s state mental health facilities to the general public.

Kniesche was also very fond of animals and images of baboons, tigers, monkeys, and especially house cats, can be found throughout the collection of his photographs at the Maryland Historical Society. In his obituary, The Sun noted that Kniesche’s images of animals were executed “with an often sensitive and humorous approach to their expressions, habits postures and activities.”(6) He often posed his subjects in amusing positions accompanied by a humorous caption.

Kittens…in jars.
Kittens in Jars, undated, Robert Kniesche, PP79(unprocessed), MdHS.

His photographs won many awards and were exhibited both nationally and abroad as far away as Helsinki, Finland. His work was shown in cultural institutions throughout Maryland, including the Peale Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Kniesche rarely sold any of his prints, preferring to give them away to friends

The Maryland Historical Society has over 7,000 negatives and prints that Kniesche took over the course of his career. Most of these are part of  PP79, the Robert Kniesche Photograph Collection. At this point, 5,000 of the film and glass plate negatives are available to the public. The remaining 2,000 prints  are currently being processed and should be available by the fall of 2013.(Damon Talbot)

Click on the slideshow below to see more of Robert Kniesche’s photographs.

Packed house at Memorial Stadium for the 1958 All-Star Game.

All star game, Memorial Stadium, July 8, 1958, Robert Kniesche, PP79.1314, MdHS.

Kniesche took a number of photographs of “the Block,” the stretch of Baltimore Street which has served as the city’s adult entertainment center for over a century, documenting the various strip clubs, burlesque shows, penny arcades, and tattoo parlors.

Tattoo parlor on the Block, undated, Robert Kniesche, PP567.2, MdHS.

Musical entertainment on the Block.

Band in a club on the Block, undated, Robert Kniesche, PP79.567.3, MdHS.

The Crown Cork and Seal Company was founded in 1892 by William Painter soon after he patented the ‘crown cork,’ the first bottle cap. Located on the corner of Eastern Ave and Kresson Street in Canton, the company was producing half the world’s supply of bottle caps by the 1930s. Kniesche captured this image of a fire that began when two storage sheds containing 3000 bales of raw cork ignited.

Fire at Crown Cork and Seal, Baltimore, November 8, 1930, Robert Kniesche, PP79.17, MdHS

“Water Ballet on Ann Street” - Kniesche won 1st Honor award in the Peale Museum’s 19th Annual Photo show for this 1960 photograph.

“Water Ballet on Ann Street,” Robert Kniesche, 1960, MC4028, MdHS.

Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard in 1940.

Bethlehem shipbuilding, Sparrows Point, April 7, 1940, Robert Kniesche, PP79.324, MdHS.

In May of 1956 Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus’ last outdoor show in Baltimore under canvas tent was held at Herring Run Park. The show featured such performers as Glenn Pulley, the “Thin Man,” who weighed 62 pounds; Ella Mills, the 586-pound "Fat Lady" from Wisconsin; Harry Doll, a 30-inch, 38-pound 44-year-old who was known as the "World's Smallest Man.", a “Human Corkscrew,” and of course, clowns.

Clown, Barnum & Bailey Circus, last outdoor show in Baltimore, May 1956, Robert Kniesche, PP79.390.1, MdHS.

"Night Brakeman," 1957.

Brakeman, 1957, Robert Kniesche, PP79.1186, MdHS.

Alongside his pictorial and journalistic work, Kniesche produced a large number of abstract images, often marked by high contrast, such as this 1970 shot of a ship’s gangway taken through a fish-eye lens.

Fisheye on ship gangway, April 13, 1970, Robert Kniesche, PP79.1398, MdHS

Kniesche titled this image of an unusual piggyback ride, "Don't you hit him."

"Don't You Hit Him," undated, Robert Kniesche, PP79.2419, MdHS.

H. L. Mencken having his bust done.

H.L. Mencken, undated, Robert Kniesche, PP79-1828, Negative#32, MdHS.

Like his fellow Baltimore Sun photographer Aubrey Bodine, one of Kniesche’s favorite photographic subjects was the sea, and he produced some of his most picturesque work when he turned his camera to the water. One admirer described a Kniesche photograph of log canoes on the Chesapeake as “one of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen – and much more beautiful than anything in the Louvre in Paris.”

Oyster Boats, undated, Robert Kniesche, PP79.2583, MdHS.

Footnotes:

(1) “Kniesche, Sun Photographer, obituary,” The Baltimore Sun, July 10, 1976.

(2) Williams, Harold A., Bodine: A Legend in His Time (Baltimore: Bodine & Associates, Inc., 1971) p. 29.

