Lou Williams – Maryland Humanities

American Brewing Throughout the Years

Posted on May 9, 2018October 18, 2021 by Lou Williams

American Brewing Throughout the Years

By Emma Schrantz
University of Maryland

With Meagan Baco
Preservation Maryland

Beer brewing in the United States began almost as a necessity. During the early days of the United States, fermented drinks like beer and ciders were safer to drink than water. The boiling and fermentation process killed disease-causing organisms, which prevented serious illness like cholera

As such, the drink became ingrained in the social circles in America, with Native American tribe and Colonial populations embracing the need for fermented beverages in society. Beer and other alcoholic drinks like rum and cider became woven into the social fabric of the Thirteen Colonies. To meet the demand of colonial cities, local breweries began popping up throughout the East Coast. The first brewery in the State of Maryland was established in Annapolis as in 1703: this laid the groundwork for what has become a strong industry in the Old-Line State even into the present day.

Many of the Founding Fathers had a soft spot for beer – George Washington himself was known to brew beer and enjoy American-made Porters. Brewing in colonial days was a female-driven industry, with much of the production happening in the home. Even Martha Washington managed the home brewing at her husband’s estate. Once the American Revolution broke out, the import of alcohol from England became incredibly expensive. American beer became a symbol of American independence – and has remained one of the most recognizable elements of American culture since its founding.

During the 1800s, German immigrants had an especially large impact on the social side of brewing, carrying with them a rich brewing heritage. They introduced America to the lager style and the rich social tradition of the German Biergarten. This cultural shift increased the popularity of beer in America, and the number of breweries swelled to more than 4,000 by the year 1873. However, this growth was very quickly stifled. Around the turn of the 20th Century, many Americans saw alcohol as a so-called “demon drink”. The Temperance Movement sought to crush the exploding brewery industry. Many ‘prohibitionists’ blamed the social woes plaguing American cities on the over-consumption of whiskey and other hard spirits, claiming that they posed a serious threat to the country’s fledgling political system.

The Movement’s efforts were successful in demolishing the brewing industry. Home-brewing was almost completely eliminated, and many women became disassociated with the practice. Breweries shuttered around the country at a rapid pace. Finally, the United States enacted Prohibition with the ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1919. Prohibitionists celebrated, expecting an improvement in the ‘moral compass’ and order in American cities. However, Prohibition did exactly the opposite – protests and riots broke out across the country, and an entire new industry of bootleggers and speakeasies developed. Some companies even sold malt products disguised as baking ingredients in order to keep American brewing afloat. The backlash was so strong that the U.S. Government eventually ratified the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition in 1933.

Despite the repeal, American brewing took nearly 75 years to recover from the effects of Prohibition. Homebrewing was not legalized in the 21st Amendment, so Americans relied on breweries for their beer. Advancements in refrigeration, advertising, manufacturing technology, and distribution networks during the 20th Century enabled beer and other beverages to be canned and shipped thousands of miles away. Large brewing companies like Anheuser-Busch were able to weather prohibition due to their vast distribution networks and support of the American Armed Forces. These breweries succeeded due to the production of one or two styles, made with inexpensive ingredients and shipped all around the country. Larger breweries were able to purchase and consolidate their competitor’s businesses, following the trends in other industries across America. Just like Coke and Pepsi, brands like Budweiser and Miller became household staples around this time.

By the 1960’s, this rapid consolidation nearly decimated the brewing industry. No longer did Americans need to go to their local breweries or taverns to grab a beer. They could buy cans of beer, produced thousands of miles away, in the comfort of their own homes. The economic impact was so dire that just six brewing companies gained control of over 90 percent of the entire beer market. However, the cultural revolution of Craft Brewing rose to challenge the “Big Beer” companies.

One of the last breweries to hang on during this period of consolidation was the Christian Heurich Brewing Company that was located on the Potomac River on what is now the site of the Kennedy Center. The Heurich Brewing Company was in operation from 1872 through 1956 and during its height of production at the turn of the century, it was the second largest employer in Washington D.C. – apart from the Federal Government. The Heurich mansion is now run as a historic house museum and has brought back some historic recipes of Heurich in partnership with DC Brau Brewing. DC Brau has the distinction of being the first brewery to open since Heurich’s closing –they tapped their first keg in 2011.

_{Christian Heurich Brewing Co. Tin Tray, image from Heurich House Museum.}

With the passage of HB 1337 in 1977, home brewing was again made legal, and brewers began experimenting with craft brewing and playing around with styles and ingredients in their homes. Craft brewers are generally more concerned about the quality of the beers, as well as the social culture of beer production and consumption.

Here in Maryland, the Brewers Association advocates for the craft beer community including issues of production and distribution limits for over 70 Maryland-based breweries. Together, the brewers have a $637.6 million impact, support 6,541 jobs with $228.3 million in wages and $53.1 million in state and local tax revenue.

Breweries have also proven their commitment to the spirit of Maryland pride by being a part of great partnerships, like the sour table beer collaboration between the National Museum of Civil War medicine and Flying Dog brewing known as Sawbones – and the recent Light City collaboration “Lumen Ale” between Baltimore Office of Promotion of the Arts and Brewer’s Art. Guinness is also committing to Maryland by opening the first Guinness Brewery on U.S. Soil since 1954 in Elkridge, Maryland in the Patapsco Valley State Heritage Area.

If reading this made you thirsty, one of our favorite local Baltimore breweries is Peabody Heights Brewing on the site of a former Orioles stadium that has a great collection of vintage O’s photographs in the tap room.

Meagan Baco is the Director of Communications at Preservation Maryland. She is also the co-founder of Histpres, a national job board for the historic preservation field, and has spoken about the young preservation movement and job market at conferences across the country. Meagan also serves on the board of the Old Greenbelt Theatre.

Emma Schrantz is pursuing a Master’s degree in Architecture and Historic Preservation at the University of Maryland. She writes about the intersections between the craft brewing industry, historic preservation, and community development.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on our blog do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Maryland Humanities or our funders.

Two Poets and Their Diaries: Alice Dunbar-Nelson and Gwendolyn Bennett

Posted on April 25, 2018October 18, 2021 by Lou Williams

Celebrating Poetry Month

Two Poets and Their Diaries: Alice Dunbar-Nelson and Gwendolyn Bennett

By Angela R. Hooks, Ph.D.

