Author: Maryland Humanities

Pulitzer: Behind the Prizes

Posted on by Maryland Humanities

There’s nothing like a Pulitzer Prize to make industry professionals and average readers alike take note of great literature and the importance of narrative in our collective experience. We know that journalists, photographers, novelists, and historians often work for decades before they win the coveted Pulitzer Prize. Many more are recognized as talented leaders in their fields, but never receive the honor. But what do we know about the original Pulitzer, whose name has become so revered?

Joseph Pulitzer (originally “Politzer”) was born in Hungary in the spring of 1847. Though he had many siblings, only Joseph and his brother Albert survived to adulthood. The brothers received the finest education available and each knew at least three languages. When he turned 17, Joseph Pulitzer was intent on joining the military. He was turned down by the British, Austrian, and French forces. In 1864, he finally enlisted in a German unit and began his journey to New York City to fight for the Union in the American Civil War, even though he couldn’t speak English.

Pulitzer was discharged from the army within a year, leaving him desperate to find a job. New York was full of other unemployed veterans and limited jobs, which meant he was often jobless and sometimes homeless. In the fall of 1865, Pulitzer took a train to St. Louis, shoveling coal to pay for his passage across the Mississippi River.

Once he arrived in St. Louis, Pulitzer worked a series of odd jobs ranging from grave digger to mule caretaker. Finally, he was offered an opportunity to track land rights for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. Discovering law inspired Pulitzer to learn more. In 1867, he became a naturalized citizen. He was admitted to the Missouri bar within a year.

To Pulitzer, the pinnacle of St. Louis was the Mercantile Library. He spent entire days inside the Mercantile’s stacks, delving into new subjects and strengthening his English. It was at this library where Pulitzer met Carl Schurz of the Westliche Post. Schurz was impressed by Pulitzer’s intellectual appetite and hired him to work on the paper. As a reporter, Pulitzer was famous for his exhaustive detail, which tended to infuriate his peers.

In a strange turn of fate, Pulitzer was nominated for a city representative seat while covering a political  convention in 1869. At the age of 22, Pulitzer surpassed all expectation and won the seat. He quickly made his mark as a staunchly anti-corruption official. Within three weeks, his accusations put him in physical danger. A local contractor, whom Pulitzer had accused of being corrupt, punched Pulitzer and Pulitzer shot him in the leg. The incident stunted his political future and Pulitzer threw himself back into his work as a journalist.

In 1872, Pulitzer was offered and accepted part ownership of the Westliche Post, coupled with the position of managing editor. He sold his share in 1876, using the profits to travel home to Hungary and to buy the St. Louis Dispatch once he returned to Missouri. He convinced the owner of the Post to merge with the Dispatch, creating the Post-Dispatch. Pulitzer called the paper a “vehicle for truth,” and used the platform to denounce corrupt officials.

While Pulitzer made many enemies, he gained public support. His personal life also flourished; he married Kate Davis in 1878, with whom he would have seven children. Yet for all his success, Pulitzer’s health was in decline. And though he knew blindness was eminent and his nervous system would only get worse, Pulitzer could not pass up opportunity when he saw it. In 1883, he purchased the New York World and moved back to New York City. Pulitzer continued to manage both the Post-Dispatch and the World, often from his soundproof bedroom or his yacht. After a brief stint as a congressman, Pulitzer surrendered his seat and focused on building the World’s power and reputation. The World became known for its investigative journalism, including coverage that ended Standard Oil’s monopoly and forced campaign contributions to be public.

However, even Pulitzer was not immune to the temptations of competition. In 1895, William Randolph Hearst bought the New York Journal, the World’s competition. Desperate to sell more papers, Hearst and Pulitzer practiced “yellow journalism”: their papers were dominated by shocking reveals, glitzy photos, and gory headlines. Nearly a decade passed before Pulitzer would once again report only facts.

Despite his mounting health problems, Pulitzer’s intellectual power never dimmed. Secretaries were hired to read and banter with him. He controlled the editorial page of the World and the Post-Dispatch until his death in October 1911.

Detail of the Pulitzer Prize Medal
Detail of the Pulitzer Prize Medal

Prior to his death, Joseph Pulitzer created a will in 1904 that would help to cement his legacy in the field of journalism. Two million dollars was allocated to Columbia University to go towards the creation of a journalism school; in 1912, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism was established. Its inaugural student body consisted of over 100 graduate and undergraduate students from twenty-one countries. In addition to the journalism school, Pulitzer also stipulated that $250,000 would be “applied to prizes or scholarships for the encouragement of public service, public morals, American literature, and the advancement of education.” Initially awarding prizes in journalism, letters, and drama, the number of prizes awarded has increased to twenty-one and now include prizes in photography, music, and poetry.

