Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States

(Matt Weiland, SLATE) - ... Even those lucky in laughter or destined for greatness will recognize Names on the Land as a masterpiece of American writing and American history. First published in 1945 and about to be reissued in the NYRB Classics series, it is an epic account of how just about everything in America—creeks and valleys, rivers and mountains, streets and schools, towns and cities, counties and states, the country and continent itself—came to be named.
Like other broad-minded and big-hearted works of American culture from the first half of the 20th century—H.L. Mencken's American Language, John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy of novels, the Federal Writers' Project American Guide series, Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music—Names on the Land reflects a glorious union of two primal forces in the American mind. On one hand, Americanism: the inclination toward the large-scale and industrial, toward manifest destiny and the farthest shore, toward what a French critic a century ago called the American "worship of size, mass, quantity and numbers." On the other, Americana: the craving for the local and the lo-fi, for the inward heart of things, for the handcrafted and the homemade. Continued

1939 - Frank Sinatra and Harry James make history in Baltimore

(440.com) - 1939: Frank Sinatra made his first appearance with Harry James' band. Sinatra was center stage at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, MD, where he sang My Love for You.

Photo: ktylerconk

Charles Parkhurst, Who Tracked Down Looted Art, Dies at 95

(NYTimes) - Charles Parkhurst, a museum director in Baltimore and Washington and one of the “monuments men,” an Allied Forces team that chased down leads, pried open crates and snooped around museums, salt mines and castles in search of art stolen by the Nazis during World War II, died on Thursday at his home in Amherst, Mass. Continued

Photo: Wikipedia

American-Made

Country Churches: Fairview A.M.E.

Forest Hill, Maryland

Canon EOS 40D & EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS lens

Independent Reading: The best books and Web sites about the birth of America

(Jacob Weisberg, SLATE) - Several years ago, I went to a Fourth of July barbecue in the Hudson Valley, N.Y. After we'd had a few beers, the host led his guests up to a nearby Revolutionary War redoubt, where he proceeded to read aloud from the Declaration of Independence. My wife found this hokey and embarrassing, but I loved it. If evangelicals are going to insist on putting the Christ back into Christmas, we secular humanists can take the trouble to bring Jefferson to our Independence Day celebrations.
Thanks to the Internet, it's possible to get a feel for the drafting of the Declaration as never before. Continued

Down market means future looking up for Baltimore county park

(Towson Times) - Cromwell Valley Park, a scenic 371-acre urban oasis, is slated to become a 421-acre oasis - thanks to the generosity of the Barrans family and maybe a little help from the downside of a roller-coaster real estate market.
The State Board of Public Works was expected to approve the purchase of the 50-acre Barrans property on Providence Road on June 25 for $2.375 million, according to state records. Continued

Photo: Barns at Cromwell Valley Park, Canon EOS 5D

James Smithson

(LoC) - British scientist James Smithson died on June 27, 1829. He left an endowment "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." Some regarded his bequest as a trifle eccentric, considering Smithson had neither traveled to nor corresponded with anyone in America.
A fellow of the venerable Royal Society of London from the age of twenty-two, Smithson published numerous scientific papers on mineralogy, geology, and chemistry. He proved that zinc carbonates were true carbonate minerals, not zinc oxides; one calamine (a type of zinc carbonate) was renamed "smithsonite" posthumously in his honor.
An act of Congress signed by President James K. Polk on August 10, 1846, established the Smithsonian Institution. After considering a series of recommendations, which included the creation of a national university, a public library, or an astronomical observatory, Congress agreed that the $508,318 bequest would support the creation of a museum, a library, and a program of research, publication, educational outreach, and collection in the natural and applied sciences, arts, and history. Link

Photo: Theodor Horydczak

The Tyranny of the Heirloom

(NYTimes) - MELODIE BRYANT, a New York City composer, never wanted the portrait of her Uncle Ivins.
There were many things she did want, when her mother moved from an elegant 2,500-square-foot apartment in Los Angeles to a far smaller place in Manhattan, but plenty of others that she didn’t, though she ended up with them anyway: the mirrored Victorian vanity with tiny drawers that replaced a sturdy bureau with room for her socks, underwear and sweaters; the little armchair, mild as a timid 19th-century housemaid in a faded dress, that had survived the San Francisco earthquake but was too small to serve as a comfortable reading chair. Continued

Photo: Canon dRebel

June 25, 1867: Barbed Wire — the Beta Version

(Wired) - 1867: Lucien B. Smith patents barbed wire, an artificial "thorn hedge." It's an idea whose time clearly has come, but not quite in this form.
Smith's design called for spools of four short, sharp metal spikes at right angles. The spools would revolve loosely and be set every 2 to 3 feet along the fence wire.
William D. Hunt patented a similar design that year, and Michael D. Kelly did so the next. A patent battle was sure to follow, but none of these guys would win. Continued

Photo by Non-dropframe via Wikipedia

The kid's in the mail

(Smithsonian Institution) - This city letter carrier posed for a humorous photograph with a young boy in his mailbag. After parcel post service was introduced in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service. With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination. The Postmaster General quickly issued a regulation forbidding the sending of children in the mail after hearing of those examples.