Flipping through my diary I noticed I had composed a poem. The poem had been rewritten three times with words and lines deleted and stanzas revised. To create the poem, I followed an exercise in Richard Hugo’s book Triggering Towns that required choosing five nouns, verbs, and adjectives for a list. The poem had to include four beats to a line, six-line stanzas, three stanzas, two internal and one external slant rhymes per stanza, two end stops per stanza, and clear grammatical sentences that make sense. The poem must be meaningless. According to my diary, my poem took one week to complete and needed additional wordsmithing and less beats. As a diary-keeper of more than three decades, writing in my diary has augmented from space for reflection into a space to hone my craft. For many writers and poets, the diary manifests by way of a springboard to produce poems from experiences, observations, and emotions. Rereading the poem and the marginalia notes about the poem reminded me of the diary pages of two American poets: Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875-1935) and Gwendolyn B. Bennett (1902-1981) and the legacy they left for other poets, writers and diary-keepers.

I have read, studied, and examined Give of Each Day; The Diary of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, published diaries, and the unpublished diaries of Bennett, housed at Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Book Division. I discovered despite the busy lives they led as educated, middle-class professionals entrenched in social activism, including education, for the black race, both their diaries served as a writer’s workshop to hone their skills, create poems, and keep track of submissions.

The Poets

Gwendolyn Bennett was a Renaissance woman, who contributed to the arts as a painter, graphic artist, art professor at Howard University in Washington, DC, and in the literary world as poet, short-story writer, and editor and columnist of “Ebony Flute.” As a visual and literary artist, Bennett was a prolific poet known as the seed of the Harlem Renaissance. Bennett left a legacy of twenty-two poems that appeared in journals of the period: Crisis, Opportunity, Palms, and Gypsy and the Messenger. Additionally, other poems were collected in William Stanley Braithwaite’s Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1927 and Yearbook of American Poetry (1927), Countee Cullen’s Caroling Dusk (1927), and James Weldon Johnson’s The Book of American Negro Poetry (1931). She was and remains known for the poems “To Usward,” “Song,” “Lines Written at the Grave of Alexandre Dumas,” “Sonnet 1,” and “Sonnet 2.”

Alice Dunbar-Nelson was a prolific writer continuously producing and publishing varied forms of literature from 1895 to1931. She published her first book short stories and poems Violets and Other Tales at age nineteen. She wrote articles for Daily Crusader, the Journal of the Lodge, and black magazines like Age, Boston Woman’s Era and Boston Monthly Review and the Colored American. In 1899 she published another book of stories, The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories. Her poems appeared in Crisis, Ebony and Topaz, Opportunity, Negro Poets and their Poems, Caroling Dusk, The Dunbar Speaker, and Entertainer, Harlem: A Forum of Negro Life and the Book of American Negro Poetry. She was and remains known for the poems “I Sit and Sew,” “Sonnet” and “April is on the Way.”

The Diary as a Writer’s Workshop

Dunbar-Nelson’s diary served as a writer’s workshop: a place that talks about writing, shows how to find time writing and how to use the diary as a springboard of ideas. Her diary is a space for the feminine voice that illuminates the stories of women. Dunbar-Nelson lived experiences were transformed from her diary into her creative work like Gwendolyn Bennett. Dunbar-Nelson wrote about the writing, its difficulties and her disappointments. For example, diary illustrates that she wrote in the kitchen by the window drinking a cup of tea; upstairs in the bed, plugging away at two o’clock in the morning, and in her office. On March 18, 1928, the diary had lapsed since February 9. Dunbar-Nelson first complained about the diary as “a weight on my heart to get it up to date. I carried it around to school and to the office. And like some inhibition, I could not bring myself to write. And tonight, when I ought to be in bed, the spirit moved me to straighten it out.” She was disciplined, writing daily.

In the diary, she recorded when she had written either a sonnet, poem, story or a novel. She also included publishing outlets where she submitted her work. The poet followed up in the diary recording whether the piece had been accepted for publication or rejected. Sometimes disclosing the prize money, if applicable. On Saturday, August 27, 1921 “finished a sonnet on Mme. Curie and sent to the [Philadelphia] Public Ledge for contest about “favorite woman of the ages” (62). Sunday, September 11, she penned that sonnet appeared in “to-day’s Ledger. That means I have a chance at the prize. Of course, it seems best of all the published ones, to me…” (72). While home writing in her diary, she noted that her sonnet was not a prize winner. She vented her disappointed and discouragement: she quoted Oscar Micheaux, a black filmmaker (1884-1951) “if you want to get anything across, it must be pure “bunk” absolute “bunk” which public will swallow, “hook, bait, sinker, line AND rod,” and then come up grasping for more” (September 18, 1921). At forty-six years-old the rejection left her discouraged “forty-six years old and nowhere yet” (77).

In her diary, she dutiful recorded her honorable mention of the poem “April is on the Way,” which she published under the name “Karen Ellison” for the Opportunity Contest. Her diary also confesses she reused “April is on the Way” for her monthly column “As in A Looking Glass.” She penned “At the bank Reilly quite excited over “April is on the Way” which I used for “As in A Looking Glass” as I felt too bum to do any column this week. Leslie quite excited over it too.” (218).

In April of 1930, she turned her emotions into writing sonnets. She wrote:

You did not need to creep into my heart
The way you did. You could have smiled
And knowing what you did, have kept apart
From all my inner soul. But you beguiled
Deliberately. Then flung my poor love by,
A priceless orange now. Without a sign
Of pity at the wreck you made. Smashed
The golden dream I’d reared. Then unabashed
Impaled the episode upon stupid epigram,
Blowing my soul thor’ smoke wreaths as you sneered a “Damn!”

She took her private feelings and usurped of the relationship and transformed her hurt into poetry. Her writing was not about confessing her secrets, but a way to allow her art to be free to go wherever it needed to go, and Marylin Schneider claims that “usually our pain comes out first” (ix). Within the diary, Dunbar-Nelson emerged as a writer who wrote deeply because her diary was safe until it was no longer safe. She was able to compose a poem about what she had experienced or imagined.

Even though Gwendolyn Bennett maintained three diaries, 1925, 1936 and 1958, her scrap paper and loose pages resemble a diary. Her writings on scraps of paper illustrate her creative process igniting her vision of writing poems. The thoughts on the scraps of paper happened at that very moment something happened and no other writing paper existed at that moment. When something happens that causes the diarist to contemplate the situation she must capture that moment on paper despite the size or form.

Gwendolyn Bennett’s Scrap Paper as Diary. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library.

Not only did Bennett place her pain on the page, she used poetic techniques such as rhyme, metaphors and lines to create a poem. Her writing on loose pages and putting them in a folder instead of the trash can also indicate Bennett had hopes of reconstructing and publishing her poems.

