1997 SUMMER INTERNSHIPS
The Archives has been very fortunate to have several very talented interns working on a wide range of projects. As the summer comes to an end too soon, the students from Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland (both College Park and UMBC), Howard University, the University of Delaware, and St. Johns College report on their work. We hope to continue our partnerships with these schools to provide both interns and financial support for their projects. An now, in their own words...
FROM FREDERICK TO THURGOOD
The Black Baltimore project will now be known as The Road from Frederick to Thurgood, much to the surprise of previous interns. Those steadfast toilers from summers of yore also might not quite recognize the HTMLs they created. The HTMLs have been cleaned up considerably through extermination of spelling errors and grammatical infelicities, and in some cases they have been thoroughly reorganized for public perusal. The interns can rest content, however, knowing that their precedent inspired two bewildered Johnnies to delve into and recreate the lives of several now obscure figures who once commanded the attention of Baltimore's African-Americans.
Thomas R. Smith, as Colby Cowherd now knows well, was a Democrat. "So?", you yawn. What you may have forgotten is that black Democrats were exceedingly rare in the decades surrounding the turn of the century. And when achieving prominence, they were bound to provoke frowns of puzzlement, shouts of disapproval, and, in at least one case, homicidal violence. Yes, Mr. Cowherd has stumbled into a murder mystery in the course of his research: Thomas Smith's brother Wallace was gunned down by two men at a Democratic club in Baltimore. It is not perfectly clear that this was a politically motivated assassination, but it sure looks like it. Another source of head-scratching has been the identity of Thomas Smith's father. It is listed as Nathaniel Smith on his death certificate, but other records indicate that this Nathaniel Smith died fighting for the Union at the siege of Petersburg on July 30, 1864--seven years before Thomas Smith was born.
Daniel Rogers has encountered no traces of blood in the files he has been poring over. Well, not exactly. . . but, there is another mystery of sorts. Once upon a time there was a lawyer by the name of W. Ashbie Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins was a leader in the legal fight against segregation in the 1910s. His partner in law was a man named George McMechen; oddly enough, Hawkins's first wife was named Ada McMechen. As Mr. Rogers reconstructs the picture of the first generation of black lawyers in Baltimore (which includes his primary subject, George M. Lane, the first African-American to run for mayor) he is tormented by the question of bloodlines. Family ties were all-important in those days, and fraternal connections were rife in political endeavors. It remains to be proven, however, whether the two McMechens were in fact relatives (and for that matter, whether there is any connection to McMechen Street, where Warner T. McGuinn, another important lawyer, lived in the 1890s).
David Terry, as resident expert in the field, undoubtedly knows all the answers to the unsolved questions his trainees have been pondering. In the interest of promoting good old-fashioned research skills, though, he has feigned ignorance in these mysterious matters and encouraged additional speculation, no doubt chuckling under his breath. In any case, Mr. Terry has been busy doing the bulk of the biographical and presentational work, and in doing so provides another priceless font of guidance to our hapless comrades from yonder side of College Creek.
MARYLAND FIRST LADIES AND OFFICIAL HOSTESSES PROJECT
The First Ladies and Official Hostesses Project is in its third year, and is now focused on three goals: an HTML presentation (not yet available on the Archives web site), incorporation into a universal biographical database, and a base of information for a possible publication. My contributions for the summer center around the HTML presentation, both adding information to it and restructuring the pages for public viewing.
I have been focusing on the information available through the church records and family papers in Special Collections to fill in some of the gaps in vital statistics for the early nineteenth-century First Ladies. For example, extensive research on the family of Gov. Frank Brown has shown that his daughter, Mary Brown Lee, took over the duties of Official Hostess when her mother died mid-administration. Both Mary Ridgely Brown, the daughter of a Baltimore dry goods merchant, and Mary Brown Lee, the daughter of a Carroll County landowner, were wealthy members of Baltimore society in the 1890's and early twentieth century. Mary Brown Lee, after her father's term of office ended, was educated, married three times, worked for the National League of Women's Service during World War I, and developed an interest in aviation.
