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/

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.

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.

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

David T. Abercrombie, undated, MdHS, MS 1.

Abercrombie & Fitch – the name brings up images of young, scantily clad men and women staring out from advertisements with smoldering eyes and pouty lips. But the store known today for its teen apparel as well as its controversial ideas about how to dress children was originally a much different enterprise, offering clothing and gear for the outdoor set a little over a century ago. One half of the dynamic style duo of founders Abercrombie and Fitch is a son of Baltimore and the innovator behind the company once known as the “Greatest Sporting Goods Store in the World.”

The future clothing magnate, David Thomas Abercrombie, was born in Baltimore in 1867 to John and Elizabeth Abercrombie. John Morrison Abercrombie immigrated to Baltimore as a boy in 1847 from Falkirk, Scotland. Prior to David’s birth, he attended Baltimore City College and eventually established himself as a newsman, working a managerial position at the Baltimore branch of the American News Company. Elizabeth Sarah Daniel, the daughter of a Scottish doctor practicing in Ottawa, met her future husband through family friends. The Abercrombies had a lot of children. First born, David was eventually joined by six siblings: John, Harry, Maud, Mary, Robert, and Ronald.

All but one of the Abercrombie sons followed in their father’s footsteps and attended City College (Robert attended Baltimore Polytechnic Institute). While at the school David developed a keen interest in both engineering and exploration.  After graduating in 1885 he enrolled at the Maryland Institute, School for Art and Design – now known as the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) – as an engineering student. While MICA might today appear an odd choice for a prospective engineer, the college was originally established as a trade school, and in 1885 still offered courses in fields like mechanical sciences and chemistry. According to school historian Douglas Frost, Abercrombie attended the college during its transition period when the curriculum began to shift from one offering a variety of mechanical, engineering, and artistic courses to a program increasingly focused on the visual arts. (1)

After graduating, Abercrombie left Baltimore to pursue his dreams of exploration. He worked as a surveyor and civil engineer for several railroad companies including the Baltimore & Ohio. Abercrombie mapped and surveyed previously undocumented regions of the Appalachians ranging from North Carolina to Kentucky. To withstand the rugged terrain and ever-changing weather of the Appalachians, he fashioned for himself and his surveying crew personalized camping gear using textiles of his own design. In an Abercrombie family history written in 1940, brother Ronald noted that,

“[David’s] inventive genius enabled him to make a practical solution to most every problem of the prospector, huntsman, camper and woodsman. He was one of the best woodsmen, in its broadest sense, of his time. When sheet aluminum was first made, he was the first to utilize it in manufacturing of camp utensils, nesting kits and other useful articles for the camper. This application was soon followed in general use in home kitchen ware.”(2)

David T. Abercrombie, undated, MdHS, MS 1.

Unfortunately, David developed farsightedness, cutting his field career short at the age of 25. However, Abercrombie’s ingenuity and innate talent for invention would eventually lead to greater successes in the clothing industry. After being forced into premature retirement from his chosen profession in 1892, Abercrombie’s fellow surveyors suggested he pursue a career as an inventor, manufacturing his creations for other outdoorsmen. He soon joined his uncle at the National Waterproof Fiber Company in New York City. Over the next six years Abercrombie worked for a series of companies manufacturing new products until 1898, when he opened his very own retail store on South Street in Manhattan. The David T. Abercrombie Company sold premium sporting products including fishing and camping gear, rifles, and specialized clothing. David’s own designs were often featured in the products.

The store was a hit among the Manhattan elite and gained enough success to warrant a move from South Street to the trendier shopping district on Park Avenue. His many clients included explorer Robert Peary and President Theodore Roosevelt  (Abercrombie also clothed the future president and his Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War). One particularly loyal customer was a lawyer by the name of Ezra Fitch. His interest in the store went beyond mere patronage, and in 1900 he left his practice to join Abercrombie as a business partner. In 1904, the store officially adopted the name Abercrombie & Fitch Company.