(3) Ibid., p. 28.

(4) Mencken, H.L., edited by Fred Hobson, Vincent Fitzpatrick, Bradford Jacobs, Thirty-five Years of Newspaper Work: a memoir (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press., 1994) p. 212.

(5) Johnson, Lincoln F., “Weekend by day: Kniesche photo exhibit at historical society,” The Baltimore Sun, June 30, 1978.

(6) “Kniesche, Sun Photographer, obituary,” The Baltimore Sun, July 10, 1976

Sources and Further Reading:

An American Tragedy, Underbelly

Charcoal Club Records, MS 1792

Crown History

Crown Cork and Seal Photograph Collection, PP33

Darkroom – Robert Kniesche: A Life Devoted to Baltimore and Photography

Johnson, Lincoln F., “Weekend by day: Kniesche photo exhibit at historical society,” The Baltimore Sun, June 30, 1978.

“Kniesche, Sun Photographer, obituary,” The Baltimore Sun, July 10, 1976.

Matt Williams, Archives of Maryland (Biographical Series)

Mencken, H.L., edited by Fred Hobson, Vincent Fitzpatrick, Bradford Jacobs, Thirty-five Years of Newspaper Work: a memoir (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press., 1994)

Rasmussen, Fred, “Remember when circus shows took place under canvas Finale: the last time the big top was raised was in Baltimore was May 22, 1956 in Herring Run Park,” The Baltimore Sun, March 22, 1998.

Robert Kniesche Photograph Collection, PP79

Schoberlein, Robert W., “Maryland’s Shame”: Photojournalism and Mental Health Reform, 1935-1949,” Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 98, Spring 2003.

Williams, Harold A., Bodine: A Legend in His Time (Baltimore: Bodine & Associates, Inc., 1971)

One of Maryland’s most famous ice cream brands: Hendlers Creamery. Moses Advertising: Hendlers sign, Hughes Studio, 1955, PP30-225F-55, MdHS.

July in Maryland can be truly miserable. The temperature sizzles at over 100 degrees for days on end. Humidity weighs down the most ardent of breezes. Luckily for the sweaty masses, July is also National Ice Cream Month. So in honor of the vaunted occasion, here’s the scoop on the history of the frosty treat in Maryland.

Ice cream has always been a favorite summertime treat for Marylanders. Ice cream companies grew out of dairy businesses located across the state, and the country’s first ice cream factory was opened in Baltimore in 1851 by Jacob Fussell.

Fussell peddled dairy products in the city, but often found himself left with a surplus of cream.  Instead of letting the leftovers go to waste, he decided to make ice cream with it. He began to sell ice cream for 25 cents per quart, and Baltimoreans gobbled up his decadent yet inexpensive product. Ever the enterprising businessman, Fussell’s success inspired him to produce the sweet stuff on a commercial level. He founded the very first production facility at the intersection of Hillen and Exeter Streets in Baltimore and Maryland’s ice cream industry was born.*

One of Maryland’s most famous ice cream scions, Lionel Manuel Hendler, seized upon a similar opportunity when he founded Hendler Creamery Company in Baltimore. Hendler learned the dairy business from his father Isaac by working at the family-owned dairy store in East Baltimore, where he saw firsthand the popularity of ice cream. In 1905, at the young age of twenty, he decided to go into the ice cream business on his own and teamed with Louis Miller. The partners made the ice cream in the basement of Miller’s home and sold it to local stores. The product was a hit, and they soon moved production out of Miller’s house to a larger facility on Lloyd Street in East Baltimore. The business relationship between Hendler and Miller eventually fizzled, and in 1907, Hendler bought out Miller.

Hendler Creamery Co. building at 1100 East Baltimore Street. American Sugar Refinery, Domino Sugar tank truck, Hughes Company, 1955, PP30-144-51, MdHS.

Under Hendler’s tutelage, the ice cream company quickly outgrew the production capability at the Lloyd Street plant. In 1912, Hendler purchased a grand brick building at 1100 East Baltimore Street to serve as the company’s new headquarters. The Richardsonian Romanesque building, built in 1891, located near Baltimore’s Shot Tower, had many other lives before being converted into an ice cream factory. It had first been home to a powerhouse for the Baltimore City Passenger Railway Company, the oldest streetcar system in the city. When the streetcar company joined with the United Railways and Electric Company, it continued to operate as a powerhouse and trouble station.

