underbelly
Maryland History
Double, Double Toil and Trouble: Witchcraft in Maryland
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 [...]
A Stitch in Time: Replicating the Star-Spangled Banner 1964-2013
Recently while processing the Hutzler Photograph Collection,* the library staff came across a familiar scene: patriotic stitchers sewing an immense American flag. For the past few weeks, the MdHS campus has been teaming with dedicated volunteers working diligently on the Star-Spangled Banner Project. The project seeks to recreate Mary Pickersgill’s efforts to sew the 30 [...]
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 [...]
King Alcohol: Temperance and the 4th of July
The anti-alcohol crusade of the nineteenth century lives on as one of the most notable and far reaching reforms of the era. The temperance movement brought about Prohibition, and its shadow still affects liquor laws today. The proponents of temperance, as the shapers of a new nation, sought to perpetuate the Founding Fathers’ lofty ideals, [...]
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 [...]
Sunday Best: a volunteer reflects on photo crowdsourcing
Last week the Maryland Historical Society opened a satellite photograph exhibit, “Paul Henderson: Maryland’s Civil Rights Era in Photographs,” at Baltimore’s City Hall. The show marks our latest efforts to identify the people and locations in the Henderson Photograph Collection. Earlier this year, MdHS hosted an event to kickstart this process. The following is a reflection [...]
Everyday People: Paul Henderson Collection Goes to City Hall
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks here in the Imaging Services Department at MdHS. Through some wild confluence of ambition and scheduling, I agreed to curate and deliver a 48-piece photography exhibition the very week of the debut of my new documentary, HIT & STAY, at the Maryland Film Festival. I can’t really [...]
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 [...]
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