The relationship between the co-owners quickly soured however, and within a few years Abercrombie and Fitch were battling over the future direction of their enterprise. Abercrombie wanted the store to remain true to its origins as an outdoor outfitter, but Fitch’s ideas for a more generalized retail store, catering to a larger clientele, won out. In 1907, a mere three years after becoming official partners, David Abercrombie “disposed of all his interest” in Abercrombie & Fitch.*

Abercrombie Family Coat of Arms, MdHS, MS 1.

While A&F would go on to become a global brand, Abercrombie’s career in the clothing industry was far from over. With the help of his youngest brother Robert, David refashioned his old company, the David T. Abercrombie Company, into a textile manufacturer. Over the next decade, his success as a clothing outfitter only grew. As the United States prepared to enter World War I, Abercrombie’s reputation was such that the U.S. Army made him a Major of the Quarter Master Reserves, entrusting him with the management of the New York Packing Depot where his civilian employees “turned out an average of six thousand uniform-size packages a day.” His pioneering packing and folding processes, involving a stretchable, waterproof paper of his own invention, afforded the armed forces a new abundance of space. According to an article in the July, 1919 issue of Popular Science Monthly, in only a year’s time, Abercrombie’s innovations saved the government 85 million dollars. When he was discharged at the end of the war the government promoted him to the rank of Lt. Colonel. He continued to work in the manufacturing business until his death in 1931.

While David left Baltimore as a young man to find his fortune in New York, many of his siblings remained in Baltimore. Harry pursued a career in law, serving as a lawyer in the Legislature of Maryland and eventually becoming a judge on the bench of the People’s Court. (3) John became a physician and coroner. Ronald also went on to a successful career as a physician following his collegiate years at Johns Hopkins University where he was not only a gymnast, but also “the Best College Center at Lacrosse ever produced in this country,” which probably involves a bit of hyperbole as this quote was pulled from Ronald’s autobiography.(4) He later sat on several Hopkins boards and served as Director of Physical Education.** Ronald left a mixed legacy at Johns Hopkins as he later admitted in his autobiography that as the JHU “Director of Physical Education, [he was the] instigator or founder of the ‘Lily White’ practice in college athletics.”(5) As Hopkins did not admit its first African-American undergraduate student, Frederick Scott, until 1945, its delay in breaking down the segregation barrier may have had something to do with the influence of a certain alumnus. (6) Abercrombie & Fitch would later deal with its own charges of racism –  in 2005 the company brokered a $40 million dollar settlement in a class action suit charging the company with racial profiling in hiring practices at its retail stores.

Today, the Abercrombie and Fitch brand has become as far removed from the original vision of founder David Abercrombie as can be imagined. The company once renowned for its top of the line sports gear now markets exclusively to fashion trendy teeny boppers. In a 2006 interview A&F CEO Mike Jeffries laid out exactly who the store was in business for:

“…we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that…In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”(7)

Ironically, the idea of enlarging the store’s market was what destroyed the partnership of David Abercrombie and Ezra Fitch a little over a century ago. But who knows, maybe Abercrombie would have approved the “good-looking” image if it promoted the fitness necessary for outdoor adventures. (Ben Koshland)

Years ago when I attended Baltimore City College, someone listed off some famous graduates of City and told me that Abercrombie of Abercrombie & Fitch was a fellow knight. I always thought this was cool but just another fun fact or statistic I could use when crushing some silly engineer in the so called debate of the greatest high school in all the land. However, while going through some of the Johns Hopkins school ephemera at MdHS, I stumbled upon a program for a JHU athletic event from 1894. Alongside the traditional gymnastics, the program listed some pretty exciting events like class tug of war, roman ladders, and chicken fighting (not to be confused with cockfighting); all things I think should be reintroduced into collegiate athletics. But while I was glancing over this program I noticed a name kept popping up, Abercrombie. He was listed as a participant in parallel bars, rings, vaulting horse, horizontal bar, and the roman ladder; not too shabby. I assumed this had to be Mr. Abercrombie and decided to do a little digging within the archives. It turns out this was not the Abercrombie of the clothing conglomerate; it was…his brother Ronald.

