underbelly
Baltimore History
The Photographs of Robert Kniesche
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 [...]
The Velvet Kind: The Sweet Story of Hendlers Creamery
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 [...]
Lost City: Baltimore Town
Sitting down in a field or on a city bench, pulling out a sketch pad, and drawing a building or cityscape is today a lost practice, largely left to artists. In an era when you can access a digital map of the entire world, and then zoom in on practically any building on earth, a [...]
Baltimore’s Clothes Horse: David Abercrombie
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 [...]
The Quasi-War (1798-1801): Diplomatic Treasures from a Long Forgotten Dispute
MdHS cataloger Kristi Thomas recently pulled together all of the institution’s holdings on the French Spoliation Claims, a little-known group of pamphlets and documents on a long-forgotten episode during which thousands of citizens sought compensation from the federal government for ships and cargoes captured and destroyed during the Quasi-War with France, 1797–1801. This international drama offers [...]
Lost City: The Regent Theater
The theaters, night clubs, and restaurants that once made Pennsylvania Avenue Baltimore’s center for African-American entertainment are today a receding memory. In the segregated Baltimore of the early to mid twentieth century, the Avenue was where African-Americans went to see the latest films, have a drink at one of the many nightclubs and bars, and hear [...]
The Gypsy Queen of Baltimore*
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 [...]
© 2013 underbelly. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by Wordpress. Designed by 