Humanities Connection: Recent Episodes
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Natalie Elder read about a simple clothing accessory one day at her job in the Chesney Medical Archives for Johns Hopkins Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health. The Curator of Cultural Properties is still on a continuous quest to find it. What can items like these teach us about a person and an organization’s past? How can medical archives help piece together someone’s story? Elder tells us more.
Did you know that 21% of adults in Maryland have reported that they have a disability? John Owen is the Director of the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled. He tells us how blind and low-vision people access books and computers in the digital age.
For Black History Month in February, Charles H. Flowers High School in Prince George’s County hosted a show of its students’ art. Part of the process involved students with disabilities attending museums and interpreting art prior to creating their own. LeAnn Holden-Martin, a Special Education Teacher at the school, tells us more.
How can the humanities help teens process current-day issues and create a more equitable society? Staff at Wide Angle Youth Media have developed a curriculum called “Why Black Lives Matter: Discussing Race Through Film, Photography, and Design." The curriculum pairs youth media projects with instructional content. Dena Robinson –Wide Angle Youth Media’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Facilitator – tells us more. Maryland Humanities supported this programming with a grant.
How is storytelling a form of survival? R. Eric Thomas, Senior Staff Writer at Elle Magazine and Board Member at FreeState Justice, tells us more.
How can writing create help create a more inclusive world for autistic people? Writer Hannah Grieco is the mother of an autistic twelve-year-old son well as a former teacher. Her byline has appeared in The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and more. Hannah talks about how her son’s influence on her writing.
The Accokeek Foundation was founded to preserve the landscape along the Maryland shore of the Potomac River, the same view George Washington had more than 200 years ago. Laura Ford, the Foundation’s Executive Director, shares how this Prince George’s County organization has been shifting and widening its focus in recent years.
How are teenagers bringing history to life through theatre? Norah Worthington, Historical Partnership Director and Resident Costumer at Baltimore School for the Arts, tells us more.
"...the humanities—literature, history, archaeology, theology, philosophy, art history, and ethics—offer a lens through which to more deeply and clearly understand ourselves and the world around us." In a special Humanities Connection segment, Phoebe Stein offers a sort of love letter to championing the humanities.
How are high school students in Calvert County making documentary films to tell some of their region’s stories? Robyn Truslow, Public Relations Coordinator at Calvert Library, tells us more.
How have smartphones and our constant connectivity changed the way we travel- and the way we relate to one another through the places we visit? Towson University anthropology professors Samuel Collins and Matthew Durington tell us how their research led them to the new idea of “networked anthropology.”
How is one Eastern Shore region amplifying its own heroes this African American History Month? What are the connections between jazz and civil rights history? Cheryl Sidwell, Events and Development Manager at Wicomico Public Libraries, tells us more.
How can heritage be a tool for inclusion and acceptance rather than exclusion? Andrew Arvizu of Patapsco Heritage Greenway tells us more: Arvizu is the Heritage Coordinator at the Ellicott City organization.
For Black History Month, Charles H. Flowers High School in Prince George’s County hosts a show of its students’ art. Part of the process involved students with disabilities attending museums and interpreting art prior to creating their own. LeAnn Holden-Martin, a Special Education Teacher at the school, tells us more.
How can an institution shed light on the fact that its location was a place where enslaved people once worked? St. Mary’s College of Maryland will install a memorial to the enslaved peoples of Southern Maryland. Dr. Julia King, Professor of Anthropology at the college, tells us more about the history of enslaved people in St. Mary’s City and the college’s commemoration.
One arts organization is creating a choose-your-own-adventure performance to explore a library’s history. Ursula Marcum, Co-Artistic Director at Submersive Productions, tells us more.
Have you ever heard of a floating hospital? Did you know that The Army and Navy have sailed almost 60 hospital ships since the Civil War? Steven Hill, Exhibits Manager at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, talks about our nation’s history of hospital ships.
Montpelier Arts Center will celebrate Black History Month in February with a show called Chronicles of the African American Journey through Fiber Arts. Director Beth Crisman tells us more.