Bennett kept a diary of handwritten poems written on scrap paper. Some scraps that Bennett penned poetry on were on the back of Cox, Nostrand and Gunnison letterhead. Cox, Nostrand and Gunnison was a lighting fixture company in New York, where Bennett worked. Others were scribbled on small scraps of torn or folded paper. She understood these poems were in progress, scribbling the words “poetry in progress” across the bottom of a piece of paper. Nevertheless, one poem reflects her experience at the cathedral in Paris in 1925 when her muse would not let her write poetry. These handwritten poems illustrate her emotionally freedom to once again write poetry that is “fluid with a breathing body” (Oliver 3). Other lines represent heart break of love.

These loose pages consist of more than twenty drafts of poems, some lines, stanzas and a few pages of research. Some poems have lines crossed out, words inserted, and appear as revised poems. Bennett’s process reflects Richard Hugo’s suggestions for rewriting poems in which the poet should “write the entire poem again” (37). Hugo claims, “If something goes wrong deep in the poem, you may have taken a wrong turn earlier. The next time through the poem you may spot the wrong path you took (37). Bennett’s markings indicate she reread her poems and when not on the right path changed words and played with syntax. Like me, Bennett followed the instructions of a more seasoned poet. One of Bennett’s handwritten poem emulates Elizabeth Bishop’s use of stress and unstressed syllables.

Dunbar-Nelson and Bennett were prolific poets of their time. Although devoted to the craft, neither bard published a complete body of poems in their lifetime. Yet the poetry Dunbar-Nelson and Bennett left behind, published and unpublished, voices the achievements and the legacy of Black American women poets making poetry apart of their culture.

Sources

Dunbar-Nelson, Alice Moore, and Gloria T. Hull. Give Us Each Day; The Diary of Alice Dunbar-Nelson. W.W. Norton & Company, New York. 1986.

Gwendolyn Bennett Papers, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library.

Hugo, Richard. The Triggering Town, Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing. New York, London: WW Norton & Company, 1979.

Oliver, Mary, A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry. New York, Harcourt, Inc.,1994.

Angela R. Hooks has defended her dissertation, and anxiously awaits her May 2018 graduation from St. John’s University to officially be Dr. Hooks. She teaches composition and literature. Her literary musings have appeared in African Notes, Vol. 40, Underground Writers, Balanced Rock: The North Salem Review of Art, Photography and Literature, Virginia Woolf Miscellany and Noise Medium.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on our blog do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Maryland Humanities or our funders.

National Poetry Month: Staff’s Favorite Poems, Round No. 2

Posted on April 11, 2018October 29, 2021 by Lou Williams

Last week we heard from five of our staff members who shared their favorite poems in honor of National Poetry Month. Well, we have more than five staff members, so we thought another round of compiled poems would be apropos for this week!

Enjoy five more picks from our staff here at Maryland Humanities!

Our Communications Specialist Sarah Weissman chose the poem “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” by Emily Dickinson.

“Within the past few years, I’ve started reading the poetry of Bertolt Brecht, which I have a great affinity for. He was born in Berlin in 1898 and went into exile in 1933.”

“We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” by Emily Dickinson

We grow accustomed to the Dark –
When light is put away –
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye –

A Moment – We uncertain step
For newness of the night –
Then – fit our Vision to the Dark –
And meet the Road – erect –

And so of larger – Darknesses –
Those Evenings of the Brain –
When not a Moon disclose a sign –
Or Star – come out – within –

The Bravest – grope a little –
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead –
But as they learn to see –

Either the Darkness alters –
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight –
And Life steps almost straight.

Our Office Manager Susan chose the poem “Your Laughter” by Pablo Neruda.

“I don’t know if this is my favorite poem, but I love that this poem resonates with my whole way of being.”

“Your Laughter” by Pablo Neruda

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

Our Program Officer for Grants & Strategic Partnerships, Marilyn, chose “I talk Black” by Lady Brion, a powerful spoken word poem.

Anna, our Program Assistant for Maryland History Day, Chautauqua, & Veterans’ Programs, chose “A Lexicon of Trees” by Britton Gildersleeve.

“This is one of my favorites! Trees have always been important markers space and place for me. I instantly connected with trees as a way of marking and cataloging relationships and time spent. Every time I read it I walk outside with a new appreciation for all the greenery that dots my path.”

“A Lexicon of Trees” by Britton Gildersleeve

The apricot my grandmother planted the day
that I was born. She made me fried pies
in her grandmother’s skillet. I have it still.

The frangipani down the street from the villa
(plumeria its real name). White and rose
and yellow flowers. Climbing with the ants
up its twisted trunk, I thought I was invisible.

The mimosa on 8th Street. Into late fall
she offered me feather flowers
that desperate year. Perhaps she saved me.

And henna—white flowers in that barren
desert where I tried to nest, pruning twigs
that did not fit. So much of love
is like this.

Japanese maple: scarlet against white dogwood
break of bloom. Shallow-rooted, it holds
earth together. Once, love was like this.

Crape myrtle, cherry red and toddler pink
lace-edged corsage on the front of a house
where love solved its first puzzles.

It is the way trees mark the verges
of journeys, dendritic timelines
blossomspill leaffall barebranch

Our Grants Specialist Kelly has a few favorites, and selected Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” as her poem to share with you!

Kelly loves this poem because she thinks it’s “a beautiful representation of following your own path.”

“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

That’s it for this week! We would love to hear more about your favorite poems. Please feel free to share them in the comments!

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on our blog do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Maryland Humanities or our funders.

National Poetry Month: Staff’s Favorite Poems, Round No. 1

Posted on April 4, 2018October 29, 2021 by Lou Williams

April is National Poetry Month, which means that we at Maryland Humanities have been spending some time thinking about the poets we read and re-read, the poems we love, and the impact that poetry can have on the human spirit.

This week, we thought that we would share some of our favorite poems & poets with you. We will hear from five of our staff members in today’s post. 🙂

Our Executive Director Phoebe Stein’s favorite poem is “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou.

“My mother gave me the book of the same name when it was published in 1978. I was 11 years old and mesmerized by the power and beauty of the language.”

“Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Our Program Officer for History Day & Veterans Programs, Judy, loves the poem “Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins.

“It’s happening to me more and more now (forgetfulness), but since I never had the capital of Paraguay on the tip of my tongue, that’s not among the things I’ve forgotten. Enjoy hearing Billy Collins read his poems on NPR. I also love the works of the late Maryland poet, Lucille Clifton.”

“Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall

well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Our Digital & Database Associate Sarah’s favorite poem is “Remember” by Christina Rossetti.

“It is one of the few poems that I have somehow committed to memory without any conscious effort on my part. I love its mournful tone tinged with hope and goodwill for those who remain. I also love The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes, and almost every mischievous poem by Lewis Carroll.”

“Remember” by Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Our Director of Advancement, Aaron, is a fan of the powerful, visceral quality of Adrienne Rich’s poetry. His favorite is “For Ethel Rosenberg”.