The streetcar company eventually sold the building to the American Amusement Company, when the cable and pulley system that operated the streetcars was replaced with electricity. Architect Jackson C. Gott transformed the building into a lavish theater that could seat 2,000 people. The Convention Hall, as it came to be called, ran a variety of entertainments, including exhibitions, vaudeville acts, and theatrical performances. Carl Hagenbeck’s circus performed for a period of time at the Hall, spurring his rival Frank Bostock to bring his own show to the city as well.

The building changed hands several times over the next few years, though it remained a theater, operating under the names the Bijou Theatre, Baltimore Theatre, and the Princess Theatre. Vaudeville, operas, theatrical plays, silent films were all played and performed at the location. Its years as a Yiddish language theater, appealing to East Baltimore’s significant and growing Jewish population, proved the most successful, but even that was short lived. Only the Hendlers Creamery would stay in the building for more than just a few years. In fact, it served as an ice cream production plant until the 1980’s.

From its new headquarters on Baltimore Street, Hendlers ice cream grew into an iconic brand. Horse-drawn wagons delivered the frosty confection for many years until they were replaced by a fleet of trucks. After the switch, some of the horses remained loyal employees. Hendler’s son, Albert, recalled the return of one such horse, “We had sold some of our horses to Western Maryland Dairy. One afternoon in comes one of them pulling a wagon loaded with milk. It had come home. (1)”

Ice cream truck drawn by horse–Hendler Creamery, Hughes Company, 1941, PP30-54226, MdHS

Refrigerated delivery trucks further expanded the business. The trucks could be spotted crisscrossing the state, delivering ice cream to more and more stores. They were emblazoned with the slogans: “The Velvet Kind” and “Take home a brick.” The angelic, little kewpie became the symbol of the brand, and advertisements featured the chubby cherub enjoying a bowl of Hendler’s ice cream. The ice cream was virtually everywhere in Maryland, as it was distributed to over 400 stores at the company’s peak, which kept the production lines humming. The factory ran six days a week with vanilla ice cream being made almost everyday.

Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry were production mainstays, but the creamery dabbled in more exotic flavors as well. Hutzler’s department store sold several varieties, including ginger and peppermint. For the Southern Hotel, Hendlers supplied a tomato sorbet which was served as a side dish rather than dessert. The eggnog ice cream produced each year at Christmastime, which  Hendler made with real rum, was a major hit. The factory also cranked out other holiday-themed products, such as an Independence Day treat made with vanilla, strawberry, and blueberry ice creams and a Mother’s Day cake topped with a silk screen of James McNeill Whistler’s portrait of his mother.

With all of the inventive flavors being churned out at his company, one would have expected Hendler himself to be a great lover of ice cream. But, this wasn’t the case, as his son Albert recounted: “As a child I remember Dad bringing home each day a couple of pints of ice cream of different flavors….Since he wasn’t a big ice cream eater, we’d do the tasting for him, and if a flavor wasn’t up to par we’d let him know in no uncertain terms. Someone was sure to catch hell the next day.(2)”

Hendler’s true passion lay in innovating and improving sanitation in the food production industry. The factory at Baltimore Street was fully automated. He invented and patented several machines that limited human contact with the product and developed one of the first air conditioning systems to keep the building cool. The delivery horses and their stable brought unwanted pests into the factory which forced him to close off the building. This caused the plant to be too hot in the summer, so he devised a system that cooled the place by pushing air through ducts, thus creating rudimentary air conditioning. He also used only tuberculosis-free or pasteurized milk from the earliest days of the business to prevent the passage of bovine tuberculosis through his product, which at the time was an uncommon practice.

Hendler discovered that success has a price when he and his family became a target of criminals. Several extortion attempts were made to scare Hendler out of some of his fortune. On one occasion he received a note which threatened, “We will not try to kidnap you or your son; a few bullets from a passing automobile into your or your son’s car is one way of paying our unsatisfactory business debts. It will also serve as an example in our remaining business matters with our clients in Baltimore and Washington….(3)”

Most of these attempts were thwarted, but in 1932 three men succeeded in kidnapping young Albert. The kidnappers planned to extort $30,000 for his safe return. Hyman Goldfinger, Samuel Max Lipsizt, and Harry Surasky snatched Albert after a school dance at Johns Hopkins University, where he was a junior. Albert was blindfolded and driven to a house in Anne Arundel County, where the kidnappers questioned him about the possibility of securing a ransom for his release. Albert’s noncommittal answers gave the men cause for worry that they would not get any money after all. They began to argue about their next move. Goldfinger suggested that they kill the young man, convinced that their identities had been compromised, but the others didn’t want to escalate the situation. Surasky recalled the event at his trial: “[Goldfinger] insisted at first on choking him and then he took out his gun and wanted to blow his brains out. He already had his gun right near Hendler’s temple.”(4) They eventually decided to free Albert, so they dropped him off at the Hanover Street bridge. They took all the money he had in his pockets, but then reconsidered and gave him back a dollar for cab fare to get home.