Via boingboing

Googling past the graveyard

I came across this interesting headstone at Saint James/West Liberty Methodist Church. The inscription reads:

Moses Opher
CO B
19 US
CLD INF

So we know he was in the 19th U.S. Colored Infantry, a Civil War regiment. A little Googling tells us that "The 19th U.S.C.T. was recruited primarily from Maryland's Eastern Shore and southern counties, and was organized at Benedict, Maryland in December of 1863. ... The regiment remained with the 9th Corps through the Wilderness campaign. On November 27th it was transferred to the 25th Corps, and consequently participated in the siege of Richmond. During the intense Battle of Cemetery Hill near Richmond the regiment lost nearly half of it's strength, 12 commissioned officers and 360 men, killed and wounded in a period of thirty minutes. When the Army of Northern Virginia evacuated Richmond in April of 1865 the 19th U.S.C.T. was amongst the first troops to enter the city. The remainder of the regiment embarked for Brazos, Texas on June 5th, 1865 via steamship. Once in Texas the regiment moved to Brownsville, where it remained until the end of it's term of service in January of 1867." (Link)

I also found a Moses Opher on a historical marker in Cambridge, Maryland for the Stanley Institute. "Oldest community-owned one-room schoolhouse still intact in Dorchester County. First constructed c. 1865 near Church Creek. Moved here in 1867, it was used continuously until July 15, 1966, as Rock Elementary School for students in grades 1 through 7. Many ministers of Delaware annual conference of Methodist Church received their primary education here. School named for Ezekiel Stanley, president of its first board. Other trustees included Dennis Camper, Jr., Charles F. Kiah, Moses Opher and Nathaniel Young." (Link also here) Is it the same guy? I bet it is.

The marker indicates that the Stanley Institute trained many ministers and I found a record of a marriage performed by "Rev. Moses Opher {sic} Minister of the Methodist Church Date of Marriage Application: November 5, 1900" in Virginia. (Link) The same Moses Opher? Maybe so.

Just a little web research points to an interesting life. Moses Opher may have been born a slave, served in the Army of the Potomac in the Civil War and later on the Rio Grande, was ordained a minister who worked and travelled throughout the region, arriving at his final resting place in Harford County.

You just never know who your dead neighbors will turn out to be, sometimes they are a lot more interesting than the living ones.

Top photo: Falmanac. Bottom photo: Stanley Institute in 1981 Christopher Busta-Peck.

Country Churches: Saint James - West Liberty Methodist

Saint James/West Liberty is located near Jarrettsville, Maryland. We covered the original West Liberty, here.

Canon EOS 40D & 30D

Margaret Brent

(Wikipedia) - Margaret Brent, (1601–1671), was the first woman in North American Colonies to act as an attorney before a court of the Common Law, and a significant founding participant in the early history of the Colony of Maryland and the Colony of Virginia.
She ranks, with Anne Hutchinson among the most confrontational and controversial women figures to rise to prominence in early Colonial American history. Continued

How to make a summertime museum trip with kids worthwhile

By Emily Bazelon (Slate) ... But here's the thing about kids, summer, and culture: Know thy timing and their limits, and plan accordingly. The beach and the pool require only sun and sunscreen to be a good bet. Highbrow outings are more delicate creatures.
My three-event program was utter overkill—too much thinking and walking. And I'd chosen the wrong moment: early summer, when the pool still seems novel and the mosquitoes haven't yet had the chance to remind us that Washington, D.C., was built on a swamp. Continued

Photo: PRR 7002, Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Canon EOS 20D

Baltimore Public Works Museum

(Wikipedia) - The Baltimore Public Works Museum, located at 751 Eastern Avenue, Pier 7 of the Inner Harbor, Baltimore, Maryland, provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how a large city provides utility services to its citizens.
The building housing this display is an operating pumping station built in 1912. Exhibits also explain street lighting, road maintenance and trash removal. An outdoor sculpture called Streetscape is an intricate model of a network of phone lines, street lights, storm drains and pipes for water, gas and sewage disposal.
Link to museum's site.

Mmmm public works!

