Events

Past Events

View recordings of past lectures, seminars, tours and workshops, as well as helpful training videos on how to use various records in our collections in our free online Presentation Library.

August Virtual Lunch and Learn - The USS Maryland's Silver Service: History Captured in Repoussé

In 1906 famed Baltimore firm Samuel Kirk and Son created a monumental silver service to be used onboard the newly commissioned USS Maryland (ACR-8). Not only would the service be composed of 48 pieces, but each piece would be unique in representing the history and natural resources of Maryland's 23 counties and Baltimore City through 167 scenes. This lecture will focus on the creation of the silver service and the powerful stories behind many of the scenes. You can learn more about the silver service here.

Robin Gower is the Curator for the Maryland Commission on Artistic Property of the Maryland State Archives. She holds a BA in Anthropology and Archaeology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and an MA in Museum Studies from Indiana University-Indianapolis. During her summers in high school, Gower volunteered at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History which ignited her passion for caring for museum collections. Prior to the Commission, she worked for Historic Annapolis, the Baltimore Museum of Industry, and the National Park Service. When not at work, you can find her traveling or spending time outdoors with her husband Chris and their pup Casper.

September Virtual Lunch and Learn - Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte and the Material World of an Imperial Legacy

Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, born in 1785 in Baltimore, burst onto the international scene through her brief marriage to Jerôme Napoléon Bonaparte, the youngest brother of Napoléon Bonaparte. Although their union lasted only three years, the imperial legacy Elizabeth charted for future generations of American Bonapartes endures today.

This richly illustrated lecture explores Elizabeth’s extraordinary life and follows the American Bonapartes from Fells Point in Baltimore all the way to Denmark where the material world of the Bonaparte legacy lives on.

Alexandra Deutsch, a graduate of Vassar College and the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, is the John L. and Marjorie P. McGraw Director of Collections at the Winterthur Museum. She leads Winterthur’s Collections and Interpretation Division. Prior to arriving at Winterthur in 2019, she was Vice-President of Collections and Interpretation and Chief Curator at the Maryland Center for History and Culture, formerly the Maryland Historical Society.

Her tenure at the Maryland Center for History and Culture was distinguished by nationally recognized exhibitions that included In Full Glory Reflected: Maryland and the War of 1812, Woman of Two Worlds: Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte and Her Quest for an Imperial Legacy, and Spectrum of Fashion. From 2010 until 2019, she worked to establish the Fashion Archives, now named the Barbara P. Katz Fashion Archives at the Maryland Center for History and Culture. Since arriving at Winterthur, she has spearheaded a re-envisioning of the museum’s gallery building and led multiple exhibitions, including Outside In: Nature-inspired Design at Winterthur (2020), Jacqueline Kennedy and Henry Francis du Pont: From Winterthur to the White House (2022), Ann Lowe, American Couturier (2023) and is currently curating a major reinstallation of the permanent collections on view in Winterthur’s galleries.

Her publications include Ann Lowe, American Couturier (2023), Spectrum of Fashion (2019), Structure and Perspective: David Brewster Explores Maryland’s Social Landscape (2017) and Woman of Two Worlds: Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte (2016). She has written and lectured about diverse topics in American material culture throughout her career with a particular emphasis on women’s and fashion history.

October Virtual Lunch and Learn - Real Learning, Real Impact: The Digital Scholarship in Museum Partnerships Project

Join Raven Bishop, Dr. Sara Clarke-De Reza, and Dr. Julie Markin,the directors of the Digital Scholarship in Community Partnerships (DSMP) initiative at Washington College as they describe the ways in which they are leveraging emerging technologies in community-engaged digital scholarship work on the Eastern Shore.

The DSMP project engages Washington College students in authentic learning experiences by embedding technology-enhanced museum partnership projects into learning sequences across the curriculum. Through this project, students work with local museums to develop technology-rich outreach resources including virtual tours and augmented-reality enhanced interpretive panels which help convey the message of the museum within and beyond the community. Working with the museum affords students the opportunity to apply concepts and best practices learned in the classroom to a project that makes a real impact for the local community.

In this session Washington College professors and staff will discuss the DSMP model and the ways in which they are leveraging emerging technologies in community-engaged digital scholarship work on the Eastern Shore.

Raven Bishop is the Assistant Director of Educational Technology at Washington College. As part of the Educational Technology team, she works to research, promote and support best-practices where technology and pedagogy come together to promote a student-centered learning experience. Bishop explores AR & VR in instruction and leads the Virtual/Augmented Reality Digital Imaging Studio [VARDIS] in Washington College’s Miller Library.

Sara Clarke-De Reza, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Education and Director of the Museum, Field, and Community Education program at Washington College in Chestertown, MD. She teaches courses in the historical and cultural foundations of American education, as well as in educational research and design. Her scholarship explores collaborative design for learning at the intersections of formal and informal learning environments, like schools and museums.

Julie Markin, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of Washington College Archaeology. Her work examines political and economic inequality in the Pre-Columbian United States with a focus on how environmental abundance, settlement location and subsistence production intersect to fuel (or preclude) the rise of socially and politically complex societies. Markin has also worked with several archaeological and historical museums, which instilled a desire to partner with communities in developing exhibit stories and curation strategies.