“When I discovered this poem as a young man—one admittedly fairly ignorant about any history after WWI, which was as far as we got in high school—the way in which it provided the story of the Rosenbergs was so…exciting! I had never read poetry that was so brutal and clear-eyed and which helped me come to understand a historical moment.”

Eden, our Program Assistant for Maryland Center for the Book, has a more “in the moment” approach to poetry. Her current favorite is “The Rainy Day” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

“I like it because it is straight to the point, while still sounding beautiful. It is about having hope, even when things seem hopeless. And also how to appreciate the good days, you have to experience some bad ones too.”

“The Rainy Day” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

We would love to hear what your favorite poems are! (Leave a comment and tell us!)

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on our blog do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Maryland Humanities or our funders.

Clothing as a Historical Document: Reading Dresses in the Fashion Archive

Posted on March 21, 2018October 18, 2021 by Lou Williams

by Allison Tolman
for the Maryland Humanities Blog

The term “archive” is most often associated with a large collection of historical records, but an archive can be a repository for any kind of historical collection. At the Maryland Historical Society, our Fashion Archive holds over ten thousand articles of clothing and accessories spanning four centuries. We use the Fashion Archives to tell stories from Maryland History, and we read our garments like someone might read a document in a traditional archive.

We can learn a lot about a person through their clothing.

Take, for example, the pale pink evening gown designed and worn by Claire McCardell from the 1940s. Claire McCardell (1905-1958) is a Frederick-born fashion designer who challenged the then-standard practice of copying French couture designs. Instead, she created functional, easy-to-wear dresses that helped to shape “the American Look”. McCardell believed that American women like her, wanted to be comfortable while looking good. As she put it, why wouldn’t other women want to wear the clothes that she herself wanted to wear?

Pink evening gown, silk-finished rayon, designed and worn by Claire McCardell, c.1950. Maryland Historical Society, Gift of Robert McCardell, 1998.43.27

This dress, designed and worn by McCardell proves that she was true to her word. Claire clearly loved this dress as it is well-worn. The hem is dirtied and damaged from dragging the floor, and there are multiple repairs to the skirt and underarms, showing that she wore the dress many times.

Details of the silk-finished rayon evening gown worn by Claire McCardell, c. 1950. Left, a detail of the hem shows not only staining but a patch sewn by the designer to cover a loss from a previous wear. Right, a detail of the under arm shows sweat rot from extended wearing and a small patch where a newer piece of fabric was sewn into place.

While she didn’t reproduce this design for sale, it features several self-named “McCardellisms,“ a term given to iconic design elements. With this evening gown, the pockets and yard-long sash are classic McCardellisms. The gown has pockets because McCardell believed womenswear should have pockets just as menswear did, and so she put pockets in every design, including dresses. As she commented, “Men are free of the clothes problem. Why shouldn’t I follow their example?” Claire also knew that every woman’s body was different and that a dress should work for different body types. Using yard-long sashes, McCardell’s designs allowed women to create their own waistline that flattered their shape.

Two Claire McCardell designs featuring string ties to define the waist. Left, Cotton gauze halter dress worn by Marion Conley when she was a buyer for Hutzler’s Shop, c. 1950. Maryland Historical Society, gift of Mrs. Francis J. Conley, 2001.53.2. Right, two-piece evening gown worn by Claire McCardell,1950s. Maryland Historical Society, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Adrian McCardell, 1977.68.3.

The dress doesn’t need to be made and worn by a famous fashion designer however to tell an interesting story. This child’s dress from the Civil War has an interesting story to tell, though the wearer is unknown.

Red printed dress, worn by a girl 8-10 years of age, 1860s. Maryland Historical Society, Gift of Mr. Paul Edel, 1966.87.15

From first glance, this may appear to be an ordinary child’s dress. The back and sleeves close with string which allow for the child to grow without having to immensely alter the dress. Turning the dress inside out, we can learn even more about the family.

Interior of printed red dress, 1860s. Recycled fabrics used for lining. Growth tucks visible which have been let out, breaking the piping design and fabric was spliced in. Maryland Historical Society, Gift of Mr. Paul Edel, 1966.87.15

The dress has been let down at the waist, showing that dress was worn over several years or by several family members. The most interesting part however is that the dress is lined with five different fabrics! The mother lined the gown to keep the child warm, but instead of buying new fabric to line the gown, she used bits of fabric left over from other children’s dresses or her own and pieced them together. This may seem like common sense to some—the lining wouldn’t be seen by anyone and it would be just as warm as using a new pretty fabric, however it was not a common practice. This mother was acting frugally in a time when materials may have been harder to come by.

Clothing, even decades or centuries after it was worn, has a narrative to tell. Using close examination, we can uncover untold stories from Maryland’s history through the people who lived it.

References:

Yohannan, Kohle, and Nolf, N. (1998). Claire McCardell: Redefining Modernism. (Henry N. Arbams, Inc: New York).

Allison Tolman is the Associate Curator of the Fashion Archives and the Chief Registrar at the Maryland Historical Society. Allison has a BA in Art Conservation and Art History from the University of Delaware and a Masters in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University. After beginning her career in conservation, Allison studied collection management and began work as the Registrar at the Maryland Historical Society(MdHS). Over the last three years, she has helped catalog, preserve, and interpret the Fashion Archives collection at MdHS, telling stories from Maryland’s rich social history through clothing.

The Maryland Historical Society also runs a Fashion Archives blog, where they tell stories from Maryland history through their collection on a bi-weekly basis. You can find it here: http://blog.mdhs.org/costumes

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on our blog do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Maryland Humanities or our funders.

The Exclusion of Black Women’s Diary Writing

Posted on March 14, 2018October 18, 2021 by Lou Williams

By Angela Hooks, Ph.D.

Traditionally, scholars trace the emergence of the first black woman to pick up a pen and write to poet Phillis Wheatley, who published a book of poems called Poems on Various Subjects, Religious, and Moral in September 1773. However, I’d like to trace another current in the development of black women’s writing— the black woman’s diary. The black woman’s diary is not separate from any other woman’s diary. However, the black woman’s diary is evidence that black women used diaries—ranging from loose scraps of papers, account books, log books to books with lock and key and spiral notebooks — as a room to reflect, to resist, to emote and to create.