What a difference a century makes…
(left) Abercrombie & Fitch Catalog, 1913; (right) Abercrombie & Fitch Advertisement, accessed 2013.
(Images not from MdHS collection)

*Abercrombie didn’t cut all ties with his former partner – the David T. Abercrombie Company manufactured textiles for Abercrombie & Fitch for many years following his departure from the company.

** Ronald was also a contributing member to Maryland Historical Society – in 1943 he published an article in the MdHS Magazine on the Sweet Air Estate. This estate owned by the Carroll family is now a part of GunpowderFallsState Park. The Sweet Air loop begins in Sweet Air, a few miles east of Cockeysville and runs all the way to the Pennsylvania boarder.

Footnotes:

(1) Frost, Douglas L. MICA: Making History, Making Art. Baltimore: Maryland Institute College of Art, 2010). 

(2) Abercrombie, Ronald. The Abercrombie’s of Baltimore (Baltimore: Private Publisher,  1940), p 20.

(3) Ibid., p.27

(4) Ibid., p. 29

(5) Ibid., p. 29

(6) Wynhe, Dr. Barbara. “1945.” The History of African Americans @ JohnsHopkinsUniversity. May 9, 2013.

(7) Sole, Elise, “New Petition Urges Abercrombie & Fitch to Change Its Anti-Plus-Size Stance,” Yahoo! Shine, May 9, 2013.

Sources and Further Reading:

Abercrombie, Ronald. The Abercrombie’s of Baltimore. Baltimore: Private Publisher,  1940.

McBride, Dwight A. Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch. New York: NYU Press, 2005.

Business Insider, ABERCROMBIE: How A Hunting And Fishing Store Became A Sex-Infused Teenybop Legend, Accessed April 25, 2013.

Connors, Michael, “Save Money By Bailing Your Clothes, Apply This Lesson Learned in the War,” Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 95, No.1, July, 1919.

Sole, Elise, “New Petition Urges Abercrombie & Fitch to Change Its Anti-Plus-Size Stance,” Yahoo! Shine, May 9, 2013.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/04/woman-protesting-push-up-bras-for-young-girls-at-abercrombie-fitch-cited-by-mall-security.html

http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/abercrombie-fitch-lawsuits-sued-racial-racist/10/26/2009/id/25015

The Baltimore City Life Museums (BCLM) was a private non-profit organization created to preserve the history of life in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1931 and was integral in documenting and exhibiting aspects of Baltimore’s material culture. By focusing on immigrant communities and the less wealthy, the museum captured the day to day life of a more representative citizenry. Within the BCLM, there were eight historic sites: the Morton K. Blaustein City Life Exhibition Center, the Carroll Mansion, the 1840 House, Brewers’ Park, the Center for Urban Archeology, the Shot Tower, the Peale Museum, and the H.L. Mencken House. All of these institution’s holdings, totaling approximately 200,000 items,  were transferred to the MdHS upon the closing of BCLM in 1997.

The moving image materials from BCLM tend to deal with ordinary Baltimore life events, while the rest of the moving image collection at MdHS provides a more general perspective of Maryland history. Altogether the collection amounts to over 400 items.

MdHS has been able to preserve several titles from the collection through grants awarded by  the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF),  including:

1. Baltimore: City of Charm and Tradition (1939), promotional travelogue narrated by Lowell Thomas.
2. Bayshore Round-Up (1920), the Bayshore Amusement Park in its heyday, from the collection of the Baltimore Gas Light Company.
3. Behind the Scenes at Hutzler’s (1938), behind-the-scenes film made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the beloved Baltimore department store.
4. Bermuda to Baltimore (1937), a short film celebrating the inaugural flight of PanAm’s Bermuda Clipper seaplane.
5. Druid Hill Park Zoo (1927), home movies taken at one of the oldest zoos in America.
6. Fair of the Iron Horse (1927), home movie of the centenary exposition for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the nation’s first common carrier railroad.
7. The Picturesque Susquehanna (1928), celebration of the construction of the Conowingo Dam and Hydroelectric Plant, documenting the river from the Safe Harbor Electrical Plant to the Chesapeake Bay.
8. Play Ball with the Orioles (1957), promotional film made by a local brewing company to highlight Baltimore’s major league baseball team—Richard and Pat Nixon appear in an opening day parade.
9. Raising the Big Flag, VE Day (1945), Baltimore’s celebration of the end of World War II in Europe.

