Uncovering overlooked local history with Heritage Montgomery

Hello all! I'm Isabella Hlavacek and my internship this semester is with Heritage Montgomery. HM is a non-profit organization which has a mission of furthering Montgomery County heritage and history while protecting and highlighting various buildings and landscapes in the county that have historical and cultural value. The three big undertakings that HM is busy with right now are African American and Quaker Heritage sites in the county, the Agricultural Reserve, and Transportation Trails such as the C&O Canal. Another big goal of HM's is promoting local tourism through fostering a pride of place in MoCo.

Dr. Blair was nice enough to help me get some information about the possibility of interning with HM, and I'm so glad she did. I've been working at HM since January and now that the semester is in full swing I go to the office twice a week. Saturday March 2nd I was fortunate enough to assist in being a Special Prize Judge for MCPS' National History Day competition with Sarah Rogers (Executive Director) and Jamie Williams (Administrator) at HM. Those students who took home prizes for the main categories are going to the Maryland state finals (taking place at UMBC this year!) and the winners at state finals will move on to the Nationals!

We got to examine a ton of cool history projects from middle and high school students in the county. Since the project I'm personally working on is researching Heritage Montgomery's African American heritage sites, the category I helped judge featured a special HM sponsored cash prize for those high school students who did extraordinary work in furthering African American history.

When the weather gets nicer I'm going to go on a tour of all of the HM sites I am researching so I can get some personal experience exploring them. Later down the line I'm also going to be contacting the individuals who run some of these sites, such as the lovely people who run the Warren Historic Site in Dickerson, and helping them take inventory of any old records, information, and uncovered stories they might have related to their sites.

Basically it's a big ol' local history party!

Jamie Williams (front) and Sarah Rogers of Heritage Montgomery soaking in the intrigue of History Day

Gaithersburg Historic Museum Park

Gaithersburg Historic Museum Park

My name is Erik and I am a senior attending UMBC. My internship is with the city of Gaithersburg Museum.  My career goal is  to be a teacher and this internship is a great opportunity since its helping me put historical research together for general  audience as well as preparing educational information. In the internship my main task is to improve some of the museum existing exhibitions such as the Gaithersburg observatory exhibit. Another part of the internship is collecting historical information and creating my own exhibit to be display in the museum.

The internship is helping me understand more about the way the field of public history works and what it takes to run a successful museum. I am also being sent to few meetings to get knowledge of how museums obtain their artifacts. To make any exhibit there are multiple variables that need to be taken into inconsideration, such as the target audience and the information one could obtain for that specific topic.

The artifacts used in an exhibition are also important: there might be multiple objects available but you need to find the right one to best tell your story. A few categories an exhibit item needs to meet are its relationship to the topic, its cultural value or how well it represents a large group or community.

Overall the internship is giving me great skill and knowledge that I could use in a classroom or in a future job.  

Hey Mom, I’m at the Maryland State Archives!

My name is Morgan Miller and for my graduate internship, I was able to work at the Maryland State Archives (MSA) in the Special Collections Department. The Special Collections Department was the best fit for me because Special Collections is where you get to see all the cool and unique stuff! For the purposes of my blog posts, I will go through the beginning, middle, and end of my internship through the collections that I was able to work on. My central question has been: what is the best way to make a collection accessible to the public? So let’s start at the beginning! I was able to go through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Photo collection (MSA SC 908) and update the MSA catalog.

The WPA Photo Collection is a collection of photographs for the book Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State. This was done through the Federal Writers’ Project, as part of the WPA. The collection goes through different scenes from the different counties within Maryland. These scenes include photos of houses, agriculture work, leisure activities, and industrial work that range from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis to the first George Washington Monument in George Washington Monument State Park, Washington County, Maryland. Catalog information ranged from detailed descriptions of photos to simple phrases like “man fishing” or “children on road”.

Naturally, this presented a problem for the MSA catalog. Who could find a picture they wanted to see if the only information they saw was “man fishing”? What if they needed a photo from a specific county and could not find that information accessible?

It became my task to fix this issue.

Through the help of my superiors, Maria Day and Megan Craynon, I was able to formulate a template to input information from the photos into the catalog. If you go to the website and look at MSA SC 908-1-1, you will see a description that follow this format:

City, County. Object in photo, location (or any extra information found with the photo or on it). WPA Number.

This format allows people to see all the information associated with the photo that is being described. Now the caption “man fishing” has a location and any other information that could be found relevant.

The first part of my MSA experience has been amazing. Being taught how to catalog information has helped me in other areas of my life and has taught me a lot about myself. I look forward to my next blog post about the middle part of my MSA experience!