The first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded on June 4, 1917:  Herbert Bayard Swope of New York World (Reporting); New York Tribune (Editorial Writing); With Americans of Past and Present Days, by His Excellency J.J. Jusserand (History); and Julia Ward Howe, by Laura E. Richards and Maude Howe Elliott assisted by Florence Howe Hall (Biography and Autobiography). Pulitzer Prize recipients over the years have included: Arthur Miller (Drama, 1949), Bob Dylan (Special Citation, 2008), Toni Morrison (Fiction, 1988), and John Steinbeck (Fiction, 1940). Three Pulitzer Prize winners will be featured in our annual Chautauqua in July.

MHC is commemorating the centennial of the Pulitzer Prizes with a year-long series of events highlighting the impact of this award-winning work on our lives.

These events are part of the Pulitzer Prizes Centennial Campfires Initiative, a nationwide celebration funded by the Pulitzer Prizes, in partnership with the Federation of State Humanities Councils, and made possible through a $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Programming began in March with panel discussions featuring acclaimed journalists discussing their craft and will culminate in the fall at a special event featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch.

Join us at one of our upcoming “Journalism & Its Power to Inform” panels. All panels are FREE, open to the public, and begin at 7 p.m. at The Baltimore Sun, 501 N. Calvert St.

• April 19: Challenges Faced by Baltimore – Justin Fenton, Erica Green, E.R. Shipp (Pulitzer 1996), Diana Sugg (Pulitzer 2003)

• May 10: The Environment – Will Englund (Pulitzer 1998), McKay Jenkins, Elizabeth McGowan (Pulitzer 2013), John McQuaid (Pulitzer 1997, 2006)

A Writer with Writers: EcoJustice – Finding Ways to Love What We Have Been Given

Posted on by Maryland Humanities

Like most people, I try to be a good steward of the planet: I try to recycle, I think about sustainability and environmental destruction, and I am trying to understand the social roots of environmental problems. I do care about the environment but – like most people – I am not actively involved in nor do I really understand what it means to practice the art of daily ecojustice. This is a new area of study for me and through reading and studying the work of Dr. Rita Turner, I am learning about what it means to be personally involved in and connected to trying to do the hard work to save our planet. I have also learned how to share and teach this work to others. If activism, according to Alice Walker, is our rent for living on the planet then practicing the art of daily ecojustice is the work we do to keep the lights on for the next generation.

Environmental justice cultural studies is a relatively new area of study that combines the fields of environmental history, critical legal studies, social science, ethnic studies, women’s studies, cultural geography, and other forms of cultural criticism and as such, practitioners have been actively working to take this information into the K-12 classrooms.[1]  As we begin to start preparing for Earth Day 2016, I sat down with writer and ecojustice activist Rita Turner to discuss her new book, Teaching for EcoJustice—which focuses on a curriculum that she developed to take ecojustice activism into humanities-based educational settings.

Kaye Whitehead: Why did you decide to write this book?

Rita Turner: I think this book was motivated by fear for the world, and by love for it.  I look at the serious environmental and social problems we’re facing today, and I’m terrified and angry.  But I also feel so much love for the land, for other living beings, and for people.  I want to help young people to connect with the love that we as humans can inherently feel for and desire from the world around us, and I also want them to learn to think very critically about why we treat the world the way we do and what the alternatives could be for a better, more just, more abundant and healthy world.

Despite all the terrifying problems looming over us in the world today, I feel that, as a society, we rarely have real conversations about the roots of environmental and social issues.  Our behavior is motivated by our belief systems, our attitudes, our values – and these belief systems too often go unexamined.  How do we see the world around us?  What do we believe our relationship should be, to other people, to other species of animals, to the land?  Our culture encourages and maintains certain answers to these questions, whether we realize it or not.  And when we look at these culturally reproduced beliefs, we find that they’re often based on hidden assumptions and hierarchies of value, about who is more or less important.

I feel it’s essential that we begin to incorporate into our public lives real strategies for analyzing and reformulating the underlying beliefs and assumptions that have produced such damaging consequences in the world.  Schools and other educational sites are some of the best places to begin.  I also think we owe it to the students we are teaching to give them a clearer view of their own culture and of the roots of the problems that they will have to tackle in their lifetimes.  Schools should be places that encourage sustainability and justice, not places that simply reproduce the status quo.

So I started designing and testing curriculum materials that help students take a closer look at their relationship to the larger world around them, at their own cultural belief systems, and at the effects of those beliefs as they play out in our actions.  I spent years designing and testing the materials, and I’m so excited that now they’re collected into a form that high school and college teachers can use in their own classrooms.

 

KW: Which writers inspire you?