Patricia Bell-Scott asserts black women’s “diaries and journals have been lost through sabotage, and the desire to conceal has been strongest when the writer has ignored social conventions or taboos. Thus, our personal writings … have rarely been published” (Bell-Scott 18). Infrequent publication of black women’s diaries points to four published diaries in sixty-one years although many have been discovered. For example, in 1953, Charlotte Forten’s journals dated from 1854-1892 and 1865 to 1885 were published as the first black woman diarist. One hundred and one years later, in 1984, the second black woman’s diaries, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, ranging from 1921-1931 were published, followed by the publication of Ida B. Wells’s diaries in 1995, eleven years later. Her diaries spanned from 1885 to 1930. In 2014, nineteen years later, two translations of Emilie Frances Davis’s pocket dairies were published. With the discovery and recovery of each diary a new testimony about black women’s lives blossom; because, although diary writing is for all women, not all women are equal.

As a black woman diarist of three decades, I grappled with white scholars, historians, and diarists’ excluded works of black women in the legacy of diary writing. (The exclusion includes black men, but this essay celebrates Women’s History Month.) I desired to find diarist who looked like me. My search for black women diarists began in 2002, first as self-appointed studies, then throughout my doctoral program. I found several black women keeping diaries, notebooks, and journals throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century.

Scholar and historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. attributes this exclusion to the history of Western literature and its criticism that the place of text written by the other—African, Chinese, Latin American, female, or Yiddish authors—has an “an invisible quality,” and remains, until recently, a “silenced and suspended” discourse in the study of literature, Western literature, or comparative literature. Prominent Enlightenment thinkers such as Kant, Hume, and Hegel theorized that to write is to show “visible sign of reason,” (Gates 8). According to Kant, that reason and writing did not exist amongst black people, because they were “lower in mental capacities than all other races” (Kant qtd. in Davis and Gates xxviii). Nevertheless, Emilie Frances Davis (1842-1899) maintained three pocket diaries dated January 1, 1863 to December 31, 1865. Within those pages, she practiced her French and German, sometimes using French and German words in her entries, such as “Yesterday, quite a remarkable au courant meeting at Mrs. Rivers. …” Au courant is aware in French. In another entry, she wrote bon, meaning good in French, “…After the sermon, the bridal parties came in and were married. I expected to hear some objections, bon, not a word” (43). She used the German word fralerne to refer to a young woman, “… We went to call on the Fralerne and Mrs. Read, then went down to the Proctoring.” Her diary demonstrated that she also wrote, sent, received and read letters from friends.

Margo Culley points to the exclusion based on the ideology of “refinement” that shaped the authorship of who did and did not keep journals regarding class, race, and gender (4). Black women’s dairy writing constitutes a unique type of expression that is resistant to marginalizing based on race, gender, and class. The black woman’s diary is the key to self-understanding, to claiming her humanity not as an object of other people’s observations but as a subject with her narrative as truth. In the words of Claudia Tate, “By and large black women writers write for themselves, as a means of maintaining emotional and intellectual clarity, of sustaining self-development and instruction. Each writer writes because she is driven to do so, regardless of whether there is a publisher, an audience or neither” (xviii).

Charlotte L. Forten (1837-1914) maintained five diaries from the age of sixteen until forty-eight, dating from 1854-1892 and 1865 to 1885. Geneva Cobb-Moore describes “Journals of Charlotte Forten” as a hybrid of diary, autobiography, and race biography. Forten’s diary “is located within familial, social and historical frameworks which illuminate how this well known, African American woman dealt with issues of race, class, gender, and self” (Bunkers 17). In her 1862 diary, Forten recorded her five-month stint participating in the Port Royal Experiment, a social experiment to train and educate thousands of abandoned slaves. The abandonment left many illiterate and untrained because they lacked contact with civilization on the sea island where they lived. Forten described her arrival and experience with freed people on St. Helena Island, South Carolina. Her entry reflected her first impression of the people as “contraband” and “specimens” as though they were a type of species prohibited by law for exporting. Her entry marked a moment of reawakening her senses to another part of the devastation of slavery. Forten’s diary exposed the humanity of the people. She wrote about their wedding attire, church sermons, and songs children sang “they sang beautifully in their rich, sweet, clear tones…” (243). Her private writing transformed into an essay published in the May and June 1864 Atlantic Monthly as “Life on the Sea Islands.”

Mary Virginia Montgomery (1849-1902) of Vicksburg Mississippi maintained her diary from January 17, 1872, to December 28, 1872. Her diary reflects private lessons such as singing, playing the piano and horse riding, and literary and educational pursuits: chemistry, American History, zoology, and her readings of the Ten Commandments, and poetical works of Sir Walter Scott. Her diary chronicled rare activities for a young black woman living a comfortable, busy life on a postwar former Mississippi slave plantation (Logan 6). Her diary had “cheerful” reflections with few worries about finances and family and race. She understood her way of life not based on logic or religious beliefs but her understanding of what was right.

Twenty-year-old Laura Hamilton Murray’s diary illustrates a consciousness of time passing, a mark of temporality. Ohio born diarist (1864-1898) was six months pregnant, fourteen months married, and miles away from her family when she started reflecting on her life. Laura and her husband, Freeman, moved to Alexandria, Virginia—approximately five hundred and fifty miles from Ohio. Freeman was employed in the War Department’s Pension Division in Washington, D.C. From that moment of migration, Laura chronicled moments of time passing —February 1885 and February 1886.

Her first diary entry marked a moment of the legalization of a personal relationship: “We have been married 14 mos today, Six days later she wrote “Inauguration day. Six days later, she showed concern for her nation, she wrote: “Went to Washington on ten Oclock train, saw president going to Capitol to take oath.” Inauguration Day marked the beginning of Grove Cleveland’s presidency, in which Murray participated. She also recorded awaiting the arrival of her baby. Murray’s ritual of chronicling time passing supports Cully’s assertion that a diarist keeps a diary when “marriage, travel, and widowhood are occasions creating a sense of discontinuity of self—I was that now I am this, I was there, not I am here…attempting to preserve continuity seemingly broken or lost” (8). Murray kept a time stamp on her marriage, on March 19 she penned, “One year today I landed here, a bride of eleven wks., I was homesick and how I wished for Mamma.” Murray reported on stages of her pregnancy also show a “sense of discontinuity of self”: March 6: I am six quite large, and I am afraid if I go out remarks might be made; My time draws near (Sterling 473-475).

For Murray, the phrase “as time draws near” reflects giving birth as well as untimely death. The diarist mentioned death approximately seven times. She feared death, for her baby, her husband, and self. After giving birth, Murray became concerned about her health based on the function of her breast. Her fears were real. After birthing two more children, Laura died at thirty-four years old.

These diaries penned by black women in the eighteenth, and nineteenth century supports Gates’ argument: “Without writing, there could exist no repeatable sign of the workings of reason, or mind. Without memory or mind, no history […][.] Without history, no ‘humanity’” (11; emphasis original). Even Ida B. Wells understood this concept, penning in her diary: “I am writing myself into history and recording history for the younger generation, a history of horrors of lynching” (Wells-Barnett 34).