Edward Sheriff Curtis: One man's obsessive pursuit of the lost tribes of America

They cost him his marriage and his health, but Edward Sheriff Curtis's photographs are still powerful today. By Benjamin Secher

In 1896, Edward Sheriff Curtis took his first formal portrait of an American Indian. His subject was the elderly Princess Angeline. Only 40 years earlier, her father, chief of the Duwamish-Suquamish tribe, had presided over the land on which the city of Seattle now stands, but by the time Curtis shot her, the princess cut a poignant figure, agreeing to sit for the 28-year-old photographer for a dollar a shot. Continued

Photos: Library of Congress

Victory Mail Online Exhibit

(National Postal Museum) - Victory Mail, more commonly known as V-Mail, operated during World War II to expedite mail service for American armed forces overseas.
Moving the rapidly expanding volume of wartime mail posed hefty problems for the Post Office, War, and Navy Departments. Officials sought to reduce the bulk and weight of letters, and found a model in the British Airgraph Service started in 1941 that microfilmed messages for dispatch. Continued

Voltmeters

Baltimore Museum of Industry

Canon EOS 5D

Theodor Horydczak: Photographer

Fred Gover's grocery store at 117 Hare Street, Baltimore, Maryland.

"Little is known about Horydczak himself. He is believed to have been born in eastern Europe, and to have taken up photography during or after World War I, possibly while a member of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. His residence in Washington spanned the period from the early 1920s to his retirement in 1959. Horydczak's studio logbook opens with a 1921 entry for a photograph of cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin." - Library of Congress

Bonus Marchers, Washington, D.C.

Brothers postpone auction of historic Monkton hotel

(North County News) - The June 20 auction of the former Monkton hotel was postponed at the last minute after the owners said they’d like to sell it to the state of Maryland instead of a private bidder.
A state representative, who didn’t know the hotel has been on the market for a year before the auction, said the state may be interested in buying it, but needed more time.
The owners, Steve and Pete Theodoropoulos, agreed to postpone the auction until the state could come up with an offer. Continued

Country Churches: St. Paul Methodist

These little wood frame churches were built to last. This one went up in 1887.

Harford County, Maryland

Canon EOS 40D & EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS lens

'Rosie the Riveter' convention

(Baltimore Sun) - In 1942, 20-year-old Elsie Arnold heard surprising news: The Glenn L. Martin Co. in Middle River was hiring women to help build airplanes for World War II.
At the time, industrial work was largely the territory of men, but as the war continued, women across the country were increasingly filling positions left by men shipped off to fight. Seeing an opportunity to make money and help in the war effort, Arnold moved to the area from Garrett County and joined a growing number of women drilling, riveting and soldering bombers and other planes at the Martin aircraft company. Continued

Photo: U.S. Gov

West Virginia Day

(LoC) - On June 20, 1863, West Virginia became the thirty-fifth state in the Union. The land that formed the new state formerly constituted part of Virginia. The two areas had diverged culturally from their first years of European settlement, as small farmers generally settled the western portion of the state, including the counties that later formed West Virginia, while the eastern portion was dominated by a powerful minority class of wealthy slaveholders. There were proposals for the trans-Allegheny west to separate from Virginia as early as 1769. When Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, the residents of a number of contiguous western counties, where there were few slaves, decided to remain in the Union. Congress accepted these counties as the state of West Virginia on condition that its slaves be freed. "Montani semper liberi," "mountaineers always freemen," became the new state's motto. Continued

Smithsonian Institution's photostream on flickr

"The Smithsonian is happy to join the Flickr community. With our initial posting of 900 photographs, we look forward to your tags, comments, and general participation in this new venture. We will be adding more photos on a regular basis and hope you will often return to visit us." Link

Via boingboing

Wallis, Duchess of Windsor

(Wikipedia) - Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (previously Wallis Simpson; previously Wallis Spencer; born Bessie Wallis Warfield; 19 June 1895 or 1896 – 24 April 1986) was an American socialite who married, as her third husband, Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor.
... In 1901, her aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her large and comfortable house at 9 West Chase Street, Baltimore. A fellow pupil at Wallis's school recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she did."
... Between 1912 and 1914, Solomon Warfield paid for Wallis to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland. Continued

Thurgood Marshall’s abandoned, run-down elementary school to undergo historic preservation

(Examiner) - Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice, attended a segregated elementary school at 1315 Division St. in Baltimore, but people would never know today.
The abandoned building’s historical significance is masked among the brick homes and boarded-up doorways that surround it.
But a commission announced Wednesday by Mayor Sheila Dixon, members of which include Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and schools chief Andres Alonso, is charged with finding the best way to preserve the run-down building and, with it, Marshall’s legacy. Continued

Photo: Left to right: George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James M. Nabrit, congratulating each other, following Supreme Count decision declaring segregation unconstitutional. Library of Congress.