A still from “Bayshore Round-Up,” (1920).

A still from “Play Ball with the Orioles,” (1957).

The rest of the collection consists of several different series. Though some of the films are commercially distributed and not particularly rare, many of the moving images and sounds are quite unique and in dire need of preservation.

In particular, there are several Umatic tapes from 1979 documenting the construction of Cold Spring Newtown. The age of this tape alone calls for swift preservation: most video and audiotapes only have a lifespan of 30 years (please see link). Unfortunately, this content is on video and not film, excluding them from the previously mentioned NFPF film-only grants.

There are a few educational films and programs in the collection that were created for the purpose of instruction or learning, relating to Maryland history or schools in Maryland. News programming also makes up a small portion of the collection from local stations WMAR, Cable 44, WBAL-TV, WJZ-TV and Fox 45. One very interesting item in this series is a kinescope titled Desegregation: Baltimore Report hosted by Walter Sondheim, which shows footage of people protesting on the street on September 30, 1956. This program also is excluded from the NFPF grants because it was made for television.

There are a huge amount of oral histories at MdHS, numbering over 1300, and it would really only be fair to have an entire blog entry dedicated to them. Many of the preserved films are part of series documenting Maryland landmarks and special events. Some that have yet to be preserved are videos from the 1980s of Hutzler Department Store, and the 1973 City Fair at the Inner Harbor.

A still from “Behind the Scenes at Hutzler’s,” (1938).

Perhaps the most unique series in the collection are two home movies taken by the Siebert family in 1927 which were recently preserved through the NFPF grants. There are also many films made by the Boone Family from the 1920s. From provenance records it can be assumed that these are from the family of  James R.H. and Muriel Wurts-Dundas Boone, who owned Oak Hill on Bellona Road in Ruxton. It’s rumored that the film was left at MdHS by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra after the house had been used as a BSO decorators’ show house. There are also several home movies of Italian-Americans in Baltimore. All of the home movies are one-of-a-kind documents of not just one family’s past, but of special events and the cultural heritage of all of Baltimore.

Lastly there are many unidentified films and videos that the MdHS is slowly working to identify of footage or edited programs whose series are unidentifiable from a succinct visual physical inspection. It takes a lot of money, expertise and staff time to even figure out what content is on these moving images and recorded sound formats, let alone reformatting them to other formats for preservation. (Siobhan Hagan)

Siobhan Hagan is currently the Audiovisual Preservation Specialist at UCLA Library. She is a native Marylander and has volunteered for MdHS since 2008.

Jessie Key Habersham, circa 1910, MdHS, MS 1906.

In 1904, Baltimore was buzzing with scandal – Jessie Key Habersham had disappeared again. This was not the first time that Habersham, the daughter of a Baltimore canned goods broker, had gone missing. The young debutante had once escaped to Europe for several months with family friends, before her father convinced her to return home. But she had never given her family too much cause for worry, always returning home eventually. This time, however, Habersham left behind no trace, and her family was left to worry and wonder for two long years.

Finally, a letter arrived at her childhood home addressed to her father, Alexander Wylly Habersham. The Baltimore belle informed her father that she had run away with a clan of Gypsies. She explained that she had grown weary of society life and longed for the excitement and adventure that her former life of debutante balls and fine mansions could not provide her.(1)

Habersham did not simply join the band of Gypsies, she became “Queen” and matriarch when King Jorgas Michele, the clan’s chief, took her as his wife.(2)  She informed her father that she had fallen in love, and would now spend her life traveling the United States as part of King Jorgas’ caravan of nomads. In a letter to her father, she wrote that, “Where lies most peace in choice between/ A queen of fashion or a Gypsy queen.” Habersham spent over six years wandering the states with her new family.