The discovery and recovery of black women’s diaries leaves a legacy of their personal and private realities that evoke their experience and preserve their memory.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on our blog do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Maryland Humanities or our funders.

Sources:

Bell-Scott, Patricia. Life Notes: Personal Writings by Contemporary Black Women. Ed. Bell-Scott, Patricia. W.W. Norton & Company, New York. 1995.

Bunkers, Suzanne L, and Cynthia Anne Huff. Inscribing the Daily: Critical Essays on Women’s Diaries. Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press, 1996.

Ray Allen Billington, “A Social Experiment: The Port Royal Journal of Charlotte L. Forten, 1862-1863.,” The Journal of Negro History 35, no. 3 (July 1950): 233-264.

Christian, Barbara. Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers. New York, Pergamon Press, 1985.

Culley, Margo A Day at a Time: The Diary Literature of American Women from 1764 to the Present., The Feminist Press. New York. 1985.

Gates, Henry Louis. “Writing “Race” and the Difference It Makes” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 12, No. 1, Autumn, 1985, 1-20. The University of Chicago Press. JStor.

Hooks, Bell. Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work. 1st ed. ed., New York, Henry Holt, 1999.

Sterling, Dorothy. We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. 1st ed. ed., New York, W.W. Norton, 1984.

Wells-Barnett, Ida. The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells: An Intimate Portrait of the Activist as a Young Woman, Ed. Decosta-Willis, Miriam, and Wells-Barnett, Ida, 1862-1931. Foreword, Mary Helen Washington. Afterword, Dorothy Sterling. Massachusetts. Beacon Press, 1995. 1-240.

Whitehead, Karsonya. Notes from a Colored Girl: The Civil War Pocket Diaries of Emilie Frances Davis (Women’s Diaries and Letters of the South). University of South Carolina Press. Columbia, South Carolina. 2014.

Education of Cloistered Women in Colonial Latin America

Posted on February 28, 2018October 29, 2021 by Lou Williams

We have been rearranging blog duties amongst our staff, so apologies for the lag in posting! Our Digital & Database Associate, Sarah Wyer, dug into her file cabinet of scholarship to pull together a blog post about the Education of Cloistered Women in Colonial Latin America. This is an overview that explores the positionality of nuns of the black veil–things were certainly more complex!

Views of Lima © Matthew Barker, Peru For Less 2009

Education in Colonial Latin America was a male privilege. There were two acceptable methods of education available to women: through their mothers, or through religious institutions, primarily convents. If they lived in or near a city, where convents and educational institutes were first established, then it was more likely that women (especially second and third daughters) would find themselves somehow connected to a nunnery.

“The majority of convents date after 1570 and reached their numerical apogee in the seventeenth century. At their height, the thirteen convents in Lima housed more than 20 percent of the city’s women” (Burkholder and Johnson 116).

This is due, in part, to the lack of other options open to women during this period. Women who were part of the elite class (which did not represent the majority of colonial populations—there was very little trickle-down wealth) generally had two options. They could marry, or they could enter the convent. Women who chose either door were sent with a dowry. If they were married, the dowry remained their property, but usually brought prestige to the husband. Marriages were more often alliances of power and wealth, and the benefit of obtaining a wife was not so much her dowry as her connections and social status. Convents also required a dowry, although they were often less costly, making nunneries an attractive option for an elite family with many daughters.

“The size and importance of the dowry depended on what type of nun one became, for there were two different types of nuns in each convent, a reflection of the hierarchy of colonial society. The elite within any convent were the nuns of the black veil. Beneath them in prestige and power, although often as numerous, were the nuns of the white veil, women of more modest social origins. These women entered the convent with smaller dowries and enjoyed less leisure time and comfort than regular professed nuns” (Socolow 96).

Nuns of the white veil and nuns of the black veil were separated by status, race, and wealth, and then even further by their duties within the convent itself. “The majority of convents, those of calced orders, required that nuns have both a cash dowry and yearly income, thereby further limiting the number of women who could enter as nuns of the black veil” (95). As in marriage, nuns were able to keep their dowries, and even make a personal income through business or other profitable enterprises.

Catarina de Monte Sinay was one such nun of the black veil who died a wealthy woman, having built her fortune through the practice of loaning money and collecting interest on it, among other ventures. But whatever property, assets, or wealth a nun accumulated in her lifetime went to the convent upon her death. This probably explains why entrepreneurship was allowed, even celebrated, among nuns of the black veil.

Nuns of the white veil adopted more menial tasks. They “served as housekeepers and in other activities considered inappropriate for the nuns of the black veil with whom they lived” (Burkholder and Johnson 117). Convents were also institutions of education for many of the women who entered them, but this too was affected by a woman’s race and social status. Nuns of the black veil usually had a background in basic education. They were literate and could read and write, often in more than one language. As prestigious nuns of the black veil, they could dabble in the arts and pen poetry as well as pursue an education in literature, philosophy, and ecclesiastical doctrine.

Ironically, perhaps, cloistered women of higher status had the greatest amount of access to education in Colonial Latin America. “The elite within these orders were nuns of the black veil, the most educated group of women in the colonies. Almost exclusively colonial born, they brought with them sizable dowries, and they alone could vote and serve in offices in the convent and sing the canonical hours in the choir ” (116). In this light, convents could be interpreted as havens for the intelligent woman.

Sources:

Burkholder, Mark A. and Lyman L Johnson. 2009.

Colonial Latin America. 7th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Socolow, Susan Migden. 2000.

The Women of Colonial Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sarah Wyer is the Digital & Database Associate for Maryland Humanities. She has an M.A. in Arts Management and an M.A. in Folklore with a focus on gender and art.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on our blog do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Maryland Humanities or our funders.

“The never stopping listening”—An Encounter with Ursula Le Guin

Posted on January 24, 2018October 29, 2021 by Lou Williams

“I’m just a novelist.”

This was Ursula K. Le Guin’s repeated response at the University of Oregon in 2014 as people lined up to praise her with thoughtful, pleading questions. “How do you feel about the way gender is constructed in our society?” “What should we do now?”

“I put everything I had to say in my books.”

Watching her from the audience, I had the distinct impression that a cat belonged in her lap while she spoke. Le Guin loved cats—especially black cats, who are statistically less likely to find homes because of the superstitions tied to them. She even maintained a blog where she included entries called The Annals of Pard (her cat). She spoke to the feminist magazine I wrote for in college and did a Q&A with our editor for the “Cat Edition.” Her kindness with her time was always admirable.