As the end of the year approaches, many of us consider donating to charities and nonprofits. Dr. Heather Miller-Reubens — Executive Director of the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies — tells us about Dorothy Day, a religious leader who offered a powerful meditation on giving.
Elizabeth Catlett received a Lifetime Achievement Award in contemporary sculpture from the International Sculpture Center in 2003. Decades earlier, Carnegie Institute of Technology revoked her admission when the school learned she was Black. Jackie Copeland, Executive Director of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, tells us more about the groundbreaking artist.
What led someone to charge an Anne Arundel County woman with witchcraft in the 1700s? Rissa Miller, a tour guide with Maryland History Tours, talks about the history of witchcraft in Maryland.
Did you know that 21% of adults in Maryland have reported that they have a disability? John Owen is the Director of the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled. He tells us how blind and low-vision people access books and computers in the digital age.
Kara Harris has spent eight years researching Maryland culinary history. She travels the state and sometimes the country to research cookbooks written more than 100 years ago. For years ago, she turned her hobby into a blog, Old Line Plate. Harris tells us more about what cookbooks can tell us about our state’s history.
How is one organization combining civic engagement, history, and the arts to ensure that the voices of Baltimore youth are heard? Sharayna Christmas, Executive Director of Muse 360 Arts, tells us more.
How is storytelling a form of survival? R. Eric Thomas, Senior Staff Writer at Elle Magazine and Board Member at FreeState Justice, tells us more.
As an eighth-grader last spring, Addie Skillman won first place in the junior individual performance category at Maryland History Day for her project “Loving v. Virginia: The Stepping Stone for Equality in America.” Addie then advanced to the National History Day contest in College Park where she won the top prize—the Gold Medal—for her junior individual performance. Currently a ninth-grader at Howard High, Addie tells us how her participation in the program changed her life.
How have Día de Los Muertos observances changed over the past 3,000 years? Yesenia Mejia, part of a group called Artesanas Mexicanas and Artesanas Mexicanas Coordinator at the Creative Alliance, tells us more and talks about the value she finds in observing the holiday today in Baltimore.
In the play Here We Are, Amelia Earhart wakes up in the underworld. Playwright Jen Diamond weaves intertwines her own imaginings with biographical information about the aviator. Interrobang Theatre Company produces the play: Artistic Director Katie Hileman tells us more.
The Smithsonian Institution makes a stop in Calvert County with H2O Today, now at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum. This Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition explores the beauty and essential nature of water and the diversity and challenges of our global water sources. Rachelle Green, Acting Director at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, tells us more.
What is “rememory?” How can exploring collective memory help people heal from traumatic history and offer hope? Durryle Brooks is the Executive Director at the Center for Black Equity – Baltimore. He tells us more.
We do want to add a Content Note for trauma and violence involving racism, homophobia, and transphobia in this segment.
How can we make the humanities more accessible to people with disabilities? Tammy Black of the Hearing and Speech Agency or HASA, tells us more.
In the digital age, what’s the value of connecting face-to-face while celebrating the humanities? Tara Hart, Co-Chair of the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society, tells us more.
How is Outward Bound using the humanities in its outdoor programming to enhance young people’s reflection, leadership skills, and more? Kelly Reynolds, Instructional Designer at Baltimore Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound, talks about the organization’s Character Curriculum.
In the 1800s, Enoch Pratt said Baltimore needed “...a free circulating public library, open to all citizens regardless of property or color.” How is the Enoch Pratt Free Library continuing Pratt’s legacy with renovations to the Central Library? Meghan McCorkell, the library’s Marketing & Communications Director, tells us more.
How can poetry and journalism help high school students rediscover their neighborhoods? Writers in Baltimore Schools developed a new program for students called “Neighborhoods, News: A Poetic Archiving of Baltimore.” Patrice Hutton, Executive Director at Writers in Baltimore Schools, tells us more.
How can a few dedicated volunteers help an organization, neighborhood, and city retain their collective memory? Caitlin Swaim, Curator at the Annapolis Maritime Museum & Park, tells us more.