Preserve the Baltimore Uprising Internship Blog #1

My name is George Lewis and I am a second-year Historical Studies graduate student at UMBC. This semester I am interning with Dr. Meringolo on the Preserve the Baltimore Uprising Project. The goal of this project is to to preserve and disseminate oral histories surrounding the Baltimore Uprising events of 2015. The events that transpired after the death of Freddie Gray in April of that year made national headlines. Many citizens of Baltimore City who observed and participated in the protest, demonstrations, and other activities associated with the uprising longed to preserve their accounts of the event and its aftermath. Dr. Meringolo began this project this past fall (2018) by reaching out to several local Baltimore city high schools. The goal was to work with 3 to 4 local city schools. In the end the project went forward working with 2 local schools: Baltimore Polytechnic High School and City College High School.

 Dr. Meringolo reached out to these two schools to conduct an oral history project with the high school students. The students were tasked with completing formal oral history training and developing interview questions. Armed with their new-found knowledge on oral histories and persevered memory the students headed out into the community to interview people who witnessed any aspect of the events following the death of Freddie Gray. These interviews and following projects the student create from them are the focus of the showcase in April 10^th, 2019 at the Maryland Historical Society The goal of this showcase is to celebrate the efforts and achievements of these students and the numerous community members who took part, not only in the current project, but the previous on-going task of preserving the Baltimore Uprising. Along with the students work there will be presentation by Danielle Drakes, a screening of a documentary by Lee Boot. This event is open to the public.

As a history graduate student and a teacher for Baltimore County Public Schools, my involvement with this project consists of creating usable classroom lessons for teacher of local, state and even national school to implement. Along with the lessons I will be creating, the interns this semester are tasked with helping with the showcase in April. My goal throughout this internship is to create a series of lesson plans utilizable in the classroom setting. Pat Brynes, another high school teacher in the Carroll county area, will work with me to develop a comprehensive set of lessons for Social Studies teachers at various levels. Incorporating the Maryland Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for high school students, these lessons will teach the principles of oral history. By teaching students what oral history is, as well as its importance to the historical record, these lessons will enable students to conduct and analyze interviews independently. The students will also understand the efforts put forth in conducting a proper interview.

Pat and I are currently unsure of how many lesson plans we will create, or they would constitute an entire unit plan. Currently, we are modeling our initial ideas from Park City Museum and their Oral History Step by Step Guide found at http://dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/oralHistory.html. Also included in this plan are several online examples from educational institutions such as the Rutgers Oral History Archive, the American Memory program at the Library of Congress, and oral history collections from the Archives of American Art.

In this stage of development, the lessons will be designed with high school students in mind. Our goal is for them to be adaptable for middle school use. Keeping in mind that both Pat and I are high school social studies teachers and that the initial project started with high school students it only seems fitting to plan the lessons accordingly. By breaking the project into five manageable parts, students will learn to do the following:

1. Students will be able to learn what oral history is and consist of.

2. Students will be able to examine the significance of oral history to creating and preserving historical record.

3. Students will be able to pinpoint a specific event to study through the lens of oral history

4. Students will be able to conduct oral history interviews using questions they've developed

5. Students will be able to analyze and reflect on their process, including potential errors made during the process

We would like, if time and resources allows, to create some lessons revolving around the events of the Baltimore Uprising. Perserve the Baltimore Uprising 2015 (baltimoreuprising2015.org) has done a tremendous job of gathering materials on the events and is a crucial partner in the initial project head by Mr. Meringolo. A set of lessons detailing the events from both a media and community perspective/narrative would be highly educational and influential.

UMBC Special Collections Internship #1

Hi my name is Jeanette Richardson and I'm a junior undergraduate History major with a Public History minor. This semester I am doing an internship at UMBC'S Special Collections/Archive. I started at the end of January and have been acquainting myself with the Past Perfect database and search engine UMBC uses for its collection. My main project is to create tutorials for other students, faculty, and the general public to view in order to learn and understand how they themselves can search the collection. To someone unfamiliar, or even someone with some experience, the search engine in Special Collections can be tricky to navigate. I am also learning how to use the screen cast software Panopto which I will use to film and edit my tutorial. I have done research in Past Perfect and first am focusing on creating a tutorial for the photo collections. Since I have a lot of experience with Civil War history I am using the collection's vast Civil War collection for my example. I have had to write a script and storyboard my project and have it edited and approved by my supervisor. I have so far finished my second draft on this first tutorial project, after more edits and approval I will film and edit the video. The video will then be uploaded to the UMBC Library YouTube channel and library website. I also have plans to make more tutorials including using and navigating a finding aid, which will involve some mild coding, and conducting archival searches. I have also done many readings about archives and how they function, how researchers use them, and how information can be organized. I also will be learning more functions of an academic library and the role of archives and special collections.

