Gina Schock

(Wikipedia) - Gina Schock (born Regina Ann Schock, August 31, 1957, Baltimore, Maryland) is best known as the drummer in the all-girl punk/pop band, The Go-Go's.
Schock's career began as drummer for Edie and the Eggs, a band assembled to feature the John Waters star Edith Massey. After her stint in Edie and the Eggs, Schock relocated to Los Angeles, California, and soon joined The Go-Go's. Schock recorded and toured steadily with The Go-Go's until the group disbanded in 1985 and reformed a few years later. Continued

Photo: Ron Baker (Kingsnake) from Austin, Texas

Origins of the Red Hot Mama

(NYTimes) - HAS any pop star had as many nicknames as Sophie Tucker? In a career that spanned seven decades, Tucker was variously billed as “The Empress of Songs,” “The Syncopated Cyclone” and “Our Lady Nicotine”; as “Iron Lungs,” “Muscle Dancer” and “Vaudeville’s Pet”; as “The Ginger Girl,” “The Grizzly Bear Girl” and “The Girl Who Never Disappoints.” During her early years as a vaudeville headliner, when rags were the rage, she was “The Tetrazzini of Ragtime.” When jazz took over, she became “The Queen of Jazzaration.” Continued

No Quarter: The Battle of the Crater, 1864

(NYTBR) - ... In July 1864, Ulysses S. Grant approved an ingenious plan for an assault on Elliott’s Salient, part of the fortified line that Robert E. Lee had thrown up to defend the town of Petersburg, Va. Union troops tunneled under no man’s land, hollowed out a cavern and packed it full of blasting powder. On July 30, they set off an enormous explosion that ripped the salient apart. When the dust settled, there was a gaping hole in the Confederate defenses. Thousands of Union troops, including a division of black soldiers, swarmed into the breach. Continued

Photo: "Scene of the explosion Saturday July 30th," Alfred Waud

Vivien Thomas

(Wikipedia) - Vivien Theodore Thomas (August 29, 1910 – November 26, 1985) was an African-American surgical technician and animal surgeon who developed in the canine model the procedures used to treat blue baby syndrome in the 1940s. He was an assistant to white surgeon Alfred Blalock in Blalock's experimental animal laboratory at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee and later at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Without any education past high school, Thomas rose above poverty and racism to become a cardiac surgery pioneer and a teacher of operative techniques to many of the country's most prominent surgeons. Continued

New museum opens in Gettysburg

(InYork) - Erik Dorr knew he should have been wearing gloves.
More than 150 years old, the wallet in his hand had been worn thin even in the days it spent time in the pockets of the 16th president.
But touching Abraham Lincoln's wallet - the one he kept with him through the majority of his presidency - just isn't the same with a layer of latex separating skin from leather. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Andrew Ellicott

(Wikipedia) - Andrew Ellicott (January 24, 1754 – August 28, 1820) was a U.S. surveyor who helped map many of the territories west of the Appalachians, surveyed the boundaries of the District of Columbia, continued and completed Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's work on the plan for Washington, D.C., and served as a teacher in survey methods for Meriwether Lewis. Continued

300-year-old shackles may hold ghoulish tale

(Reuters) - An iron ball and chain found on the banks of London's River Thames is causing a stir among archaeologists who say the 300-year-old artifact used to restrain convicts on ships may have a gruesome story to tell.
The leg irons, believed to date from the 17th or 18th century, were pulled from the mud with the lock fastened, suggesting a convict could have drowned while trying to escape.
The prospect conjures up a tantalizing tale reminiscent of the work of 19th-century Victorian author Charles Dickens, said Museum of London archaeologist Kate Sumnall, who examined the find. Continued

Photo: Magwitch and Pip, from the 1946 production of "Great Expectations." (Highly recommended!)

Wal-mart Doesn't Care about American History

(Atlantic) - ... This week we learn that officials in Virginia approved the construction of a giant Wal-mart (because there really just aren't enough) in a town minutes away from the Wilderness Battlefield, right where "generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee first met in battle 145 years ago and where 145,000 Union and Confederate soldiers fought and more than 29,000 were killed or injured," according to the AP. Continued

Photos: 1. Wounded escaping from the burning woods of the Wilderness (A.R. Waud). 2. Cold Harbor, Va. African Americans collecting bones of soldiers killed in the battle (John Reekie). Both via the Library of Congress.