RT: David Abram is a beautiful writer whose ideas have also been extremely influential to me in my own work.  Other sources of inspiration come from far and wide! Wisława Szymborska, William Faulker, Terry Pratchett, Mark Doty, Alice Walker, bell hooks, Virginia Woolf… I could go on!

 

KW: What does being a writer mean to you?

RT: I think of myself as an educator more than as a writer, but in some ways for me those are the same.  Language has so much power – it can be used to mask truths or reveal them, to open us up to connections or isolate us from others.  I want my writing to be a force for connection, and for unflinching examination of ourselves and our world.  I want it to push us to look at things we’re not used to seeing.

 

KW: What book do you wish you could have written?

RT: Oh goodness, The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram has made such an impact on me.  I admire David Abram’s perspective.

 

KW: You refer to yourself as a scholar/writer – can you explain what this means to you?

RT: It may be obvious by now that I think critical examination of our culture is so very important.  To me this means blending scholarship and writing and education.  There shouldn’t be just a handful of people in the world who have closely examined the cultural belief systems that influence all of us each day – we should all be doing that.  My scholarship, to some extent, is about finding ways to make such examinations part of public life and educational life.

 

KW: What writing advice do you have for other aspiring authors?

 

RT: Write for those you love.  Write to give something to the world for their sake, to make their futures better, or to honor them, or to share what they’ve taught you.  Be moved by what the world has given you.

 

KW: What advice would you give to your younger self?

RT: I guess I would say keep following your path wherever it takes you!  It will all add insights and experiences to who you become in the future.  And give yourself as fully as you can to your work and your loved ones and the world.

 

KW: Tell us about the cover and how it came about.

RT: The book cover was a collaboration with my terrific editor.  I’m very happy with the image.  I want the book to help move us toward healthier, more just, and more reflective relationships with other beings, and I hope that’s captured in the cover image.  There are possibilities for living more collaborative and more respectful lives, shared with other people, other creatures, and the land.  We should be finding those possibilities.

 

About the Writer: Rita Turner, Ph.D., is a Lecturer at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where she studies the cultural roots of environmental and social problems, and develops curricula to analyze these cultural roots through education. She received her PhD in Language, Literacy, and Culture from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2011. Prior to her graduate studies, Dr. Turner taught high school English in a Baltimore City public school and ran a national nonprofit environmental advocacy organization for high school and college students. She is a resident of Baltimore City, where she also works on issues of food justice, environmental racism, and urban agroecology. Teaching for EcoJustice: Curriculum and Lessons for Secondary and College Classrooms is her first book. Read more about the book and find out how to purchase a copy on the Teaching for EcoJustice website.

About the Interviewer: Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor, Department of Communication at Loyola University Maryland and the Founding Executive Director at The Emilie Frances Davis Center for Education, Research, and Culture. Her new anthology, RaceBrave, was published in March 2016.

[1] For more information on environmental justice cultural studies, see http://culturalpolitics.net/environmental_justice/introduction

Writing 50 Great American Places: An Exercise in Public History

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by Brent D. Glass, Director Emeritus, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

I wrote 50 Great American Places with three goals in mind. First, I want to encourage historical literacy.  By this, I am not referring to the memorization of dates and names although that kind of information can be useful.  By historical literacy, I am talking about understanding the context of events and the relationships between people, places, and historical events. Perhaps the term historical curiosity is a better way to describe what I mean.  In any case, historical literacy is directly connected to being a citizen in a democracy.

Second, I want people to experience history first-hand through heritage tourism.  We can enjoy reading good books about the past but there is nothing like being at the Mt. Clare Shops in Baltimore or the Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania or the historic town of New Castle, Delaware to be inspired by the stories of these great historic places.  Visiting an authentic historic place stirs our imagination and inspires us to pursue greater knowledge about our shared heritage.

View of Taliesin
Taliesin East, the home and estate of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, located near Spring Green, Wisconsin

Finally, I wrote the book to encourage historic preservation.  We owe so much to the visionaries who made an extraordinary commitment to saving the physical presence of the past.  Beginning with the Mount Vernon Ladies Association who saved George Washington’s home in Virginia in the 1850s, there are dozens of examples of preservation initiatives that allow us to enjoy our national heritage today.  In addition, we owe a debt of gratitude to the professionals and volunteers at historic sites throughout the country who continue this valuable preservation work today.  In my book, I include many sites that are managed by the National Park Service, a government agency that observes its centennial this year and plays a leadership role in historic preservation.

I used several criteria in selecting the sites in 50 Great American Places.  Regional representation was important to me as well as examples of sites from every time period including sites from pre-colonial periods.  I also selected sites that were open and accessible to the public.  I emphasized historic places where a major event had occurred rather than museums with great collections.  Above all, I identified places that reflect essential and enduring themes in American history.  These themes are 1) story of freedom; 2) the impact of war; 3) the influence of innovation and technology; 4) the contributions of diverse cultural traditions; and 5) the influence of America’s dramatic landscape.