What can we learn about a region from its farming history? Evergreen Heritage Center is creating an agricultural museum in a barn’s lower level stables. Janice Keene, the center’s Founder & Director, grew up on the farm at the center’s current location: she tells us more.
Natalie Elder read about a simple clothing accessory one day at her job in the Chesney Medical Archives for Johns Hopkins Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health. The Curator of Cultural Properties is still on a continuous quest to find it. What can items like these teach us about a person and an organization’s past? How can medical archives help piece together someone’s story? Elder tells us more.
How can quilting interpret history and document community identity? Next summer, The Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art at Salisbury University will host an exhibit featuring documentary quilts by Dr. Joan Gaither. The Maryland Heritage Award winner will also lead quilting workshops for Eastern Shore residents: the quilts made in these workshops will also be included in the exhibit. Jackson Medel, Curator and Folklorist at The Ward Museum, tells us more.
How can an institution shed light on the fact that its location was a place where enslaved people once worked? St. Mary’s College of Maryland will install a memorial to the enslaved peoples of Southern Maryland. The college will also host a public symposium called “From Invisibility to Remembrance: Commemorating Slavery in St. Mary’s City and Southern Maryland.” Dr. Julia King, Professor of Anthropology at the college, tells us more about the history of enslaved people in St. Mary’s City and the college’s commemoration
Baltimore’s Rahne Alexander is a writer as well as a musician and multimedia artist. She talks about the process of finding her voice on the page and writing Heretic to Housewife. This new essay collection won the 2019 OutWrite Chapbook Competition in Nonfiction and will be released in August.
Bethlehem Steel mill in Baltimore County’s Sparrow’s Point was once the largest in the world. After 123 years, the mill closed in 2012. A photography exhibit from J.M. Giordano, Shuttered: Images from the Fall of Bethlehem Steel, examines the impact of the mill’s decline and closure on his hometown of Baltimore. Giordano tells us more about the exhibit, the history, and his personal connection to Bethlehem Steel.
Did you know that Baltimore residents can explore over 50 buildings across the city with guided tours for free? Margaret De Arcangelis of Doors Open Baltimore and Shauntee Daniels of Baltimore National Heritage Area tell us more.
What does creativity look like? What inspires creative pursuits? Photographer Larry Marc Levine explores these questions with an exhibition entitled Creativity, with a capital WHY? now at Sandy Spring Museum.
As she read Unruly Bodies, an online magazine curated by bestselling author Roxane Gay, Aden Weisel thought of visual artists who addressed some of the themes as the magazine. Inspired by the magazine, Weisel – the Exhibitions Director and Gallery Curator at Stevenson University – then curated an exhibition with the same title. She tells us more.
Baltimore-based author Anthony Moll recently won the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction. In Out of Step: A Memoir, he describes his time as a working-class, self-described queer from Reno who served in the U.S. Army during “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Today, he reads an excerpt from his book, an essay entitled “Cedant Arma Togae.” Moll uses photographs to explore his history and the people who mattered to him throughout military service. In this essay, he discusses the first close friend he lost in the War in Iraq.
How is one organization amplifying the presence, contributions, struggles, and experiences of LGBTQ individuals throughout Maryland’s history? Preservation Maryland’s Meagan Baco talks about the Maryland LGBTQ History Collaborative Initiative and their personal relationship with the project.
The Smithsonian Institution makes a stop in Calvert County with H2O Today, now at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum. This Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition explores the beauty and essential nature of water and the diversity and challenges of our global water sources. Rachelle Green, Acting Director at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, tells us more.
Did you know that third grade is a pivotal year for students learning to read? Reading proficiently by the end of that grade can be a marker for successes through a student’s college years. Angelique Jessup, Program Director at the Baltimore Campaign for Grade Level Reading, tells us more about reading development.
Over 200 years after Jane Austen’s death, Kate Hamill published a new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. How is one theatre using the play and community programming to explore the construction of gender? Suzanne Beal, Director of Pride and Prejudice at Frederick's Maryland Ensemble Theatre, tells us more.