$300 a Night? Yes, but Haying’s Free

(NYTimes) - LET me start by saying that if you want to throw bales of hay into the back of a truck, Vans are not the best choice in footwear.
That’s the sort of thing one learns when the family vacation is on a farm.
Of course, there are those who might say throwing bales of hay is a stupid way to spend a vacation — especially a vacation where the accommodations cost $332 a night, tax and fresh eggs included. Continued

Maryland asking for $360M for railroad work

(bizjournals.com) - The Maryland Department of Transportation has applied for $360 million in high-speed rail stimulus funds to improve Amtrak and MARC Commuter rail, Gov. Martin O’Malley announced Monday.
Maryland applied for a portion of the $8 billion available for high-speed rail projects nationwide. Virginia also announced Monday that it had applied for about $75 million of the competitive high-speed rail funds.
The projects outlined in Maryland’s application are intended to better link Washington to Baltimore. ... Projects in the application include: Continued

Photos: Amtrak Susquehanna River Bridge, B&P Tunnel, and Bush River Bridge. (MDRails).

Cannneries map graces Aberdeen bank

(The Record) - A slice of Harford County’s industrial past is on display at Harford Bank, in Aberdeen.
On the wall hangs a map displaying locations and names of canneries that flourished in county during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The project was the result of a collaboration between the Harford County Historical Society, Churchville resident and canning-expert Bernie Bodt, and Erin Wiley, of the Harford County Department of Planning and Zoning. Continued

Steinbeck Country: Weedpatch Migrant Camp

(Newsweek) - Doris Weddell, Weedpatch camp historian, talks about what remains of the migrant camp made famous in "The Grapes of Wrath."

Decision Nears on Wal-Mart Near Va. Battlefield

ORANGE, Va. (AP) - Wal-Mart should know this week if it can build a Supercenter near a Civil War battlefield in Virginia.
Orange County officials will hold a public hearing Monday evening that will likely be followed by a vote on a special use permit by the Board of Supervisors. The world's largest retailer needs the permit to build near the Wilderness Battlefield site. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

People along East Coast may see shuttle launch

(Space.com) - People in the eastern United States will get a great opportunity, weather permitting, to see the space shuttle Discovery launched into orbit early Tuesday morning. And it might also be the final opportunity ever to see a nighttime shuttle launch. Continued

Photo: NASA

William Penn Acquires the Lower Counties

(LoC) - On August 24, 1682, the Duke of York awarded Englishman William Penn a deed to the "Three Lower Counties" that make up the present state of Delaware, recently transferred from Dutch to British jurisdiction. Penn acquired this tract of land just west of the Delaware Bay in order to ensure ocean access for his new colony of Pennsylvania. While Delaware established its own assembly in 1704, it was not until shortly after July 1776 that Delaware became a separate state. On December 7, 1787, Delaware was the "first state" to ratify the new U.S. Constitution, thereby earning its current proud nickname. Continued

Faked Photographs: Look, and Then Look Again

(NYTimes) - What a marvel the first photographic images must have been to their early-19th-century viewers — the crisp, unassailable reality of scenes and events, unfiltered by an artist’s paintbrush or point of view.
And what an opportunity for manipulation. It didn’t take long for schemers to discover that with a little skill and imagination, photographic realism could be used to create manufactured realities. Continued

Old Jail Managed to Outlive Its Usefulness in Just 128 Years

(WoCCP) - Twenty years ago, the old, shabby Cecil County Jail on North Street in Elkton was abandoned for the modern detention center that now serves the county from its location on Landing Lane. The passing of the old jail was largely unnoticed, it routinely having been maligned as a lockup that somehow managed to outlive its usefulness in just 128 years. That old prison has an interesting history, one that evolved from the days of gallows and whipping posts. Continued

1959: The Year Everything Changed

(NYTBR) - The image of the 1950s as placid, suburban and conformist is easily scratched away with the touch of a fingernail. Over the past 15 years or so, historians and writers have revealed that many of the big-bang explosions in politics, culture and technology of the 1960s were rooted in little bangs from the previous decade. Continued

Chicken salad and oysters after the matinee

William H. Rau, c1901 (Library of Congress).

Annie Delcher, eight-year-old oyster shucker from Baltimore

Lewis Hine, 1911 (Library of Congress)

Oyster Tongers

Lewis Hine, 1911 (Library of Congress)

X-rays solve artistic mystery

(MSNBC) - Eighty-five years ago, American illustrator N.C. Wyeth painted one work of art over another, hiding a dramatic fistfight beneath a placid family portrait. Now X-ray vision has brought the long-hidden colors of that fight scene back to life - without disturbing the brush strokes layered on top. Continued