The sites featured in my book are great because they illustrate these major themes. My hope is that readers will understand that history is not inevitable.  It is the result of decisions by men and women who were trying to solve technical problems or address significant issues.  They were not certain of the result of their choices and they were doing their best.  When we visit the sites where they lived and worked, we should approach these historic places with a sense of empathy and gratitude.

 

Finding and Cultivating Your Ideas

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Every day—at book festivals, during classroom visits, in interviews conducted by Skype—writers take part in Q&A sessions with audiences. If you’ve sat in one of these sessions, you probably know the one question a writer is almost guaranteed to hear: “Where do you get your ideas?”

Though common, the question is tough to answer. I usually offer a few sentences, something about keeping my senses alert, studying the world, plumbing my own memories. I confess to bad habits, including eavesdropping. While this response isn’t untrue, it feels inadequate. The reality is, the origins of a story—or a poem, a song, a painting—can be hard to articulate. A character gesture, fleeting image, or line of dialogue might have launched a project, but—like one of Andy Goldsworthy’s outdoor sculptures, leaves stitched together with pine needles, say—it’s altered by weather and time.

What if, instead, we considered the question, How do you take care of your ideas? Once one of these seeds starts to seem viable, what next?

Ideas come when you’re open to them. And it’s with that same spirit of openness that you develop the ideas. You move forward, being willing to upend, redirect, or tinker. You listen to what the stories—or essays, or poems—are telling you they want to be about. You note interesting connections your subconscious is making, ones your conscious mind wasn’t aware of. When you finish a draft, you look at what’s working and what isn’t, tease out themes or character traits, delete some passages, expand others. Then you ask for feedback from readers and revise some more.

In short, you put in the hours. Just as the more regularly you exercise, the easier it is to lace up your running shoes, the more you write, the more ingrained the habit. Writing begets more writing.

In general, the most steadily productive writers I know don’t treat their writing as overly precious. They just do it. They find a rhythm that works for them. It might be every day—or not. Sometimes they feel like a genius, and other times, a miserable fraud. But they keep going.

Some writing sessions won’t yield much, but others will take you so deep into your project, you’ll exist in a sort of creative dream state. Circular as the logic may seem, through the act of writing itself, you’ll figure out what you mean to say.

To be fair, even when you do invest the time, not every idea will prove viable. Sometimes a project just needs to be put aside, to give it—or you—time to mature. Other ideas may never work out. That’s just part of the process.

I say all this as much to remind myself as to tell you. There are ideas I’m not tending very diligently, even as I speak. But talk to me next week, when one of my projects is humming again, and I’ll tell a different story.

Elisabeth Dahl writes for both children and adults. Her first book, Genie Wishes, was released in 2013. Her short stories, essays, and poems have appeared at NPR.org, The Rumpus, the Johns Hopkins Magazine, and other outlets. Born in Baltimore, she went on to study literature and writing at Brown, Johns Hopkins, and Georgetown universities. After working as a freelance copyeditor and proofreader in Washington, DC and the San Francisco Bay Area, she moved back to Baltimore, where she teaches writing through Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth.

“Finding and Cultivating Your Ideas” was first produced as a piece on Humanities Connection. Listen to Elisabeth Dahl read the essay on Humanities Connection.

The Uprising in Focus – A Public Plenary

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Every year at its annual meeting, the  National Council on Public History (NCPH) organizes a public plenary, free  and open to the public, not only conference attendees. This seems only right. NCPH  members are preservationists, archivists,  museum professionals, graduate students,  professors, and a wide array of others.  Although we may to have little in common  in our day-to-day work, we are united by  our common interest in community-based  history. As public historians, we strive to  be flexible and responsive, to place the  worries and interests of our audiences in  the center of our professional practice.

2015 NCPH Meeting
NCPH 2015 Public Plenary in Nashville: “Living and Making History: A Public Conversation on the History of the Civil Rights Movement” with Dr. Ernest “Rip” Patton, Freedom Rider, and Laurens Grant, Filmmaker

The NCPH is scheduled to meet in Baltimore from March 16 to 20. The conference theme is “Challenging the Exclusive Past.” We began making plans for the 2016 meeting several years ago, and last winter, we identified a fantastic speaker for our public plenary, a scholar-performer whose work amplifies an often-overlooked aspect of American history and its particular roots in Maryland.