On stage, she read us an unpublished story about three sisters who folded themselves into male identities to operate their family ranch unprovoked. Then she broke the tension of hundreds of minds settling into sad understanding by sharing a recent discovery that her husband had never read Jane Austen. “’Oh, Charles!’ I said!” Then she laughed and told us that she started reading Emma aloud to him.

Ursula Le Guin. Photo by Marian Wood Kolisch.

Ursula K. Le Guin is a celebrated figure, internationally respected for her revolutionary work in science fiction and fantasy. She pushed boundaries, deconstructed gender, questioned human truths, espoused feminist theory, and did it all with style and humility. She won the prestigious Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards multiple times for her writing.

She is a celebrated figure at the place where I completed my undergraduate education, as well. The University of Oregon Libraries hold the Ursula K. Le Guin literary papers, which she has been donating to the library’s special collections since the early 1970s. The University of Oregon has a Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellowship to encourage research in feminist speculative and science fiction.

I was thrilled to meet her.

She signed my copy of The Left Hand of Darkness, one of her most famous books, and chatted with me about what I was studying. Her presence wasn’t of the star-striking variety—she carried comfort and familiarity like a coat and wherever she was you thought, ‘Yes, this is normal. This is right, that she is here.’ It feels strange, although I am one near-stranger in a sea of millions, to know that she is no longer in Portland, no longer updating her blog, writing short stories, reading Jane Austen books aloud to her husband. The knowledge of her absence feels unnatural.

Yet, her work is not done. I am reminded of her speech at the 2014 National Book Awards, where she received the lifetime achievement award:

“Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries, realists of a larger reality.”

A parting gift, Le Guin shared a poem she wrote in 1991 as the last entry on her blog.

Writers, we have work to do.

Poem Written in 1991, When the Soviet Union Was Disintegrating
by Ursula K. Le Guin

The reason why I’m learning Spanish
by reading Neruda one word at a time
looking most of them up in the dictionary
and the reason why I’m reading
Dickinson one poem at a time
and still not understanding
or liking much, and the reason
why I keep thinking about
what might be a story
and the reason why I’m sitting
here writing this, is that I’m trying
to make this thing.
I am shy to name it.
My father didn’t like words like “soul.”
He shaved with Occam’s razor.
Why make up stuff
when there’s enough already?
But I do fiction. I make up.
There is never enough stuff.
So I guess I can call it what I want to.
Anyhow it isn’t made yet.
I am trying one way and another
all words — So it’s made out of words, is it?
No. I think the best ones
must be made out of brave and kind acts,
and belong to people who look after things
with all their heart,
and include the ocean at twilight.
That’s the highest quality
of this thing I am making:
kindness, courage, twilight, and the ocean.
That kind is pure silk.
Mine’s only rayon. Words won’t wash.
It won’t wear long.
But then I haven’t long to wear it.
At my age I should have made it
long ago, it should be me,
clapping and singing at every tatter,
like Willy said. But the “mortal dress,”
man, that’s me. That’s not clothes.
That is me tattered.
That is me mortal.
This thing I am making is my clothing soul.
I’d like it to be immortal armor,
sure, but I haven’t got the makings.
I just have scraps of rayon.
I know I’ll end up naked
in the ground or on the wind.
So, why learn Spanish?
Because of the beauty of the words of poets,
and if I don’t know Spanish
I can’t read them. Because praise
may be the thing I’m making.
And when I’m unmade
I’d like it to be what’s left,
a wisp of cheap cloth,
a color in the earth,
a whisper on the wind.

Una palabra, un aliento.

So now I’ll turn right round
and unburden an embittered mind
that would rejoice to rejoice
in the second Revolution in Russia
but can’t, because it has got old
and wise and mean and womanly
and says: So. The men
having spent seventy years in the name of something
killing men, women, and children,
torturing, running slave camps,
telling lies and making profits,
have now decided
that that something wasn’t the right one,
so they’ll do something else the same way.

Seventy years for nothing.

And the dream that came before the betrayal,
the justice glimpsed before the murders,
the truth that shone before the lies,
all that is thrown away.
It didn’t matter anyway
because all that matters
is who has the sayso.

Once I sang freedom, freedom,
sweet as a mockingbird.
But I have learned Real Politics.
No freedom for our children
in the world of the sayso.
Only the listening.
The silence all around the sayso.
The never stopping listening.
So I will listen
to women and our children
and powerless men,
my people. And I will honor only
my people, the powerless.

–Ursula K. Le Guin
1991

Sarah Wyer is the Digital & Database Associate for Maryland Humanities. She has an M.A. in Arts Management and an M.A. in Folklore with a focus on gender and art.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on our blog do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Maryland Humanities or our funders.

Q&A with 2017 Chautauqua Scholar-Actor Doug Mishler

Posted on July 5, 2017June 29, 2017 by Lou Williams

For the 23rd season of our Chautauqua living history series, we are commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the United States’ entry into the Great War as three World War I-era figures come to life on the Chautauqua stage. As Chautauqua approaches, we will hear from the three scholar-actors who will perform at seven sites across Maryland this July. Our last post is from Doug Mishler, who previews his performance as General John Pershing.

What drew you to this character?

I had heard about General Pershing for years, but he did not register in my mind until I read a piece about how his family had died shortly before going overseas. That opened the door for me to try to understand this complex man going through such a devastating personal crisis while having to lead millions of men, form an army from scratch, and take on modern war in all its horror. How does a man do that? What kind of a man does that?

How did you research your character and prepare for your performance?

I start with generic biographies and then focus on reading and re-reading as much detail as I can. I also attempt to get as much as I can of their “own words,” sifting through, in this case, Pershing’s endless account of the war—it is not an easy read, by the way. I try to cover all aspects of his amazingly long and complex career, which saw him in battle near constantly.

What is the most interesting facet of your character’s life?

For me it is that this is a compassionate man who deeply and profoundly loved his family and a few friends, but after his family died, he never made a new friend. Their death intensified the duality of the man who could be so officious and formal publicly, but at heart was warm and gregarious. He was a man who with steel will could send tens of thousands of men to their deaths, but privately weep over what he had to do and wonder if they could ever forgive him.

Did you learn anything new or surprising about your character through your research?

I learned tons, about the complexity of the man and the duality of his personality. His sense of duty and his sense of honor were so profound, and his leadership was remarkable.

This year our Chautauqua series commemorates the 100th Anniversary of the United States’ entry into the Great War. What do you think your character’s legacy was in World War I?

For Americans in many ways, he was the war. The good and bad, the necessity, the horror and death, all revolve around this tough, hard man who had an iron will. He was a man who led the American military into a new century as a modern integrated force and in a way helped launch the United States onto the world stage from which it has never left.