She had become enamored with the Gypsies’ nomadic lifestyle after a chance encounter with a caravan one day after school. The capricious youth and some friends from her private school in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. decided to go for a stroll when they came upon a nearby Gypsy encampment. The Gypsy women invited them into the camp and dazzled the girls with tales of their travels. Habersham made many more visits to the camp, befriending its inhabitants, until her teachers banned her from returning, worrying about the effect of the Gypsies’ stories on her impressionable mind. They were also concerned with possibility of kidnapping, which the Gypsies often found themselves accused of. The intervention, however, came too late. The group moved on, but Habersham would not soon forget the time spent in their company.

Her fate to enter a life of wandering was sealed on her return voyage from Europe, a year or so prior to her departure. According to an April 5, 1910 Baltimore Sun article, Habersham met a “Hindu,” on the ship who taught her fortune-telling techniques and “interested her in the occult.”

When she joined King Jorgas’s clan, she used these new premonitory skills on the road, predicting the future for paying customers as the clan traveled across the United States. In her role as Queen, she also helped her husband organize the fairs hosted by the group in each new city, promoted the events, and ensured that all of the proper permits were secured. Among the Gypsies, the young woman stood out – in a letter to her father she recounted that “The white-faced society women [came] to her to have their fortunes told and wonder at her pale skin and beauty.”

Habersham seemed to find the life she was hoping for among the Gypsies. She wrote in her diary that there “is more love and truth beneath the canvas of a Romany tent than in any mansion. There is no sham and no hypocrisy here. I love my husband and he loves me. If our very tents are taken from us, we could live under God’s generous skies and we would be happy.” Her words paint a romantic picture of the Romany people’s world. However, life in Maryland for the wandering people was far from easy. They often faced discrimination and persecution when their travels brought them back to the state.

The first accounts of Gypsies in America date back as far as 1580. Before the boom in the African slave trade, they were sent along with other criminals to work the tobacco plantations in the Maryland and Virginia colonies. In lieu of execution, local sheriffs in England, Scotland, and Ireland would round up those convicted of offenses – ranging from vagrancy and petty theft to murder – and send them across the ocean. Queen Elizabeth I passed several anti-vagrancy acts in the late 1500s to quell a rising tide of wanderers, migrants, and beggars. Many Gypsies and other nomads, such as migrant workers, found themselves in violation of these laws and were subsequently impressed into labor. Several records show men and women, identified as Gypsies, embarking at such ports as Greenock, Scotland, and London and Middlesex, England.

Bampfylde Moore Carew, from “The life, voyages and adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew: commonly called, King of the beggars,” 1745, MdHS.

Notorious English mischief-maker, Bampfylde-Moore Carew, was one such Gypsy criminal sent to Maryland for his misdeeds. The King of the Gypsies, as he became known, was exiled in the mid 1700s for the misdemeanor of frightening a Justice’s horse while dressed as a beggar. Carew had been initiated into the Gypsy society as a schoolboy after encountering a group of them at a tavern. He and some friends had taken shelter in the tavern to avoid the wrath of a local headmaster after chasing down a prized deer owned by a Colonel who resided nearby. The deer had ended up dying of exhaustion and several fields were destroyed during the chase. But instead of facing the music, the young men ended up partying all night with their new Gypsy friends, where “flowing cups of October, cyder, &c. went chearfully round, and merry songs and country dances crowned the jovial banquet….” The more booze the boys imbibed, the more enamored they became with their new companions – “in short, so great an air of freedom, mirth, and pleasure, appeared in the faces and gestures of the society, that our youngsters from that time conceived a sudden inclination to enlist into their company….”

Carew rose quickly through the ranks of the motley crew. His crooked prowess scammed many out of money and he gained admiration and infamy for his wily ways. He stole; he begged; he tricked; and, the Gypsies elected him king. His crimes eventually caught up with him though, and after a trial in 1739-40, he was banished to Maryland.