But, when Baltimoreans began to protest police brutality and contemporary racial inequality after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody in April, 2015, we felt strongly that our role as public historians required us to change our plans. We watched as both national and regional news outlets described what was happening in terms that did not seem to reflect the local experience. We listened to young activists articulating their perspective, identifying both the specificity of the events in Baltimore and its connections to a broader #BlackLivesMatter movement. We saw local photographers –both media photographers and freelancers—working to provide a meaningful counter the unflattering, unfair, and uncomplicated image of the protests and of the city. Historians have an important role to play in this process, too. But timing is everything. At this moment –while police officers are still on trial, while activists are still organizing protests, while policy makers are debating better strategies for addressing economic injustice and violence—the perspective of a single expert speaker might be lost or misunderstood or ignored.

In response, we designed a facilitated conversation that will serve as our public plenary. Titled The Uprising in Focus:  The Image, Experience, and History of Inequality in Baltimore, the public plenary will take place on Friday, March 18 at Ebenezer AME Church in the Sharp-Leadenhall neighborhood of Baltimore. Scheduled speakers include the photographers Devin Allen and J. M. Giordanao; Paulo Gregory Harris, founder of a non-profit organization designed to address economic injustice; Robert Birt and Devon Wilford-Said who participated in the 1968 protests after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King; and Dr. Elizabeth Nix, a historian of Baltimore. The event is free and open to the public.

We have structured our public session as a facilitated conversation, because this is a moment for public historians to listen, to build relationships with individuals and in neighborhoods too long excluded from the interpretation of Baltimore’s history, culture, and image. During the session, activists, photographers, and public historians will engage in a wide ranging conversation about what happened, why it happened, what it means, and what we can do about it together. We will also encourage significant participation from the audience. Through mutually respectful discussion, we hope to arrive at a deeper understanding of how, exactly, the tools historians use to understand the past might be useful for addressing the injustices exposed by the death of Freddie Gray.

The public plenary, sponsored by the Maryland Humanities Council, will be held at Ebenezer AME Church, 20 West Montgomery Street, Baltimore, from 6:00 to 7:30 pm. Parking will be available at two nearby churches: Martini Lutheran Church located at 100 W. Henrietta St., Baltimore, Maryland  21230; and Leadenhall Baptist Church, located at 1021 Leadenhall St., Baltimore, Maryland  21230.

A Writer with Writers: Mothering as an Act of Revolutionary Love

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When I realized that I was going to be a mother, I decided that I was going to be a #blackmommyactivist and practice the art of revolutionary mothering. I wrote out the words to Khalil Gibran’s poem “On Children” and hung them on my wall as a daily reminder of what it meant to practice revolutionary mothering:

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and the daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

I had no idea of what this looked like in practice, I just knew that in order to raise happy, healthy, and whole children, I needed to consciously speak love into their lives, to speak hope into their spirits, and to birth and nurture a sense of self and of belonging into their soul. Revolutionary mothering is not for the faint of heart. With the help of some guideposts set up by sister writers and scholars, the path is one that each revolutionary mother must carve and scratch out daily. Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs takes on this challenge and studies and writes about what this has looked like in the lives of revolutionary mothers.

This month, I explore revolutionary mothering and more in my interview with Dr.  Gumbs about her forthcoming anthology, Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines.

KW: Why did you decide to write this book?

AG: The short answer is that we [Gumbs and co-editors Mai’a Williams and China Martens] believe that mothering is revolutionary. The people who aren’t supposed to have a chance to mother—like black/queer/poor people, people like us and the people who mothered us, are recreating the world every day in intimate, intergenerational, creative and collective ways—should be given a space to tell their stories. If we are ever going to have the society that we need (like one where humans get to keep living on this planet, for example) everyone needs to learn from the world-changing daily work that we call mothering.

 

KW: Which writers inspire you?

AG: There are so many people who have written amazing work about mothering. YOU [Karsonya Whitehead] for example, both on your Facebook page and in your book, Letters to My Black Sons: Raising Boys in a Post-Racial America. asha bandele is also a major inspiration (especially her novel, daughter, and her memoir, something like beautiful, all of her poems, her Facebook posts, her Essence magazine articles, her mama blog posts… basically everything by asha, ever). When I was teenager, asha told me that she woke up before dawn so that she could write before her daughter needed her. And so I started writing early in the morning and it changed everything.

Alice Walker’s writing about what she called “motherism,” building on her idea of “womanism,” and her classic book In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens (this was crucial reading for me). Audre Lorde’s essay, “Eye to Eye,” where she writes that, “We can learn to mother ourselves.” This idea of mothering ourselves along with the generous ways she writes about her practice of mothering in her essays and poems is a major inspiration. Of course, I include all of the writers in this anthology. Cheryl Boyce Taylor has a poem in this collection and she is a writer who writes a poem every single day. She is such an inspiration and I am SO glad that her poetry is in this book. And last (but not really last because there are SO many writers that inspire me) and also not least, JUNE JORDAN! Her unpublished essay where she explains her philosophy that “love is life-force” is the opening jewel of this book. Her vision and practice of how all writers can and must be accountable to children is…my religion.