How can language used to write about autism make an impact on public discourse? The Writer’s Center in Bethesda explores this and more in “#OwnVoices: Autism Through a Literary Lens,” a one-day-only symposium. The event focuses on characters and writers with autism and features workshops for autistic individuals and parents of autistic children, as well as a panel. Panelist and writer Hannah Grieco is the mother of an eleven-year-old son with autism as well as a former teacher. Her byline has appeared in The Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, and more. Today, Hannah talks about how her son’s influence on her writing and how writing can help create a more inclusive world for those with autism.
Did you know that since 2013, a student-produced literary magazine has featured feature the poetry, fiction, essays, and artwork of 450 students in Baltimore City Public Schools? CHARM: Voices of Baltimore is a literary organization as well as a magazine. Whitney Birenbaum, Humanities teacher at Midtown Academy, and Executive Director of CHARM, tells us more about the organization. After she speaks, ninth grader Marian Tibrey — a CHARM participant — shares her original poem.
Did you know more than 100,000 creeks, streams, and rivers flow toward the Chesapeake Bay across parts of six states? Historical Society of Baltimore County’s James G. Keffer talks about the history and stories of water in the County. The Historical Society is the first of six Maryland sites to host Water/Ways, a traveling Smithsonian Institution exhibition brought to smaller communities across the state by Maryland Humanities. Local Water/Ways host sites add their own local exhibits to complement the Smithsonian’s exhibition.
“What Were You Wearing? Weaving a New Narrative” is an installation revealing pervasive cultural attitudes about assault while working to change those attitudes. Molly Cohen, a theatre artist and graduate of the Department of Theatre Arts at Towson University, talks about the installation. This project is funded by a grant from Maryland Humanities to Towson University. We would like to reiterate that the subject of the segment is a humanities project about sexual assault.
How is one partnership encouraging open and honest dialogue about faith and race? Drs. Felipe Filomeno & Tania Lizarazo – professors at University of Maryland, Baltimore County – talk about “Honest Conversations: Faith Community Dialogues on Immigration and Race.” The partnership between UMBC and the Latino Racial Justice Circle is funded with a grant from Maryland Humanities.
How is Outward Bound using the humanities in its outdoor programming to enhance young people’s reflection, leadership skills, and more? Kelly Reynolds, Instructional Designer at Baltimore Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound, talks about the organization’s Character Curriculum.
How is a local organization providing an opportunity for young people to share their stories through film, and to publicly speak about their own work? Jessica Baroody-Saada, Events Manager at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Foundation Parkway Theatre/Maryland Film Festival, talks about the Baltimore Student Film Showcase.
Salisbury Mayor Jacob Day will soon announce the city’s first-ever Poet Laureate to coincide with the annual Salisbury Poetry Week, April 1 -7. Tara A. Elliott, Salisbury Poetry Week’s founder, tells us more about this year’s week of programming. Elliott is also an English and Language Arts Teacher at Salisbury Middle School. She received the Christine D. Sarbanes Teacher of the Year Award, presented by Maryland Humanities, in 2018. Launched in 2017, Salisbury Poetry Week is supported in part by a Maryland Humanities grant.
Did you know that an article of clothing can be interpreted as a historical document? What can we learn about figures from Maryland’s past by looking at what they wore? Allison Tolman, Chief Registrar and Associate Curator of the Fashion Archives at the Maryland Historical Society, tells us more.
How are two women pushing past the gatekeeping that sometimes occurs within cultural institutions? Amanda Figueroa and Ravon Ruffin started Brown Girls Museum Blog, a platform that aims to promote the visibility of people of color, especially women, in the museum field and in academia.
Did you know that journalist, suffragist and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells was also one of the founders of the NAACP? Harford Community College will host screenings of IDA B. WELLS: A PASSION FOR JUSTICE, which includes selections of Wells’ writing read by Toni Morrison.
