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.

Title: Maryland State Archives, Mayis — Indigenous Records Project

Please join Maria Day, Senior Director of Special Collections, Conservation, & Library Services at Maryland State Archives as she discusses the Archives' new project to provide access to records about Native American peoples of the Chesapeake region. The free, in-person presentation will include a demonstration of the Mayis website and is open to all. For more information, see Salisbury University's website.

Title: October Lunch and Learn - Black Lives in Focus: African American Faces from Early Maryland

Maryland's 19th century African American community has a rich visual legacy that extends beyond Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. This program will introduce original print and photographic portraits from the Ross J. Kelbaugh Collection of Black enslaved and free Marylanders, the largest collection in the state, discovered through 50+ years of search and research. From the earliest identified portrait of an enslaved Marylander in 1750, the program then focuses on photographic images of these largely forgotten people from the 1845-1870s including rare daguerreotypes and wet-plate photographs accompanied by their recently discovered stories. Most of the photographs in this presentation from The Ross J. Kelbaugh Collection were just acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. through the generous support of the Ford Foundation to now make these images a permanent part of the American memory.

Mr. Kelbaugh served as a teacher for 30 years in the Baltimore County Public School System and currently is the President of Historic Graphics & Research Services, LLC. He is the author of many books, including the most recent publication: Shadows Secured: Early American Photographs from the Ross J. Kelbaugh Collection (2023). He has served as a historical consultant and appraiser to major public and private institutions that include the National Park Service, National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery of Art, Getty Museum, Maryland Center for History and Culture, and the Maryland Department of Parks.

Title: November Lunch and Learn - The Washerwomen of Baltimore, 1800-1864

Please join former Maryland State Archivist, Dr. Edward C. Papenfuse, as he shares his research on the under-appreciated and unknown washerwomen of Baltimore during the period of 1800 to 1864 and explores what the archival sources reveal. An expert in primary source research, Dr. Papenfuse will be emphasizing what can be learned from the archival sources about the many free Black and enslaved women in Baltimore who served as washerwomen to do the laundry in Baltimore city and supported their families in the process. The presentation will include some biographical examples including the mothers of Christian Fleetwood, medal of honor winner, and his best friend, Alfred Ward Handy, who together edited and contributed to The Lyceum Observer, said to be the first newspaper in the Upper South to be owned and operated by an African American.

Title: December Virtual Lunch and Learn - The Patuxent Watershed: Maryland's Natural Wonder

Do you know about one of Maryland's most precious natural wonders? "It starts as a whisper near the four corners of Maryland, where Montgomery, Frederick, Howard and Carroll counties converge. It's little more than a meandering brook winding its way through farmland, but when it completes its 110-mile journey to Southern Maryland, the Patuxent River runs 120 feet deep, reaches two miles wide and is the source of billions of dollars in industry, research and recreation." - The Calvert Recorder, June 7, 2021

This illustrated talk by resource expert Ralph Eshelman highlights some of the lesser-known facts about Maryland's longest intrastate river, The Patuxent, . an underappreciated Maryland natural and cultural resource. Please join us for a virtual field trip to learn about this true treasure of Maryland.

Ralph Eshelman is a specialist in maritime history. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan with a major in geology and vertebrate paleontology and a minor in ecology. He served as a Research Associate in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution from 1975 until 2005. He is active in several professional and civic organizations including past president of the Council of American Maritime Museums, founding vice-president of the National Maritime Preservation Task Force of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, vice-president for Science and Stewardship of the Maryland-Washington D.C. Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, Patuxent Riverkeeper, and Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. Honors include Outstanding Young Men in America (1981) and Emerging Young Leaders of America (1989).

Title: January Virtual Lunch and Learn - The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of Senator Daniel B. Brewster

In the 1960s, Danny Brewster had it all: Hollywood handsome, a decorated World War II Marine, with a stellar education, inherited wealth, glamorous wife and two young sons, and a political career so ascendant he was known as “the Golden Boy of Maryland Politics.” But then, over the course of a decade it all unraveled. Debilitated by alcoholism, Brewster's first marriage failed and, after losing reelection to the U.S. Senate, his second marriage also collapsed. Subsequently, he was indicted in Maryland on allegations of accepting bribes, charges he fought for six ruinous years, but ultimately beat. Brewster finally quit drinking, married a third time, had a new family, and settled into a quiet life as a doting father, farmer, and hospital administrator, gradually rebuilding his reputation and his shattered life.

Author John W. Frece will talk about his new biography, Self-Destruction: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of U.S. Senator Daniel B. Brewster, highlighting the events of Brewster's life, and detailing how he conducted and organized his research, including interviews and records from the Brewster family.

John W. Frece spent half of his career as a newspaper and wire service reporter and half working for Maryland state and federal government. For seventeen years, he was State House Bureau Chief in Annapolis for United Press International and the Baltimore Sun.

He is the author of three pervious books: Sprawl and Politics: The Inside Story of Smart Growth in Maryland (2008), which recounts his time as a gubernatorial staffer working on Maryland's then controversial Smart Growth land use policy, as well as two autobiographies of notable Maryland political figures, Governor Harry R. Hughes, and U.S. Senator Joseph D. Tydings.