 

KW: You refer to yourself as a scholar/writer – can you explain what this means to you?

AG: I see my role as an ancestral connection.  I love to research about the lives of black women who loved their people and changed the world.  And in my work as a researcher I seek to connect us to that love.  My own writing consists of structured opportunities for connecting to generations of love, bravery, and change.

 

KW: What writing advice do you have for other aspiring authors?

AG: Do what asha and Cheryl do. Write first. Write every day.

 

KW: What advice would you give to your younger self?

AG: You have nothing to prove. Ever.

 

KW: Tell us about the book’s cover and how it came about.

AG: The revolutionary artist Favianna Rodriguez made this beautiful image for the Mama’s Day series of cards, which is an amazing benefit for a coalition called Strong Families. This coalition is a major inspiration for us. Strong Families has brought people together to fight to change the oppressive laws that harm mother-led families, families of color, immigrant families, exactly the families at the center of Revolutionary Mothering. We just loved the artwork so much. I sent that mama’s day card to everyone I could think of when it first came out. We are so honored that Favianna allowed us to use it for the cover of the book!

 

About the Writer: Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a prayer poet priestess with a PhD in English, African and African American Studies and Women and Gender Studies from Duke University. Dr. Gumbs is the first scholar to research Audre Lorde’s archival papers at Spelman College and is the founder of the School of Our Lorde, a night school in Durham, NC focused on the work of Audre Lorde.  She is published widely in scholarly journals and collections including Signs, Obsidian, The Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Literature and The Routledge Companion to Anglophone Caribbean Literature and has published chapters on Audre Lorde’s work in the collections Mothering in Hip Hop Culture and Laboring On: Mothers in the Academy.  She is one of the editors of the forthcoming book, Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines. Find her on Facebook or Twitter (@alexispauline) and read more on her blog.

About the Interviewer: Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor, Department of Communication at Loyola University Maryland and the Founding Executive Director at The Emilie Frances Davis Center for Education, Research, and Culture. Her most recent work, Letters to My Black Sons: Raising Boys in a Post-Racial America, was published by Apprentice House in January 2015.

 

Chautauqua 2016: Masters of their Craft

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This summer, the Maryland Humanities Council invites all Marylanders to take a trip into the past with our 22nd annual Chautauqua living history series.

This year’s Chautauqua (Shuh-TAW-Kwa) celebrates the centennial of the Pulitzer Prize, an annual award across twenty-one categories including journalism, literature, and poetry.  The creator of the award, American journalist Joseph Pulitzer, articulated a set of standards for many of our country’s creative minds: “Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.”

Our three Chautauqua characters were each guided by their light to become masters of their craft, thus inspiring the title of this year’s series featuring Duke Ellington, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Ernest Hemingway.


Duke Ellington CaricatureDuke Ellington is considered one of America’s greatest composers. Born in 1899 in Washington, DC, Ellington was an incomparable showman who was one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century with a career that spanned over fifty years. With over 300 compositions over his lifetime, Ellington was posthumously awarded a special Pulitzer Prize “commemorating the centennial year of his birth, in recognition of his musical genius, which evoked aesthetically the principles of democracy through the medium of jazz and thus made an indelible contribution to art and culture.”

Gwendolyn Brooks CaricatureGwendolyn Brooks was an African-American poet whose works illuminated the
black experience in America.  Born and raised in Chicago in 1917, Brooks was able to experience and observe authentic black life, which served as a continual inspiration for much of her impressive body of work: “If you wanted a poem, you only had to look out a window. There was material always, walking or running, fighting or screaming or singing.” Mostly known for her poetry, Brooks became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize when she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Annie Allen in 1950.


Ernest Hemingway CaricatureErnest Hemingway was one of the greatest American literary figures of the twentieth century who continues to influence modern literature with his trademark style of simple yet perceptive prose. Born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, Hemingway’s experiences abroad as a foreign correspondent and as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross during World War I greatly influenced his literary works, such as A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway’s hobbies, including big game fighting, bull-fighting, and deep-sea fishing, also influenced his writings, particularly his novel The Old Man and the Sea which earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and led to the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.
Join us this summer as these “Masters of their Craft” come alive from July 5-14, 2016. Locations will be announced at a later date.

Want to see previous Chautauqua performances? Check out our Chautauqua playlist on our YouTube channel!

The History of Maryland in Rare Books

Posted on by Maryland Humanities

The time-worn pages, the sweet scent, the stories that persist in between the pages: rare and used books tell special stories that readers are unlikely to find anywhere else. Susannah Horrom of The Kelmscott Bookshop gives a glimpse into the history of Maryland as seen through the lens of four rare books.