The screenings complement figures of Wells and Mary Church, on loan from the The National Great Blacks In Wax Museum in Baltimore. Sharoll Love, Student Diversity Specialist in Harford Community College Office of Student Life, tells us more.
How can the humanities help teens process current-day issues and create a more equitable society? Staff at Wide Angle Youth Media have developed a curriculum called “Why Black Lives Matter: Discussing Race Through Film, Photography, and Design." The curriculum pairs youth media projects with instructional content. Dena Robinson –Wide Angle Youth Media’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Facilitator – tells us more. Maryland Humanities has provided support to this programming with a grant.
How can immigration experiences shape behavior, storytelling, and humanities scholarship? Dr. Mary Anne Akers, Board Member at Katipunan Filipino-American Association of Maryland, shares her perspective. Maryland Humanities recently awarded the organization a grant for their project entitled “Locating Filipino Americans in Maryland: Our Immigrant Journeys.” Akers is Dean and Professor at Morgan State University’s School of Architecture and Planning.
Did you know before serving on the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall worked on the B&O Railroad? A new exhibit at the B&O Railroad Museum explores the railroad’s African American history. Kris Hoellen, the museum’s executive director, tells us more.
Just last year, Johns Hopkins University Press published a history of our state: the second edition of Maryland: A History, which covers 1634 to 2015. Today, co-author Sue Chapelle brings to life Maryland in the 1800s as she shares a chapter of the book, amended for radio. During this time, national, state, and local governments became more involved in social and economic problems than they were previously. Some alliances were undermined, new ones were formed, and Maryland saw the introduction of political machines.
How can schools and museums team up to give students agency and deepen their engagement with history? The Sandy Spring Museum in Montgomery County and the Barnesville School of Arts and Sciences recently collaborated for a student exhibit entitled, “Honoring Our Past, Celebrating the Future.” The museum’s Marketing Director, Lauren Peirce, and the school’s art teacher, Sarah Eargle, tell us more.
Published in LA Weekly and Ms. Magazine, Baltimore native Jordannah Elizabeth returned home to teach after the Baltimore uprising. She talks about the impact of her mother instilling a love for reading at a young age, her love for the humanities, and their value for a young person in Baltimore
This Saturday, January 19th, marks the 210th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe. How is one organization celebrating the occasion and honoring the impact Poe continues to have on the arts, humanities, and pop culture? Enrica Jang, Director of The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum/Poe Baltimore, tells us more.
Between 1910 and 1970, six million African Americans left the South in order to escape racial violence there. Dubbed “The Great Migration,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson reminds us that these people fled not only horrific physical violence but “human rights abuses and exclusion from voting and citizenship.” An exhibit from The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission examines The Great Migration in Prince George’s County, as well as migration and immigration that followed there. Dr. Dennis Doster, Manager of the Commission’s Black History Program, tells us more about the exhibit, called Moving Out, Moving In, Moving Up.
This year, Baltimore Magazine named In the Stacks one of eleven local organizations moving classical music forward. The series produces classical music concerts in the George Peabody Library, with programming inspired by the library’s contents and history. Horn player Sam Bessen, Founder and Artistic Director of In the Stacks, tells us more.
What is the importance of the humanities to the future of our nation? Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at Buena Vista University, Dr. Jim Salvucci, offers this reflection on how the humanities bring meaning to our lives.
How can poetry strengthen community and offer new perspectives? Dr. Elizabeth Jones, Associate Professor of English at Wor-Wic Community College in Salisbury, offers up some concrete examples. She tells us about Echoes from the Margins, a speaker series celebrating the 30th year of the college’s literary magazine, Echoes & Visions.
Many people debate over how to categorize economics. It is science? Social science? Social studies? If it’s separated from the humanities, economist James D. Campbell asks, “don’t we neglect to show the next generation how to see and hear the humanistic as it relates to the organization of our economies, our world?” Amanda Cuocci of Stansberry Research talks about gender, confidence and financial literacy.
