Blog

Students involved in Veterans Oral History Project — a partnership between Southern High School in Anne Arundel County and Maryland Humanities — conduct oral history interviews with war veterans. Prior to the interviews, they receive training from Dr. Barry Lanman of the Martha Ross Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Transcripts and video of the interviews are housed at the Maryland State Archives. Kyle E. Chaney has participated twice in the Veterans Oral History Project and has helped students new to the program with their projects. He shares his experience here.

In the Stacks produces classical music concerts in the George Peabody Library, with programming inspired by the library’s contents and history.  Horn player Sam Bessen, Founder and Artistic Director of In the Stacks, writes about the history of the library's Neoclassical style and the connection between Neoclassical architects and musicians.

For the 25th anniversary of our Chautauqua living history series, we're diving into how water has shaped our history and celebrating those who have navigated ice, waves, and the depths below. Communications Specialist Sarah Weissman spoke with Mary Ann Jung, who plays sixteenth-century “pirate queen” Grace O’Malley. Chautauqua 2019: Making Waves continues tonight and ends with a performance of Jung as O’Malley on July 20.

For the 25th anniversary of our Chautauqua living history series, we're diving into how water has shaped our history and celebrating those who have navigated ice, waves, and the depths below. Communications Specialist Sarah Weissman spoke with Doug Mishler, the actor-scholar who portrays Jacques Cousteau. Mishler performed for the very first Chautauqua in Maryland in 1995 as P.T. Barnum. Chautauqua 2019: Making Waves begins tonight and runs through July 20.

For the 25th anniversary of our Chautauqua living history series, we're diving into how water has shaped our history and celebrating those who have navigated ice, waves, and the depths below. Communications Specialist Sarah Weissman spoke with Keith Henley, the actor-scholar who portrays Matthew Henson.

Shannon Sullivan is the Museum on Main Street, Program Coordinator at Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services. She writes of how students from Lansdowne High School documented the history of flooding in Ellicott City as part of Museum on Main Street in Baltimore County and the Stories: YES (Youth, Engagement, and Skill-Building) program. The Historical Society of Baltimore County is the first Museum on Main Street tour stop in Maryland. 

Alma Jordan is the Chair of the History and Research Committee of the Unified Committee for Afro-American Contributions (UCAC) in St. Mary’s County. She writes about the Drayden African American Schoolhouse. The segregated schoolhouse, in use through the 1940s, has been preserved and recently renovated as a historic site. Jordan’s grandfather was the first teacher when the school opened. Special thanks to Andrew Ponti, Marketing Manager at St. Mary’s County Museum Division, for his assistance in coordinating this post.

Suzy Wolffe, Manager of Tour Experiences at Baltimore Museum of Art, has organized tours of the Monsters & Myths: Surrealism and War in the 1930s and 1940 exhibit with Marine Corps veteran Hans Palmer. Anne Brown, Senior Director of Communications at the Baltimore Museum of Art, interviewed Wolffe about her experience and the exhibition.

Molly Cohen is a graduate of the Department of Theatre Arts at Towson University. With Towson Professor Julie Potter, she worked on What Were You Wearing? Weaving a New Narrative. The installation aims to dismantle the ideology behind the question asked of many sexual assault survivors: “Were you attacked because of how you were dressed?”  Molly takes the reader through the process of the installation, from conception to its presence on Towson’s campus and elsewhere. 

Lesley Malin, performer and Managing Director at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, shares a personal reflection on her own past, The Diary of Anne Frank, and related programming throughout the community, called "Spring of Remembrance". Malin learned that the overlapping subject matter planned by other Baltimore organizations was coincidental.