In the young colony, Carew remained true to his troublemaking ways. He reportedly twice escaped sale to Maryland plantation holders. On one occasion, Daniel Dulany, a prominent Maryland lawyer, intended to purchase Carew to work as a gardener, but found him lacking the necessary abilities. Instead of returning to the convict ship, Carew caused a ruckus and escaped into the forest. He traveled north with the help of a tribe of Native Americans, swam the Delaware River, and weaseled his way onto a ship returning to England. On board, he faked a case of small pox to avoid being arrested once again. He pricked his face and hands with a knife and rubbed salt and gunpowder into the wounds to affect the blisters caused by small pox. Though his time in Maryland was short, he apparently enjoyed his stay in the colony, stating that Maryland “not only affords everything which preserves and confirms Health, but also all Things that are charming.”(3)

The veracity of Carew’s tale remains a mystery. While he certainly existed, his legend most likely grew larger than his actual misdeeds, and the “Gypsies” he led may have simply been a group of vagrants, beggars, and thieves. The incorrect terminology reflected views of the Gypsy culture that are still pervasive today – to many, the Gypsies were and continue to be tricksters and low-lifes living off of ill-gotten gains.

Gypsy encampment, circa 1890, MdHS, Hopkins Album.

Newspapers from the late 1800s to the mid-1950s are filled with wild accounts of Gypsies stealing the life savings of nice, old ladies and kidnapping women and children to be slaves. Headlines such as “6 Fighting Gypsies Seized,” “Gypsy Women Snatch $255 from Banks,” and “Stolen by Gypsies” were commonplace. Locations of encampments were frequently publicized to warn people of the Gypsy presence in the area. Letters to the editor and op-ed pieces attested to the evil of the Gypsies. One such article, published by the Sun on February 26, 1931, claimed that “there are many things which make Gypsies undesirable neighbors. They are generally reported to not care much for soap and water. Also they have the reputation of not knowing as much as they should know of the difference between tuum and meum (thine and mine).”

When Jessie Habersham died in a Cincinnati hospital shortly after giving birth to a daughter named Lincka in 1910, similar wild stories arose about her disappearance and family life. The nation was once again enthralled by the Gypsy Queen’s unusual life. Rumors flew about the circumstances of her marriage to King Jorgas Michele. The Oswego Times, out of New York State, ran an article claiming that she had been sold to her husbandfor $900. Her adopted family had held her “under hypnotic influence” and she was “compelled to be the slave and wife” of the Gypsy King. This account appears to be pure fiction. A. W. Habersham told reporters that his departed daughter had gone with her husband out of love, pure and simple.

A Caravan Camp and Dancing Bears, New Market, circa 1890, MdHS, Hopkins Album.

Habersham is only the most famous of Maryland’s sizable Gypsy population. During the 20^th century, the highest concentration of Gypsies was in Baltimore, but encampments were reported across Maryland. Caravans settled under the Hanover Street Bridge or in the neighborhood of Cherry Hill. They also stationed themselves along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad tracks. In 1931, the city passed an ordinance directed at the Romany that required those camped within city limits to pay a fee of $1000 for each entrance. The Federation of Labor had proposed the measure to the City Council on behalf of the local coppersmiths, who claimed that the Gypsy smiths created unfair competition. This was most likely just an excuse to pass the ordinance. The state government had earlier enacted similar anti-Gypsy laws, but the city had no such rules. According to the state law, anyone caught in violation of the anti-Gypsy law not only had to pay a fine or face jail time, but surrender all of their property, including in some cases, that of others traveling with the offender. To encourage enforcement, the arresting sheriff was awarded ten dollars if the entrance fee was paid upon arrest. These laws were challenged as unconstitutional, but they remained on the books until 1976. Gypsies continue to face discrimination into the 21^st century. In 2009, a Gypsy fortuneteller, with help from the ACLU, successfully fought a Montgomery County law that prohibited making a profit from fortune telling.