The Chronicles of Baltimore by Colonel John Thomas Scharf (1874) gives a detailed history of the city beginning with Captain John Smith’s exploration of the Patapsco River and ending with the great Baltimore fire of 1873. While it may sound dry, The Chronicles not only includes the commonly known timeline of events; it is enhanced with details about the residents, local businesses, plays, fashion, and more. He explains how the Canton neighborhood got its name, when the streets were first paved, and the first time wallpaper was used in Baltimore. Scharf’s research came not only from journals, newspapers, and books, but “from musty records on the brink of decay, from odd places and unexplored corners, which by accident of fire or flood or time’s hard touches, might otherwise have been forever lost to us.” A noted historian of his day, Scharf (1843 – 1898) was once called “Baltimore’s Venerable Bede,” and his work continues to be of great value due largely to the inclusion of passages from primary source documents.

James McSherry’s The History of Maryland (1849) gives a complete history of the state from its first settlement in 1634 to a year after the Mexican-American War (1848). While McSherry does touch on all of the major events during this timeframe, the bulk of his history details Maryland’s involvement in the Revolutionary War. He also discusses other subjects of interest such as the Protestants, slavery, public schools, the Baltimore Ohio Railroad, tobacco, and Indian relations. James McSherry (1819 – 1869) was a lawyer and an author, best known for this seminal work.

The Firemen’s Record by Albert J. Cassedy (1911) documents the history of the Baltimore Fire Department for three centuries, from its inception through 1911. According to the introduction, the relief association was formed to be of assistance when “one of their number has sacrificed his life to save that of another, and when his charred and crushed remains are conveyed to his once happy home, his widow and children will not be thrown on the cold charity of the world.” This book gives detailed reports of the great fires of 1873 and 1904, tells how the city purchased its first fire truck, explains how firemen extinguished flames before fire trucks – think a whole lot of buckets. It’s a surprisingly riveting history of destruction, bravery, and survival. Also included are bylaws, rules, biographical sketches of chief officers, a map of the “pipe line system” (fire hydrants), and detailed illustrations.

Industries of Maryland: A Descriptive Review of the Manufacturing and Mercantile Industries of Baltimore (1882) emphasizes Baltimore’s industrial growth. Copious reviews of Baltimore businesses intermingle with illustrations, advertisements, and a concise history of the city. Detailed information on exports, imports, and population are also provided. Following is an excerpt from one listing for a highly regarded doctor: “Reader: if you are afflicted with a disease which has baffled the skill of all others, go to see Dr. Kohler, learn something of his wonderful treatment and be cured … Dr. Kohler is a native of this city, and merits a place in this work as a benefactor of suffering humanity.” The businesses reviewed range from oyster packers to photographers and everything in between. Presumably once akin to the Yellow Pages, this book is scarce today as it quickly became irrelevant and thus disposable. However, it provides a fascinating peek into Baltimore businesses and everyday life during the 1880s.

Susannah Horrom manages The Kelmscott Bookshop, Baltimore’s largest used and rare bookstore. Located on 25th Street between Charles Street and Maryland Avenue, The Kelmscott Bookshop carries books in all subject areas including many titles relating to Baltimore and Maryland. The books featured above are highlights from the shop’s Maryland section and are all available for sale.

Satisfy Your Chocolate Cravings, 18th Century Style

Posted on by Maryland Humanities

Writing from Paris to John Adams on November 27, 1785, Thomas Jefferson praised the merits of chocolate and gave the prediction that its “health and nourishment will soon give it the same preference over tea and coffee in America.”  Fellow founding father, George Washington, purchased chocolate processed into bars as well as cacao, the product from which chocolate is made.

This heavenly ambrosia emerged in Mesoamerica over the course of thousands of years and eventually made its way from Central America to North America as early as the 17th century.

Mesoamerican Mayans and Aztecs consumed chocolate as a frothy drink. Similarly, chocolate in 18th century North America was most often consumed as a hot drink made from cakes of chocolate. At that time period, chocolate cakes were solid blocks of sweetened chocolate that were often spiced with pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, star anise, lemon peel, orange peel, and/or vanilla. These cakes were meant to be scraped into shavings and then mixed with hot water to make the hot drink, or used in other types of recipes.

This is an image of a chocolate cake of that time period: 

Chocolate cakes were milled in various areas in the North American colonies where the cooler climate was more conducive to working with a product with a low melting point. Baker’s Chocolate located in Dorchester, Massachusetts, started commercial milling of chocolate in 1765 under the name of Wentworth and Storer (today owned by Kraft), and they shipped their products south where there were far fewer chocolatiers. As a matter of fact, only two 18th century chocolatiers south of the Mason Dixon can be documented, one who worked in Charleston, SC and another man, Isaac Navarro, who worked in Annapolis, Maryland, c. 1748-1749.