An end to suburban sprawl?

Maryland estate sale 1858

Don’t miss a huge June moon illusion

(MSNBC) - As the full moon rises Wednesday evening many people will be fooled into thinking it's unusually large.
The moon illusion, as it's known, is a trick in our minds that makes the moon seem bigger when it's near the horizon. The effect is most pronounced at full moon. Continued

Yellow Blue Moon, Baldwin, Maryland

Canon EOS 5D & EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens

Old House #25

Harford County, Maryland

Canon EOS 40D & EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens

Mary Katherine Goddard

(Maryland Women's Hall of Fame) - Mary Katherine Goddard, printer, newspaper publisher, and postmaster, was born in Connecticut on June 16, 1738. She lived in Baltimore, Maryland from 1774 until her death at age seventy-eight, in 1816.
... Mary Katherine proved to be a steady, impersonal newspaper editor and during the Revolution she was usually Baltimore’s only printer. From her press, in January 1777, came the first printed copy of the Declaration of Independence to include the names of the signers. Mary Katherine Goddard was also responsible for issuing several Almanacs, while in Baltimore, which now hold a place in the Maryland Historical Society.
... In 1775, Mary Katherine became postmaster of Baltimore, probably the first woman so appointed in the colonies, and certainly the only one to hold so important a post after the Declaration of Independence. Continued

Fallston, Maryland

Canon EOS 40D & EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens

A New Deal: The First 100 Days

(LoC) - June 16, 1933, marked the end of the first hundred days of the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). Those one hundred days were a period of frenetic activity.
Following his inauguration on March 4, Roosevelt immediately sought to stem the financial panic that had begun with the stock market crash of 1929 and to restore public confidence. He started by closing the nation's banks on March 6. On June 16, 1933, FDR signed the Banking Act, which separated commercial banking from investment banking and established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. He also signed the Farm Credit Act, the Emergency Railroad Transportation Act, and the National Industrial Recovery Act (which created the Public Works Administration). Continued

A powerful revival: Old dam in Pa. upgraded as electricity source

HOLTWOOD, Pa. (Baltimore Sun) - The century-old dam on the Susquehanna River doesn't look like an energy source of the future.
Weeds sprout out of cracks in the weathered Holtwood Hydroelectric Dam, 12 miles upriver from Maryland.
Inside the generating building, antique brass volt meters look like something from Dr. Frankenstein's lab. Water snakes slither across the floor. Continued

Photo: The Conestoga Area Historical Society

The Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership

"The Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership is a non-profit organization dedicated to raising national awareness of the unparalleled history in the region, which generally follows the Old Carolina Road (Rt. 15/231) from Gettysburg, through Maryland, to Monticello in Albemarle County, VA. From its communities, farms, businesses and heritage sites, we have an opportunity to celebrate and preserve this vital fabric of America which stands today in the historic, scenic and natural beauty of this region.
The Journey Through Hallowed Ground® is dedicated to encouraging both Americans and world visitors to appreciate, respect, and experience this cultural landscape that makes it uniquely American." Link

Photo: Antietam Battlefield, Sharpsburg, Maryland.

Canon EOS 30D & EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS lens

Josiah Henson

(Wikipedia) - Josiah Henson (June 15, 1789 – May 5, 1883) was born into slavery in Charles County, Maryland. He escaped to Ontario, Canada in 1830, and founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden in Kent County.
... The cabin in which Josiah Henson and other slaves were housed remains standing and is currently nestled amidst a residential development in Montgomery County, Maryland. ... After having remained in the hands of private owners for nearly two centuries, on January 6, 2006, the Montgomery Planning Board agreed to purchase the property and the acre of land on which it stands for $1,000,000. The house was opened to the public for one weekend in 2006. The Board plans to open the cabin to the public on a regular basis when possible. Continued

Photo: Henry Hartley, Wikipedia

Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children’s Literature

(NYTBR) - ... Studies of books for young people are a recent phenomenon. “Children's books,” Marcus writes, “may well have mattered so little to historians of past generations precisely because the books mattered so much to children. With their place firmly fixed in the foreground of young people’s intimate lives, few scholars thought to look further or to ask what the books might possibly mean as commercial or cultural artifacts, much less as works of literature and art.” Continued

Country Churches: St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church

Saint Mary's congregation has been around since the 1850's, though the present church was built in 1890. It's located in Pylesville, Maryland on St. Mary’s Road.

Canon EOS 40D & EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS lens