Experience Doug Mishler’s performance as General Pershing at a Chautauqua location near you, starting today!

About Doug Mishler

Doug Mishler is an independent scholar who has taught at the University of Nevada and Western Washington University. He is the author of a history of the Ringling Brothers Circus and has consulted on several public television and Chautauqua programs. Since 1995, Mishler has appeared in Maryland Humanities’ Chautauquas as P. T. Barnum, Theodore Roosevelt, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Ford, Jefferson Davis, George Wallace, Upton Sinclair, and Major General Robert Ross. He also portrays Ernie Pyle, Billy Sunday, William Clark, Andrew Carnegie, Edward R. Murrow, Thomas Hart Benton, and Nikita Khrushchev. Mishler has a Ph.D. in American cultural history from the University of Nevada, Reno.

Du Bois’s Great War: Nationalism and Negotiating Identity for Black Children

Posted on June 28, 2017October 18, 2021 by Lou Williams

For the 23^rdseason of our Chautauqua living history series, we are commemorating the 100^th Anniversary of the United States’ entry into the Great War as three World War I-era figures come to life on the Chautauqua stage. One of those figures is renowned African American activist W.E.B. Du Bois. Dr. DaMaris B. Hill, Assistant Professor of English, Creative Writing and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky, tells us about Du Bois’s publication for children, The Brownies’ Book.

One hundred years ago, in 1917, the United States of America entered The Great War. My great grandparents were preteens and most likely already working. America was 141 years old and still trying diligently to define what being “American” meant to its citizens and how America would be perceived by the rest of the world. The Original Dixieland ‘Jass’ Band recorded a new genre of music, jazz, that was African and European in origin. It could only be made in America. It was miscegenation music. President Woodrow Wilson declared “The world must be safe for democracy. Its place must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty”. And, meanwhile during 1917 and most of the 20^th Century the oppressive policies regarding Jim Crow raged. Segregationist policies like Jim Crow and the gender specific Jane Crow (aimed at discriminating against black women) made democracy impossible in a national context. This is most evidenced in the race riots of 1917 such as the East St. Louis Massacre and the Houston Riot.

Born in 1868 of American and Haitian parents, W.E.B. Du Bois was an American intellectual, Pan-Africanist, author, historian, sociologist, civil rights activist and editor. He was a graduate of Fisk University, Harvard University and University of Berlin. He was also instrumental in founding the NAACP and served as a public intellectual over many decades. Along with other American activists such as Ida B. Wells, Mary White Ovington and Henry Moskowitz, Du Bois worked in multiple ways to promote democracy and advocate for democratic policies to be practiced in the everyday lives of African Americans.

It is important that this year’s Chautauqua about The Great War includes discussions about Du Bois’ perspectives regarding national identity, particularly in context of segregation and separatist propaganda. It is also important that we recognize how these perspectives influenced American history and culture. Many publications and much of the literature produced before 1910 sought to define what it means to be “American.” This push to define America can be recognized in context of print capitalism. Print capitalism contributes to the ways “nationhood” is conceived by using technologies, such as the printing press, to stimulate a common language and common discourse in printed books and other media. Print capitalism stimulated a sort of pictorial census of the state’s patrimony even at the high cost to the state’s subjects. This specifically impacted African Americans, Native Americans, and to some extent immigrants and women, because print capitalism promoted segregation and the wide acceptance of second class citizenship in the mainstream media. In many ways, print capitalism was used to make sure that the larger public was convinced that non-white people were second best – at best.

Du Bois used his intellect, networks and influence to create magazines and literature aimed at countering the negative stereotypes African American/Black people were forced to negotiate because of segregationist policies and ideas promoted by print capitalism. One such magazine was The Crisis established in 1910; it was designed to “set forth those facts and arguments which show the danger of race prejudice, particularly as manifested today toward colored people.” Its name was derived from the fact that Du Bois and the other editors believed that the early 20^th Century was a critical time in the history of the advancement of men. They also agreed that The Crisis would reflect some sense of nationalism, stating that the magazine “will stand for the rights of men, irrespective of color or race, for the highest ideals of American democracy, and for reasonable but earnest and persistent attempts to gain these rights and realize these ideals.” A decade later Du Bois worked with editors Augustus Granville Dill and Jessie Redmon Fauset to publish another type of magazine, this one for children.

In The Crisis Issue, “The True Brownies” sought to teach Black children about Pan-African Culture, racial identity, and social situations in the Americas and abroad. The editors wanted young readers to know about the history and accomplishments of Black people, domestically and abroad. The contents included poetry, stories, folktales, photographs, art and opinion pieces. In fact, The Brownies’ Book publications promoted and conveyed boundless possibilities to many Black children that because of nationalist propaganda, they did not see in mainstream media. The periodical promoted and inspired self-respect and self-love in Black children and families. In The Best of The Brownies Books Marian Wright Edelman writes, Du Bois’ publications like The Crisis and The Brownies’ Book instilled a sense of life that transcended the artificial boundaries of race, second best citizenship, gender and material things associated with economic wealth. As a result, readers and subscribers were also gifted with a life-long layer of insulation against the ugly voices of doubt, racism and hatred.

Jessie Redmon Fauset used the 24 issues of The Brownies’ Book not only to counter print capitalism, but in some ways to inspire and nurture important artistic vision. It is paramount to note that the Harlem Renaissance emerged and grew at the same moment that The Brownies’ Book was being published and circulated. Fauset published many writers and artists in The Brownies’ Book that would later become iconic figures within the Harlem Renaissance, including writers such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Nella Larsen.

When Du Bois published and circulated The Brownies’ Book, he created opportunities and encouraged dialogues between young readers and their parents or guardians, drawing the African American family together and promoting ideas relating to nationalism, democracy, and Pan-Africanism. The Crisis magazine and The Brownies’ Book allowed Du Bois to shape the conversation about nationalism and identity during The Great War. In addition, the publications were bold and necessary statements in and about American culture and by extension fostered several aspects of African American cultural production.

About Dr. DaMaris B. Hill

Dr. DaMaris B. Hill’s work is modeled after the work of in the work of Toni Morrison and an expression of her theories regarding ‘rememory’. She has studied with writers such as Lucille Clifton, Monifa Love-Asante, Marita Golden and others. Her development as a writer has also been enhanced by the institutional support of The MacDowell Colony and others. Her books include The Fluid Boundaries of Suffrage and Jim Crow: Staking Claims in the Heartland and \ Vi-zə-bəl \ \ Teks-chərs \ (Visible Textures), short collection of poems. Hill’s creative process and scholarly research is interdisciplinary and examines the intersections between literature, cultural studies and digital humanities. Hill serves as an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, English and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky.

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