8-Hour Work Day

(LoC) - On August 20, 1866, the newly organized National Labor Union called on Congress to mandate an eight-hour workday. A coalition of skilled and unskilled workers, farmers, and reformers, the National Labor Union was created to pressure Congress to enact labor reforms. It dissolved in 1873 following a disappointing venture into third-party politics in the 1872 presidential election.
Although the National Labor Union failed to persuade Congress to shorten the workday, its efforts heightened public awareness of labor issues and increased public support for labor reform in the 1870s and 1880s. Continued

Teardown in Edgewood: Old Army buildings to be replaced by new housing

(Baltimore Sun) - Harford County officials will gather in Edgewood on Thursday for a groundbreaking, an event they could more accurately call a ground-shaking. Washington Court, whose 51 boarded-up brick buildings date to the 1940s and once housed Army officers, will be razed to make way for a residential complex that should prove attractive to the influx of new residents arriving as part of the Base Realignment and Closure process. Continued

Photo: It was a simpler time, when good country folk made poison gas for a living. (Library of Congress)

Rebel Rebel

(NYTBR) - The Civil War was not a simple collision of opposites. There was internal dissent on each side: Northerners who wanted to placate the South, Southerners loyal to the Union, and thousands of deserters from both armies.
In “The State of Jones,” Sally Jenkins, a Washington Post reporter, and John Stauffer, a Harvard historian, recreate the life and times of the bold Southern dissenter Newton Knight. Continued

Photo: Poster from the movie "Tap Roots ... a 1948 period film set during the American Civil War. It is very loosely based on the true life story of Newton Knight, a farm owner who attempted to secede Jones County from Mississippi." (Wikipedia)

Amish paper succeeds the old-fashioned way

(MSNBC) - ... "People call The Budget the Amish Internet," Rathbun says. "It's non-electric, it's on paper, but it's the same thing."
The Budget is the dominant means of communication among the Amish, a Christian denomination with about 227,000 members nationwide who shun cars for horse-drawn buggies and avoid hooking up to the electrical grid. Continued

Photo: WPA (Library of Congress)

The mysterious murder of a railroad president

(Baltimore Sun) - What exactly happened to Maxwell C. Byers, president of the Western Maryland Railway, who was gunned down in a spectacular noontime murder on Sept. 23, 1930, in his fifth-floor office in the Standard Oil Building on St. Paul Place? His murder, nearly eight decades later, still haunts his family. Continued

Photo: MDRails

Treasures From an Underground Trove

(NYT) - For many years there has been a kind of secret museum of photography under the streets of northwest Washington — an immense, windowless, climate-controlled archive with roots reaching back more than a century.
And since the early 1980s just one man, William C. Bonner, has been the museum’s primary denizen, becoming intimately familiar with its holdings: more than 11 million images richly documenting the life of the 20th century, from Uganda to the Mississippi Delta to remote lamaseries near the Mongolian border. Continued

Jeremiah S. Black

(Wikipedia) - Jeremiah Sullivan Black (January 10, 1810 – August 19, 1883) was an American statesman and lawyer. He was the son of Representative Henry Black, and the father of writer and Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania Chauncey Forward Black.
He was largely self-educated, and before he was of age was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar. He gradually became one of the leading American lawyers, and from 1851 to 1857 was a member of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, serving as chief justice from 1851 to 1854. In 1857 he entered the Cabinet of President James Buchanan as Attorney General. Continued

Ancient Jet Keeps the U.S. Air War Flying

(Wired) - I’m in front of a matte-gray jet, designed to deliver gas to the rest of the American air armada as it buzzes over Central Asia and the Middle East. Every day, the KC-135 tankers here haul a million pounds of fuel. Without them, the fighter jets, bombers and airborne haulers circling above Afghanistan and Iraq would drop out of the sky. That’s a pretty heavy burden for a bunch of old-timers — this plane was built in 1960. Continued

Photo: A KC-135R Stratotanker from the 22nd Air Refueling Wing at McConnell AFB, Kansas, USA refuels an F/A-22 Raptor. (Kevin Robertson. U.S. Air Force/Wikipedia)

York cemetery to add 138 more flags

(InYork) - Jack Sommer said people come to Prospect Hill Cemetery several times a week to see its flag and banner displays.
Some visitors take photos, while others record images on digital cameras, said Sommer, the cemetery's managing partner.
He said older men remove their hats and bow their heads when looking at the flags and banners set up to honor U.S. service members who have died in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Continued

Photo: Nightening

What Really Killed Mozart?