Despite a history of persecution, Gypsy people continued to travel to Maryland – some even settled here permanently. They blended into the melting pot of nationalities in Baltimore City and spread across the state. In a 1978 interview, Mary Anna Halenski, a Polish immigrant to Baltimore, fondly recalled the diversity of her Fell’s Point neighborhood while growing up during the Great Depression. Among the tiny neighborhood alleys and narrow row-homes, Gypsies lived alongside African-Americans, immigrants from Germany, Poland, and Russia, and other groups. The Gypsies faded into the American landscape just as many other persecuted groups had before them. (Lara Westwood)

*Editor’s Note - In this post we adhere to the common historical usage of the terms Gypsy or Gypsies while acknowledging that the word can be considered pejorative or derogatory. There is no other term that we are aware of that adequately describes the number of different groups that have historically been referred to as “Gypsies.” The terms Roma and Romani, which today are often used in place of the term, describe only one of groups of people historically labeled as “Gypsies.”

Footnotes:

(1)Miss Habersham’s famous pedigree only added to the scandal – she was a relative to many eminent Marylanders, including Francis Scott Key, composer of the “The Star Spangled Banner,” and Roger Brooke Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1836 to 1864, through her paternal grandmother, Jessie Steele. Habersham’s grandfather, Alexander Wylly Habersham, opened a canned goods company in 1865 in Baltimore. He attended the NavalAcademy in Annapolis and rose to the rank of lieutenant before resigning in 1860. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Confederacy and was imprisoned at Fort McHenry for several months. Habersham’s father, also Alexander Wylly Habersham, followed in his father’s footsteps and worked as a canned goods broker.

(2)Several different spellings for the Gypsy King’s name were discovered while researching. Newspaper articles have him as Jorgas, Jorges, Georgas, among others, but Jorgas was used most commonly. Several articles used the last name Mitchell, but this also appears to be an error.

(3)From an account of Carew’s life, “The Life, Voyages, and Adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew,” compiled by Thomas Price.

Sources and Further Reading:

“As to Gypsies,” Baltimore Sun, February 26, 1931.

Callahan, Edward William. List of officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900; comprising a complete register of all present and former commissioned, warranted, and appointed officers of the United States Navy and of the Marine Corps, regula. New York: Haskell House, 1969. (REF V11.U7C2)

Carew, Bampfylde-Moore, and Thomas Price. The life, voyages and adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew, commonly called the King of the Beggars: being an impartial account of his life, from his leaving Tiverton School, at the age of fifteen, and entering into a society of gipsies, to his death … :. London: Printed for J. Barker ; 1785. (Rare E 162.L72)

Coldham, Peter. English convicts in colonial America 1617-1775. New Orleans: Polyanthos, 1974. (CS 61 .C63)

Dobson, David. Directory of Scots banished to the American plantations, 1650-1775. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1983. (E184.S3D6)

“Federation of Labor Goes on Record Against Gypsies,” Baltimore Sun, February 26, 1931.

“Gypsy Queen Dies in Childbirth,” Oswego Daily Times, November 14, 1910.

“Gypsies Win First Tilt in Council,” Baltimore Sun, February 25, 1931.

OH 8297.028, Halenski, Mary.

Judge, Arthur. Souvenir of the 7th annual convention of the National canners’ and allied associations, Baltimore, Feb’y 2 to 7, 1914, consisting of original articles and statistical data, illustrating the practical development of the various branches of the canning industry and showing the present magnitude of the business a history of the canning industry by its prominent men. Baltimore: The Canning Trade, 1914.

“Man Challenges Ban On Fortunetelling,” Washington Post, August 17, 2009.

“Md. Gypsy Laws Repeal Supported,” Washington Post, January 29, 1976.

“Mr. Habersham Explains,” Baltimore Sun, April 13, 1910.

“Society Girl a Gypsy,” Baltimore Sun, April 5, 1910.

“‘Queen’s’ Child Coming,” Baltimore Sun, November 15, 1910.

“What Will be the Fate of This Little ‘Transplanted’ Gypsy Princess?“ The Spokesman-Review, December 11, 1910.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/poverty_01.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/england/devon/article_1.shtml

http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring05/scots.cfm