The Archivist's Bulldog

Vol. 11 No. 15, Newsletter of the Maryland State Archives, August 11, 1997


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
by Daniel Rogers, Colby Cowherd, and David Terry

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
by Laura Lisy

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
by Rachel Kramer

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
by Katherine Liapis and Melody J. Haymire

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
by Anne M. Tria

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.


ARCHIVAL CONSERVATION
by Keith Jameson

The summer internship in the Conservation Lab at the Archives was very beneficial to my education in the field of Conservation. My work consisted of proposals/pre-treatment reports, treatment, and experimentation. Most of the work centered around the preparation of plats for filming by Imaging Services, specifically the Right of Way Plats of Anne Arundel (MSA C2142) and Baltimore(MSA C2140) counties. Some of the them required mending tears, flattening folds, and removing scotch tape.

Four smaller projects were pursued during the course of the summer. The first was a photographic collection (MSA SC4524-1) detailing some of the history of Baltimore Channel 13. The photos were taped to sheets of typing paper with pressure sensitive tape. I removed the photos from the paper by careful use of a scalpel. Remaining adhesive was removed with ethanol and a cotton swab. The second involved three pages from a document of the Committee for the Defence of Maryland(MSA S996, MdHR 19969) dated 1775. They were very brittle and disintegrating. The pieces were carefully rearranged and mended with MethylCellulose/Paste Archival Tissue(MC/P tissue), manufactured in-house.

A third project concerned documents from the Baldwin Memorial Church (MSA SC4733) time capsule. These were severely deteriorated and had what appeared to be algae growth on them. The support also had deteriorated due to the biological growth. After careful surface cleaning with a scalpel and in places a plastic eraser the losses and some edges were strengthened with MC/P tissue. Two pages were too badly damaged for local stabilization, so they were lined with tissue and wheat starch paste. The fourth project involved Kent County Court Preceedings 1738 (MSA C1048, MdHR 8743). This book could not be opened all the way, and the paper was very brittle likley due to the high acidity (pH 3.0) of the iron gall ink. The book was disbound, and the signatures washed, deacidified, and mended.

The MethylCellulose/Paste Archival Tissue mentioned above was made in the Conservation Lab using instrucions received from the National Archives. This mending tissue reactivates with very little moisture, thus allowing repairs without causing buckling of the paper. The MC/P tissue is more reversable than heat set tissue and has a better adhesion strength.


HOW TO ACCESS THE TRULY MISCELLANEOUS
by Courtney Hackett

MSA T68 is an artifical collection of miscellaneous materials that years ago accumulated together in the old Hall of Records Building. A processing project was developed to gain intellectual and physical control over the record series. The collection was catalogued and organized at the folder level, and sometimes the item level. A database was created to make access and integration into other archival databases as easy as possible. A total of about 1400 records was created in the process of cataloging around 100 boxes of material.

One the more significant items catalogued was a photostat of the original charter of Maryland. This scroll was a gift from the Duke and Duchess of Kent to the State of Maryland in 1984 for its 400th anniversary. Some other interesting items included: 1) telegram to the State's Attorney concerning the assassination of President Lincoln and the suspicion that his murderer, John Wilkes Booth, was in the state; 2) subscriptions to extend the navigation of the Potomack River, signed by William Paca, Thomas Stone, and Charles Carroll; and 3) an entire box detailing Maryland's participation in the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago, Illinois.


PUBLICATION NOTICE
Because of vacations only one issue of the Bulldog will be published in August.


THE ARCHIVISTS' BULLDOG
Founded 1987

Edward C. Papenfuse, State Archivist
Patricia V. Melville, Editor
Mimi Calver, Assistant Editor
Lynne MacAdam,Production Editor
Rita Molter, Circulation

The Maryland State Archives is an independent agency in the Office of Governor Parris N. Glendening and is advised by the Hall of Records Commission. The Chairman of the Hall of Records Commission is the Honorable Louis L. Goldstein, Comptroller, and the Vice Chairman is the Honorable Robert M. Bell, Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals.

The Archivists' Bulldog is issued bi-monthly to publicize records collections, finding aids, and other activities of the Archives and its staff. Subscription cost is $25 per year, and the proceeds go to the State Archives Fund. To subscribe, please send your name, address, and remittance to: the Maryland State Archives, 350 Rowe Boulevard, Annapolis, Maryland 21401-1686. Phone: MD toll free: (800) 235 4045; or (410) 260-6400. FAX: (410) 974 3895. E-mail: archives@mdarchives.state.md.us. The Editor welcomes editorial comments and contributions from the public.

The Archives maintains a Website on the Internet at: http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us