Albert returned home shaken but relatively unharmed. He decided against reporting the incident to the police or his family. The kidnappers could have stopped there, but they decided to push their luck once again. Lipstiz sent a note demanding that Hendler send $7,500 to an address in New York City. Hendler agreed to do so but could not wire the cash, because of the Good Friday holiday. A second letter arrived with same stipulation, but the police were already on the case. He was apprehended, which led to arrest of his cohorts, all of which were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences.

These events did not derail the Hendler family or the ice cream business. The Hendler Creamery Company continued to grow, and in 1929, the Borden Company purchased the company. It continued to operate under the Hendlers Creamery name until the late 1960′s. Hendlers, and later Borden’s, ice cream became household staples, known for its thick and creamy texture and wide variety of flavors.

*Some suggest that Fussell actually founded the first ice cream factory in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania. This does not appear to be true, because the York County town did not yet exist when Fussell began his business. He purchased milk from the local dairy farmers, which he had shipped to Baltimore via railroad. Fussell did own some land in the area, but he never built on the site.

Sources and Further Reading:

(1), (2): Albert Hendler and Amalie Ascher, “Ice Cream Days: Even Before Albert Hendler Started Working at the Plant, He Got a Taste of the Business at Home,” Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1981.

(3): Frederick M. Rasmussen, “Exhibit recalls Hendler kidnapping of 1933: Hopkins student and son of Baltimore creamery owner was freed unharmed after a day,” Baltimore Sun, June 20, 2013.

(4): “Suraksy Found Guilty in Hendler Plot,” Baltimore Sun, May 23, 1933.

Mary Bellis, “The History of Streetcars-Cable Cars.”

Edward N. Dodge, ed., “Hendler, L. Manuel,” in Encyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. XXXIII (New York: The American Historical Company, Inc., 1965), 403-405.

Charles Glatfelter, “Seven Valleys ice cream claims melt under scrutiny,” York Daily Record/York Sunday News, August 17, 2012.

Robert K. Headley, Motion Picture Exhibition in Baltimore (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2006), 247-248.

Brennan Jensen, “I Scream, You Scream,” City Paper, April 29, 1998.

Jewish Museum of Maryland, Hendler’s Creamery Collection, MS 147.

Maryland Historical Trust, Hendler Creamery.

Gilbert Sandler, “Hendler’s: The Man, the Legend, the Ice Cream,” in Jewish Baltimore (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 87-89.

Since the film discovery came late, we didn’t have enough time to digitize it and add it to the previous post. This week it gets our full attention. The chilling footage captures the destruction and offers a view of the city most living Marylanders have never seen.

We initially suspected the footage was somehow affiliated with Stark Films, a bygone local production house. The addition of title cards to the homemade footage suggested a professional touch and, since MdHS holds a number of the company’s reels, it seemed a reasonable guess. We have since learned from newly found provenance records that the film was shot by S. Watts Smyth of St. Louis, Missouri, who may have had editing experience or at least access to a production house.

According to Bunny Connell, daughter of S. Watts Smyth, the family “spent each summer in Ocean City from 1926-’33.” Until 1933, the family made the more than 900-mile journey by train from St. Louis. However that August, they made the 15-hour drive in their new Cadillac LaSalle. This was the Smyth’s last summer spent in Ocean City before moving to Wyoming. Connell entrusted the film to MdHS in 1987.

This clip has been edited down to two minutes from the 11-minute original. To view the complete film or for more information about using or licensing it, please contact  specialcollections@mdhs.org

If you’d like to read some background about the storm check out the references in our previous post or read the following article from the Baltimore Sun. You can also read about a similarly destructive storm that hit Ocean City in 1962 that had it’s own historic repercussions for the vacation town.  Enjoy! (Eben Dennis and Joe Tropea)

These people were having more fun than you are right now.
(click to enlarge)
Beach Scene, Ocean City, Md, Robert Kniesche, not dated, PP79.754, MdHS

How does the small underbelly editorial team cope with colleagues traveling to the beach, mountains, and parts unknown while we’re stuck here running the blog and tending to our many other duties? We travel vicariously through photographs and post cards! While real beach-goers are dealing with staggering crowds, the oppressive sun, crawling traffic, and marching through a sea of sticky popsicle wrappers on the way to the boardwalk, we’ll stay here in the air-conditioned library and take a little trip back in time…we really need a vacation.