(NYTimes) - Scandalous rumors about popular musicians were just as lurid in the 18th century as they are today, but they moved at a more deliberate pace. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died on Dec. 5, 1791, and it took a whole week for a Berlin newspaper to announce that he had been poisoned. The actual cause of death, a new study suggests, may have been more pedestrian: a strep infection. Continued

Photo: Wikipedia

Birthers Went After President Arthur in 1881

(AP) - ... Long before "birthers" began questioning the citizenship of President Barack Obama, similar questions were raised about the early years of Arthur, an accidental president who ascended to the job after President James Garfield was assassinated.
"It's an old rumor that won't die, political slander," said John Dumville, who runs Vermont's historic sites and knows well the legend. Continued

On the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock

(Paul Krassner) - ... Hippies became freaks. Negroes became blacks. Girls became women. Richard Alpert became Baba Ram Dass. Hugh Romney became Wavy Gravy, and his wife became Jahanarah. Yippie organizer Keith Lampe became Ponderosa Pine, and his girlfriend became Olive Tree. My sister Marge became Thais. San Francisco Oracle editor Allen Cohen became Siddartha and moved to a commune where everybody called him Sid. They thought his name was Sid Arthur.
But the seeds that were planted then continue to blossom now. And the spirit of Woodstock continues to be celebrated at such events as the Rainbow Gathering, Burning Man, Earthdance, the Oregon County Fair, the Starwood Neo-Pagan Festival, Pete Seeger's Clearwater Festival, the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, and yes, the electronic magic montage of musicians and singers around the globe performing "Stand By Me" on YouTube. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Charles Bukowski

(Wikipedia) - Henry Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Bukowski's writing was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles, and is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. A prolific author, Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories, and six novels, eventually having over 60 books in print. In 1986 Time called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife".
... After the collapse of the German economy following the First World War, the family moved to the United States in 1923, originally settling in Baltimore, Maryland. To sound more American, Bukowski's parents began calling him "Henry" and altered the pronunciation of the family name from Buk-ov-ski to Buk-cow-ski (the name is of Polish origin). Continued

August 15, 1790: John Carroll Becomes First Bishop of Baltimore

(LoC) - On August 15, 1790, John Carroll became the first bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The son of a wealthy Catholic merchant, Carroll was born in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in 1736 and had significant Revolutionary connections. His cousin, Charles Carroll, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence; his brother, Daniel Carroll, signed the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.
After receiving a Jesuit education at the Bohemia academy in Cecil County, Maryland, Carroll studied abroad at the English-language Jesuit College of St. Omer in Flanders. Continued

Photo: Sacred Heart Church at Whitemarsh, Bowie, Maryland, Jack Boucher, photographer (Library of Congress).

Mission to boost access to Garrett Island gaining

(The Record) - Perryville's town commissioners are on a mission to get more public access to Garrett Island so people can see the island's history.
The Town of Perryville, along with the Friends of Garrett Island, are actively seeking support to have the island transferred from the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge to the National Park Service.
Supporters of the change in jurisdiction say it could result in the island in the Susquehanna River being opened up to some limited public use. Continued

Photo: CSX bridge over the Susquehanna and Garrett Island (left).

Hotelier breathing life into historic city sites

(Baltimore Sun) - ... In each case, the company followed the same strategy: buying historic buildings that most recently were used as office space and giving them new lives as affordable hotels for business and leisure travelers. And it has done so in a market where more than a dozen other hotels are under construction or planned. The Tran Group's buildings weren't considered first-class office space, but they are well-located for travelers who want to stay downtown, they're handsome, and they lend themselves to hotel conversion. Continued

Photo: Hotel Junker (sneakerdog).

Earl Weaver

(Wikipedia) - Earl Sidney Weaver (born August 14, 1930 in St. Louis, Missouri) is a former Major League Baseball manager. He spent his entire managerial career with the Baltimore Orioles, managing the club from 1968–1982 and 1985–1986. Weaver was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996. Continued

Students substitute Hollywood fiction for real historical fact, study finds

(Live Science) - If you thought Tom Cruise's character in "The Last Samurai" represented a real figure from history, you were wrong. But don't feel ashamed. A new study shows that even students, with facts staring them in the face, tend to substitute Hollywood fiction for historical fact in their minds. Continued

Photo: Wikipedia

Historic black church may be reborn as museum

(Baltimore Sun) - The 19th-century laborers pooled their money and did what they could to build this biscuit box of a church along Offutt Road in the southwest corner of Baltimore County. Atop a stone foundation they put up four walls, eight windows, a peaked roof, three rows of pews, a pulpit for inspiration and a wood stove for warmth - and called the thing done. Continued

Photo: Louis Diggs

The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America

(NYTBR) - ... Roosevelt talked about lordly elk and manifest destiny, a far cry from today’s scientists with their complex computer models of climate change. Saving redwoods is one thing, properly inflating your tires something else. Roosevelt made conservation a vital, almost violent pursuit. It went with being manly, brave, patriotic. It was as populated with animals as any children’s book. It was scientific and yet saturated with religious meaning, patrician but populist, global and yet fueled by jingoistic fervor. It was fun. Continued

Photo: Theodore Roosevelt montage (Library of Congress).