Preserve the Baltimore Uprising Internship Blog #1

My name is Pat Brynes, a second-year graduate student at UMBC. This semester, my internship is with Dr. Denise Meringolo, working to preserve and disseminate oral histories surrounding the Baltimore Uprising events of 2015. Following the death of Freddie Gray in April 2015, several observers and participants longed to preserve their accounts of the event and its aftermath. My involvement with this project revolves around the creation of lesson plans and resources usable to classroom teachers.

 Beginning in the fall of 2018, Dr. Meringolo connected with Baltimore Polytechnic High School and City College High School to develop interview questions with a dedicated group of high school students. Furthermore, these students completed formal oral history training to take their efforts out into the community. From there, they will collect and preserve oral histories from community members who can personally attest to the events of Freddie Gray's death and those that followed. Collecting these oral histories throughout January and February 2019, the students will participate at a public event hosted by the Maryland Historical Society on April 10th. This event will celebrate the efforts of these students and other community members while showcasing the project as it comes to fruition. The evening's program will include the screening of Lee Boot's documentary of the program's efforts, a presentation by Danielle Drakes, as well as a formal exhibition of the oral histories preserved by the high school students.

As a high school teacher, my goal throughout this internship is to create a series of lesson plans utilizable in the classroom setting. George Lewis, another high school teacher in the Baltimore area, will work with me to develop a comprehensive set of lessons for Social Studies teachers at various levels. Incorporating the Maryland Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for high school students, these lessons will teach the principles of oral history. By teaching students what oral history actually is, as well as its importance to the historical record, these lessons will enable students to conduct and analyze interviews independently.

I am currently unsure of how many lesson plans will account for this series, or if it will even be large enough to constitute a unit plan. Currently, I'm modeling my initial ideas off of Park City Museum and their Oral History Step by Step Guide found at http://dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/oralHistory.html.

Also included in this plan are several online examples from educational institutions such as the Rutgers Oral History Archive, the American Memory program at the Library of Congress, and oral history collections from the Archives of American Art.

In this stage of development, I am also not certain of the appropriate grade level for these oral history lessons. In my research of other online examples, it appears that these lessons can be modified to fit any grade level, from elementary to high school students. Nevertheless, the modifications required to fit these lessons into any classroom will not change the process. By breaking the project into four-to-five manageable parts, students will learn to do the following:

1. Students will learn what oral history actually is

2. Students will examine the significance of oral history to the historical record

3. Students will pinpoint a specific event to study through the lens of oral history

4. Students will conduct oral history interviews using questions they've developed

5. Students will analyze and reflect on their process, including potential errors made during the process.

Maryland State Archives Internship Part3

The last bit of my internship with the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland program at the Maryland State Archives continued my work in refining their public facing content, researching victims, and writing new content for their website. Additionally, I was tasked with researching Henry Davis (lynched in 1906) exhaustively. Some representatives from the state government and offices of former Governor O’Malley wanted to highlight the history of Anne Arundel, including Henry Davis’ lynching in Annapolis. Hopes were high that there would be some state documentation or record of the incident because the governor back in 1907 took particular outrage with Davis’ lynching. I tore through a number of sources at both the county and state level. Unfortunately, the perpetrators of this crime were never brought to justice and based on the absence of any records from the grand jury assigned to investigating the matter it appears the governor’s wishes for charges were ignored. This last period also saw me contesting a few lynching reports that we had been given by the University of Washington. A few instances turned out to not actually have taken place in Maryland or had little to no evidence to support placing them on the website. Compared to the start of my internship, this last third was not the flood putting content out the first few months were. We had to go name-by-name and edit/check the work of other volunteers and interns up to this point to ensure we were putting out a consistent product.

Overall this project highlighted the frustrations of researching lynchings. Whether it’s the juries not pursuing the lynch mob or families not being safe to return and identify the bodies, a number of circumstances ensured that these incidents are not recorded in an “official” manner which makes extracting these stories all the more difficult. I think that also shows why the work done at the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland program is massively important. Without a concentrated effort to uncover these bits of information then a lot of these victims would go forgotten. Similar to the barebones question of did something happen or not, we also had to contend with “did these long passed down stories actually happen here? Or were they passed down as families moved across the country?” I think that is where the interdisciplinary and community of researchers across the country come in handy.

In addition to the skills in writing, researching, and dreamweaver that I picked up over the course of my internship, I have also acquired a deep respect for the employees of the Maryland State Archives. I had the opportunity to partake in database creation, adding new material to the archives, researching both archived materials and newspapers, as well as constructing a good deal of public facing online content. Still, I only got a taste for the sort of research and organization involved in archive operation during my time with them, but it was overall fascinating. I look forward to continuing to volunteer with the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland program long after this internship has ended.