Popular 18th Century Ways to Take Chocolate:

Whether using purchased processed chocolate from a company such as Baker’s or from a local producer such as Navarro in Annapolis, 18th century chocolate fanatics could indulge their cravings with one of these recipes found in most period cookery books:

  • Hot Chocolate drinks could be made with just water and/or milk but also were made into a more substantial meal by adding an egg or stale bread.
  • Chocolate Wine was made by heating grated chocolate with claret wine, port, or sherry.
  • Chocolate Creams were made by adding chocolate to thickly whipped cream and then folding in egg whites, very much like a chocolate mousse.
  • Chocolate Biscuits were made with grated chocolate blended with confectioner’s sugar and egg whites. Sometimes ground almonds were also added. These are essentially flourless chocolate cookies.
  • Chocolate Tarts were made by formulating a ganache-like mixture of melted chocolate, heavy cream, eggs, and spices. This batter was placed into a pie shell and baked until firm. It was often topped with a meringue.

What is clearly absent is the popularity of chocolate candy. While chocolate pastilles were made, (a recurring recipe found is for Chocolate Almonds, where the chocolate was formed in the shape of almonds), “eating chocolate” as it was called as opposed to drinking or baking chocolate, was not really popular until technological advances in the 19th century made the candy form of chocolate easier to mold and more palatable to the tongue (less bitter with a smoother finish).

If we could travel back to Isaac Navarro’s chocolate shop in Annapolis in the 1740s, there is no doubt that we would experience chocolate in forms slightly different from what is available today. However, we would definitely recognize this beloved treat despite its altered infusion of flavors and texture no matter the century.

Please see below for links to 18th century chocolate recipes you may enjoy:

http://atasteofhistorywithjoycewhite.blogspot.com/2014/07/chocolate-wine-recipe-going-on-300-years.html

http://atasteofhistorywithjoycewhite.blogspot.com/2014/07/chocolate-biskets-oldest-chocolate.html

http://atasteofhistorywithjoycewhite.blogspot.com/2014/08/chocolate-tart-perfectly-easy-and.html

To see more of Joyce’s work, please visit her website, www.atasteofhistory.net, or follow her on Facebook: A Taste of History with Joyce White

“What’s the Center for the Book?” Your Questions about the Maryland Center for the Book and Our National Counterpart

Posted on by Maryland Humanities

Did you know that One Maryland One Book and Letters About Literature are programs of the Maryland Center for the Book? Did you know that the Maryland Center for the Book is part of the Maryland Humanities Council?

If you’re reading this, you’re probably familiar with these terms. But you might not know the story behind them. That’s why we decided to bring our most frequently asked Center for the Book related questions into one place – this blog!

National Book Festival in Washington D.C.
Book enthusiasts congregate at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

What is this “Center for the Book”? And how can I visit?

Good question! There is one national Center for the Book in the Library of Congress (LOC for those in the know). And it’s not a physical place.  Instead, the Center for the Book is more of a movement that has its offices in the LOC.

The Center for the Book is all about stimulating Americans’ interest in books. The Center sponsors national writing contests such as Letters About Literature, organizes the National Book Festival, hosts informative forums (e.g. Symposium on Diversity in Children’s Literature), and sponsors a ton of fun and interesting events.

What is the story behind the Center for the Book?

Daniel Boorstin (Librarian of Congress 1975-1987) was in love with books. Boorstin called books the “Anytime, Do-It-Yourself, Energy Free Communication Device”; he was amazed at how books transport knowledge from one mind to the next using only the reader’s focus and the flip of a page. Boorstin also felt passionately about promoting books and advocating for new tomes and talesthat reflect our ever-changing world. As he wrote, “we have a special interest to see that books do not go unread, that they are read by all ages and conditions.”

When Boorstin was appointed as Librarian, he promoted the idea of bringing people together around books: to appreciate them, to learn about them, and—of course—to read them. Two representatives championed Boorstin’s ideas in the House of Representatives and Congress voted to support a Library of Congress program that would promote books and their role in our society. President Jimmy Carter approved this movement and in October 1977, he signed the legislation that would create the Center for the Book.

Ok, but what’s the “Maryland Center for the Book”?

While the Center for the Book was created to foster and support conversations and education about books across the United States, the national office relies on state centers for the book to locally manage national initiatives and to provide programming that is unique and interesting to its citizens. There is a center for the book affiliate in every U.S. state, territory, and the District of Columbia.

It’s this special combination of national reach and grassroots work that make the relationship so successful. Center for the Book Director John Cole, who has led the Center for the Book since it began in 1977, said “I have a wonderful job because it brings me in touch not only with authors and writers, but with book people around the United States and around the world.”

Still have a question or want to share your own Center for the Book knowledge? We enjoy answering questions and we love to hear your stories. Share in the comments!