Etchebarren is new Revs manager

(InYork) - Andy Etchebarren, 66, the former Orioles catcher and the current bench coach for the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, has been named the next manager for the York Revolution, according to a member of the York Revolution's ownership group - Opening Day Partners.
ODP President Jon Danos expects Etchebarren to manage his first game for York when the Revolution play the Long Island Ducks Friday at Sovereign Bank Stadium. Continued

Photo: 1972topps.blogspot.com

Where is the Arctic Sea?

The Arctic Sea is missing. Nobody has seen or heard from it since the end of July. MV Arctic Sea, a cargo ship, set out from Finland, carrying a load of timber bound for Algeria, when it was boarded by men dressed as police officers, off the coast of Sweden. The men, who most likely were not police officers, tied up the crew, searched the ship, stole some equipment, and left. At least, that's how it was reported. Continued

Photo: Cargo ship in Port of Baltimore

Dara O'Briain - York Model Railway Centre

Munching goats helping solve a history mystery

(Baltimore Sun) - Perhaps a herd of goats will help Gibson Islanders solve a mystery that was created when an ancient tulip poplar that blew over six years ago during Tropical Storm Isabel revealed several handmade bricks in its extensively tangled root ball. Earlier this year, a Gibson Islander out for a stroll with his dog was greeted with a present of a handmade brick when his dog exited the thick underbrush. A quick glance and the passer-by realized that it wasn't a typical run-of-the-mill Home Depot brick; it turns out it harks back to the 18th century. Continued

Photo: A man and his goat (Library of Congress).

Deterioration of 100-Yr-Old Bridge Closes Watervale Road

(The Dagger) - ... Engineers determined the bridge needed to be replaced after an inspection of the bridge revealed a deterioration of the bridge deck. The bridge will be removed and will be used elsewhere in the county in as a pedestrian bridge, thus maintaining the historical significance of the structure which is believed to be over 100 years old. Continued

Photo: Historic Bridges of the United States

Lament for a Dying Field: Photojournalism

(NYTimes) - When photojournalists and their admirers gather in southern France at the end of August for Visa pour l’Image, the annual celebration of their craft, many practitioners may well be wondering how much longer they can scrape by.
Newspapers and magazines are cutting back sharply on picture budgets or going out of business altogether, and television stations have cut back on news coverage in favor of less-costly fare. Continued

Photo: Dorothea Lange

Maryland outdoors writer Bill Burton dies at 82

(Baltimore Sun) - Bill Burton, who wrote about Maryland's outdoors and was a fierce advocate for its natural resources for more than a half century, died Monday. He was 82. Continued

Rich history of 110th comes to an end in Pikesville: National Guard unit traces roots to Revolutionary War

(Baltimore Sun) - When Ferd H. Reuwer served in Maryland's 110th Field Artillery in the early 1930s, they still used horses to haul cannons around the unit's training site in Pikesville.The horses were phased out in 1935, but the National Guard unit carried on, storming Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944, turning out for the riots in Baltimore after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and guarding Washington after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Continued

The Art of Rebellion

(NYTBR) - If not for Mad magazine, there might never have been (in no particular order) 1960s youth culture, underground comics, Wacky Packs, “Laugh-In,” “Saturday Night Live,” R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman or an age of irony, period. Mad, which began in 1952 as a comic book that parodied “serious” comics as well as American popular culture, with an emphasis on television, movies and advertising, was conceived and originally edited by Harvey Kurtzman (1924-93), a Brooklyn-born comic-strip artist, writer and editor. Kurtzman was the spiritual father of postwar American satire and the godfather of late-20th-century alternative humor. Continued

Train station museum dedicated to man who once lived there

(InYork) - Roger Shaffer's childhood memories make the Hanover Junction Train Station seem to come alive.
Shaffer, 96, of Hellertown, Northampton County, was raised at the station from the time he was about 2 years old until he was in high school, he said. Continued

Tailfins: The Punctuation at the End of the ’50s

(NYTimes) - ... Inspired by aircraft of the 1940s, tailfins inched upward through the ’50s to reach their zenith on the 1959 Cadillac. That car and many others presented a comic-book vision of travel — over the earth and through space — that was to evolve in the early ’60s into less fanciful designs more attuned to the actual spacecraft that were by then putting Americans into orbit. Continued

Photo: Morven