Eventually, the files for all women included in the project should contain vital statistics profiles, extended narrative biographies, and transcripted or scanned sources. This will give the researcher the options to obtain quick information, to read in-depth biographies, and to see the sources to understand more clearly the process of biographical research. By the end of the summer, I hope to have the pages on the Brown family completed, and more of the missing statistics found. Possibly, I will also start a section for Governor Ritchie's mother, who also assumed the responsibilities of Official Hostess in place of her deceased daughter-in-law.
GOVERNORS' BIOGRAPHIES
This summer I have been working to expand the biographical information on the governors of Maryland. The data is being entered into a new analysis database being created by Nancy Bramucci. By the end of the summer, we hope to be able to create web pages for each governor that draw on the information in the database and make it readily available to the public.
I have concentrated research efforts primarily on the latest few governors, finding information on their public and private careers, and compiling family histories. A variety of sources are being used, both at the Archives and in Baltimore. In the case of Governor McKeldin, I listened to an interview he gave a year before his death. His words and manner of speaking revealed how passionate he was about his life as a politician. This kind of finding adds depth to the facts of a biography. Now if only the database program would stop crashing...
GOVERNOR WILLIAM DONALD SCHAEFER COLLECTIONS
Most of our summer has been spent in the Map Room cataloguing the objects that comprise the individual collections of Governor Schaefer memorabilia. There are three collections to date (SC 4383, SC 4403, and SC 4457), totaling about 800 containers. Using an Access database, we have provided a brief description of the appearance and origin of each container.
Examples of objects that make up the majority of the collections are plaques, framed original and reproduced artwork, photographs, and posters. Most of the items were given to Schaefer during his two terms as governor (1987-1995). There are also objects interpersed from his earlier political career as city councilman and mayer of Baltimore. Objects were given to him by private groups, individuals, and governmental organizations.
Once the collections are completely processed, they can be used for several research purposes, including biographical, historical, and political. For example, the objects can provide new insight into Governor Schaefer as a person, not just a politician. Some objects reveal information about his private life, including his law school diploma and certificates of admittance to practice law, photographs from his service in the military, and his father's law school books. Furthermore, patterns can be detected about not only what policies Schaefer supported as governor, but also what were important policy issues of the period.
The collections of memorabilia should be considered in conjunction with the textual documentation from Governor Schaefer's terms in office in order to develop the varied aspects of his political career.
BUILDING CAPITAL: THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE OF JOSEPH CLARK, ARCHITECT
As a continuation of my research project on the construction of the
State House Dome and Lightning Rod, I am attempting to produce an in-depth study of its architect, Joseph Clark. During the past school year I uncovered many details of Clark's public career focusing primarily on his business affiliations with Robert Morris, John Nicholson, and James Greenleaf in Washington D.C. Now I hope to place his experience as a contractual architect and builder within the context of Clark's larger public role as an ardent Federalist, deputy grandmaster of the Freemasons, architect of numerous Maryland public works, and later as an insolvent petitioner in Baltimore attempting to reclaim his due from Luther Martin and the State of Maryland.
While attempting to reconstruct Clark's entrepreneurial endeavors, I
often found that his private life played a pivotal role in his professional career and vice versa. As a result, I spent much of the first half of this summer on a genealogical pursuit of Clark, his wife Isabella, and the couple's four known children. The findings, in my opinion, reveal not simply a brief glimpse into the world of Joseph Clark but also offer a broader understanding of the country's early economic practices (speculation), problems with building a new government (both literally and figuratively), and relationships between men and women during the nation's infancy.
Because I often spend time between off-site locations in Baltimore and Washington D.C., my project also provided a test for a HTML note taking system. When I was little I remember telling my Dad that I wouldn't need to learn computer programming because I wanted to be a historian. Much to my delight, the Archives is proving me wrong.
by Daniel Rogers, Colby Cowherd, and David Terry
by Laura Lisy
by Rachel Kramer
by Katherine Liapis and Melody J. Haymire
by Anne M. Tria