Redlining is the practice of denying a credit-worthy applicant a loan for housing in a certain neighborhood, even though the applicant may otherwise be eligible for the loan. Redlining on a racial basis has been held by the courts to be an illegal practice. What are the roots of redlining and what effects does it still have today? How can we begin to think about a solution to redlining’s impact? Howard County Library System hosts Undesign the Redline, an interactive exhibit, now through December 31. Christie Lassen, Director of Communications and Partnerships at Howard County Library System, tells us more about the history of redlining.
How can we honor significant Maryland women who may not show up in our history books? The Maryland Women’s Heritage Center offers one example with its Unsung Heroines exhibit. The Center is an outgrowth of the Maryland Women’s History Project that began in 1980 as a collaborative venture between the Maryland Commission for Women and the Maryland State Department of Education. Executive Director Diana Bailey tells us more about the exhibit.
Kara Harris has spent eight years researching Maryland culinary history. She travels the state and sometimes the country to research cookbooks written more than a hundred years ago. Four years ago, she turned her hobby into a blog, Old Line Plate. Harris tells us more about what cookbooks can tell us about our state’s history.
How can we trace cultural history through dance? What can dance tell us about belonging to a culture or nation? Breai Mason-Campbell from Guardian Baltimore, a dance cooperative that performs, preserves and passes on African American folk traditions, tells us more.
Early this year, Dr. Kami Fletcher began researching and writing the history of slavery, indentured servants, and tenant farmers at Mount Harmon Plantation at World's End in Cecil County. When she began the project, only one enslaved person in the history of this plantation was known. Through her research, she has found 135. The Associate Professor of African American history at Delaware State University tells us more about her research.
Did you know that Maryland has its own journal and press dedicated to older writers? The mission of Passager, in residence at the University of Baltimore, is to empower the imagination in older people by giving a forum for creative expression. Kendra Kopelke, founding co-Editor of Passager, tells us more about the twenty-eight-year-old journal and press, and upcoming events.
This past spring, Josh Thomas and Caitlin Carbone wrote and produced a hip-hop adaptation of Shakespeare’s KING LEAR. The duo, who goes by “fools and madmen,” took their production to 6 Baltimore City Public Schools and performed for over 250 students. They also produced the show for the general public in Baltimore. Their next show, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, premieres in May and will travel to 10 schools. Thomas and Carbone tell us more about their work.
Baltimore author and activist Kevin Shird chronicles his 2017 meeting with Nelson Malden, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s barber and confidante, in The Colored Waiting Room. The book, published in March, gives a historical context to more recent activist movements. Shird reads some excerpts from his book
The subject of famous quotes spoken by figures ranging from Ernest Hemingway to Homer Simpson, beer continues to play a major role in America’s social and cultural fabric. Did you know that beer’s central role in our culture began even before the United States achieved independence? Graduate student Emma Schrantz writes about the intersections between the craft brewing industry, historic preservation, and community development. She tells us more about beer’s history in America.
What do we learn when we look at our region’s criminal justice history? The Reverend Dr. E. Scott Winnette, Senior Pastor at Rockville United Church, talks about the important history of the Frederick City Jail.
Every year, Maryland Humanities presents One Maryland One Book, a statewide book club accompanied by an author tour. Libraries across the state host programming related to the book selection. Thomas Vose, Director of the Ruth Enlow Library of Garrett County, tells us about the One Maryland One Book programming at the Garrett County library.
How can we experience the emotional impact of history and pass on stories of heroes for younger generations? Ryan Kaiser is a Social Studies teacher at The Mt. Washington School, whose class participates in Maryland Humanities’ Maryland History Day. Through a program called Understanding Sacrifice, he traveled to the Philippines to learn more about World War II and read the eulogy of a fallen soldier.
Last year, Emily Wilson became the first woman to translate Homer’s Odyssey into English. Public high school students in Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, and Baltimore County will learn about Ancient Greek history and society and create their own poetry, history projects, and theatre pieces in response to this translation. Amy Bernstein, the Project Director, tells us more about the project, a Maryland Humanities grantee.