For this week’s post we’ve decided to write the definitive history of Maryland’s favorite vacation spot, Ocean City. Not really…but please enjoy the slideshow of postcards below and a brief tale of the storm that altered the course of the city that, during the summer months, becomes Maryland’s second most populated town. (For those interested in Ocean City’s rich history,  please visit here or here. For further research, readers can check out Ocean City (volumes 1 and 2) by Nan Devincent-Hayes and John E. Jacob or City on the Sand by Mary Corddry.)

Greetings from Ocean City, Md, 1943, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

The Atlantic Hotel. The first Atlantic Hotel opened on July 4, 1875, regarded as the founding day of Ocean City. Located on Wicomico Street, it was destroyed by fire in 1925. The hotel was rebuilt in 1927 and still stands today. The New Atlantic Hotel, ca 1940s, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Board Walk showing Atlantic Hotel and Pier, Ocean City, Md., ca 1940s, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Boardwalk and Beach and Cottage Line, Ocean City, Md, ca 1940s, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Ocean City Pier and Boardwalk, Ocean City, Md, ca 1940s, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Bathing hour on the beach, Ocean City, Md, ca 1940s, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Originally called the Ocean City Life-Saving Station, the United States Coast Guard Station was built in 1891 by the U.S. Treasury Department for “the saving of vessels in distress and lives in peril upon the water.” In 1915 the U.S. Coast Guard took over the operations of the building until moving to a new facility in 1964. The building was relocated to its present location at 813 South Boardwalk in 1978 and converted to a museum. United States Coast Guard Station, ca 1940s, Ocean City, MD. Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Air View of Ocean City, Md., looking north from Inlet, 1947, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Greetings from Ocean City, Md, 1947, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

Greetings from Ocean City, Maryland, 1944, Postcard Collection, MdHS.

One of the defining events in the history of the self-proclaimed “White Marlin Capital of the World” is the great storm of 1933, captured by A. Aubrey Bodine in the images below. On August 22 after four days of saturating rain, heavy winds picked up, battering the boardwalk, pummeling the city with large waves, and destroying the town’s railroad bridge and fishing camps. The storm’s greatest and most lasting impact was a 50-foot wide, 8-foot deep  inlet, that was carved through the barrier island by a  continuous four day ebb tide, flowing from the bay out to the ocean. Three entire streets were submerged at the south end of the town.

Ironically, the resulting scar connecting the ocean to the sheltered bay was exactly what turned Ocean City into the ideal port for fisherman and caused it to flourish as a vacation spot. In fact, for several years prior to the storm, Senator Millard E. Tydings had been fighting to get funding for a man-made canal five miles south of Ocean City. His hope was that the bay side would provide a calm harbor for up to 1,000 fishing boats which could easily access the Atlantic, and from there the markets of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Though the storm caused approximately $850,000 of damage, the main discussion in the immediate aftermath revolved around appropriations for constructing seawalls to make the canal permanent. Within two years $781,000 was spent on concrete to stabilize the inlet. Not only did these seawalls keep sand from the channel, but they diverted it towards the beaches, greatly expanding their size and making the boardwalk even with ground level.

This inlet made Ocean City the state’s only Atlantic port. The resulting commercial and sport fishing boom greatly shaped the character of the Ocean City we know today, as vacationers content with more modest accommodations flocked in large numbers to crab and fish, and dozens of hotels and restaurants sprang up to meet their needs. (Eben Dennis and Damon Talbot)

Ocean City, MD. View of the damage after the hurricane of 1933, A. Aubrey Bodine, 1933, MC8230-A, MdHS.

Ocean City, MD. View of the damage after the hurricane of 1933, A Aubrey Bodine, 1933, MC8230-E, MdHS.

Ocean City, Md. View of the damage after the hurricane of 1933, A. Aubrey Bodine, 1933, MC8230-C, MdHS.

Ocean City, Md. View of the damage after the hurricane of 1933, A. Aubrey Bodine, 1933, MC8230-D, MdHS.

Sources and further reading:

Corddry, Mary, City on the Sand: Ocean City Maryland and the People Who Built It (Centerville, MD: Tidewater, 1991)

DeVincent-Hayes, Nan & Jacob, John E., Ocean City- Volumes 1 and 2  (Charleston: Arcadia, 1999)

Ocean City Life-Saving Museum