How can planning with a focus on automobile transportation impact residents of a city? Graham Coreil-Allen, a public artist in Baltimore, dives into the history of Druid Hill Park’s infrastructure and the effect on African-American and Jewish residents. He talks about the lasting effects of the planning in the neighborhood, the need for physical access to the park for people who do not drive, and his efforts to increase that access.
Published in LA Weekly and Ms. Magazine, Baltimore native Jordannah Elizabeth returned home to teach after the Baltimore uprising. She talks about the impact of her mother instilling a love for reading at a young age, her love for the humanities, and their value for a young person in Baltimore City.
How can we trace cultural history through dance? What can dance tell us about belonging to a culture or nation? Breai Mason-Campbell from Guardian Baltimore, a dance cooperative that performs, preserves and passes on African American folk traditions, tells us more.
We know archaeology connects us to the past, but how does it reveal the humanity of our ancestors? Jane Cox, Chief of Historic Preservation for Anne Arundel County and Board Member for the Lost Towns Project, an Anne Arundel County-based nonprofit and recent Maryland Humanities grantee, tells us more.
Did you know that bluegrass has origins outside of the United States? Pat Nordstrom from Mountainside Baroque, an early music collective based in Western Maryland and Maryland Humanities grantee, tells us more.
2016 National Medal of Arts honoree, Jack Whitten, is best known for his paintings. This may be because his sculptures have never been visible to the public until now. The sculptures — inspired by the materials and traditions of Africa and ancient Greece — are now on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art in the exhibition Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture. Kevin Tervala, the museum’s Associate Curator of African Art, tells us more about the artist and the exhibition.
How can ordinary Marylanders bring about change in their region? “We The People: How Civic Engagement Has Shaped Laurel,” the current exhibit at the Laurel Museum, delves into this question. Ann Bennett, Executive Director of the Laurel Historical Society, tells us more about the exhibit.
In 1925, Harvard Graduate School of Design didn’t offer women graduate degrees in architecture, but Victorine du Pont Homsey completed a certificate program with the same curriculum and professors. The Early Women of Architecture in Maryland exhibit, now at Dorchester Center for the Arts, features du Pont Homsey and 11 other women. The exhibit was supported in part by a grant from Maryland Humanities in 2015. Jillian Storms, curator of the exhibit and Board Member at the American Institute of Architecture’s Baltimore Chapter, tell us more about the work of Victorine du Pont Homsey and this summer’s related programming.
Did you know that the first American Saint lived in Maryland, where she opened the first free Catholic School for girls in the United States? Helen Jahn from The National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton tells us more about the woman behind the sainthood.
Ever imagine that our own home movies could be collected and preserved for future generations to explore? Siobhan Hagan, president and CEO of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Moving Image Archive, tells us about the value of audiovisual preservation.
Did you know that the very first use of an ambulance corps and medical triage in the United States occurred in Frederick, Maryland? Major Jonathan Letterman — called the "Father of Modern Battlefield Medicine" — instituted these essential medical practices during the Civil War’s Battle of Antietam. Jake Wynn of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine talks about battle’s impact on Frederick and Letterman’s influence on medicine.
30 years ago, the Baltimore City Council passed The Gay Rights Bill of 1988, which provided legal protection against discrimination for gay and lesbian citizens. Dr. Jonathan Bailey talks about LGBTQAI social spaces, anti-racist civil rights movements, and their impact on the bill’s passing. Bailey is the author of a forthcoming book about race, gender, and sexuality in post-civil rights Baltimore, which covers 1965 through 1995.
What discoveries can be sparked by making a single observation about a community we were born into? Marvin T. Jones tells us more about Winton Triangle, a 437-year-old landowning community of people of color. Jones is the Executive Director and founder of the Chowan Discovery Group, whose mission is to research, document, preserve, and present the history of the Winton Triangle.
For hundreds of years, nature has served as inspiration for a multitude of writers. In a collaboration between Maryland Humanities and Delaware Humanities, nature and literature converge in a one day program at the Ben Cardin-Mike Castle National Trail next month. Ciera Fisher from Delaware Humanities tells us more about the trail and the event.