Month: February 2015

In the 19^th century, a variety of directories were published.  These include mercantile serials, city directories, state gazetteers, newspaper directories, and volumes for the professions, such as doctors and lawyers.  These publications are valuable sources when doing local and family history research.

Fortunately for researchers many of the older volumes are available from online, as library holdings are limited and scattered, except at some of the largest special collections institutions.

Here are links to two volumes I was working with today.

The Thomson’s Mercantile and Professional Directory 1851-52 was a specialty publication, designed to help merchants reach a wider customer base.  It informed a person where they might “obtain the goods he wants to the best advantage.”    This is a quality scan of a volume in the University of Virginia Library.

The other was the Delaware State Directory and Gazetteer for 1874-75, compiled by Wm. H. Boyd Directory Publisher.  The Gazetteer contains descriptions of most towns, villages, and hundreds in the State, while also providing a list of the professions, trades, and occupations in that town, along with the farmers and fruit growers.  This is a quality scan from the New York State Library.

The Enoch Pratt Free Library has many excellent resources for those digging into state, local, and family history.  Those materials include microfilm reels containing practically every extant newspaper in Maryland, including all the county weeklies.  In the serials department, you will also find the Evening Sun and the Baltimore News American, papers which are often overlooked by genealogists and others as they tend to rely on the Baltimore Sun.

The Maryland Department is another strength.  This unit has been collecting and organizing books and other types of materials on every subject since 1935. as long as the information is about Maryland   It has over 50,000 volumes pertaining to the State, 300,000 items on over 7,000 subjects in vertical files, and lots of photographs, maps and atlases.  Items I often use in this reading room are the telephone directories.  The stacks contain volumes for  rural counties going back to the 1920s.

And for a perhaps over a decade, I have been using the great databases, which are accessible from the convenience of your home. The Baltimore Sun Historical Archives (1835 to 1987), for example, is available online and is text searchable.  Other online publications include the Washington Post (1877 – 1994), the New York Times (1851 – 2007), the Baltimore Afro-American (1893 – 1988), and the Wall Street Journal.

The institution also has a number of general magazine and scholarly databases available for patrons.  One of those is JSTOR, the virtual repository for scholarly journals, including many of the state historical society journals from around the nation.  Another, which those studying or communities will find valuable, is the Sanborn Map database for communities all around the State.  You may find many these to be of assistance.

The Pratt’s electronic holdings are strong and continue to grow.  To access these valuable text searchable resources, you need a Baltimore City Library Card.  All Maryland residents are eligible, but you do have to visit any branch in the city to receive the card.

These are resources I use all the time, as they help me find evidence beyond what the local papers provide.  I also use them to locate reference dates, which allows me to access the local non-indexed materials without spending countless hours on a search.

You will find these Enoch Pratt databases to be of great assistance when doing genealogical research.

 

“The New York History Blog,” one of the newsfeeds we follow, shared a post a couple of years ago about attempts to celebrate the Empire State’s past through “history month.”  Created by a 1997 law, the initiative resulted in some activities, but largely enthusiasm waned after a few years Bob Weible, the State Historian of New York, wrote.

Seeking to revive this movement, Weible has authored a number of columns, suggesting the matter be given thought as a method to show “appreciation for the value and power” of the State’s heritage.   However, he examines some broader problems with the craft, in his essay.  “[M]any of us have convinced ourselves that things are just fine the way they are . . .   Often, we even assume that people outside our historical groups don’t know or care about history, just because they don’t join our societies or attend our conferences.  That’s a mistake.”

He continues:  “Most people like—even love—history and use it in their daily lives.  History is not only interesting to people, it’s important.  It’s the bad history teaching, the overly specialized and inaccessible writing, and the boring and uninspired programming that turn so many people off.  There is, in other words, an enormous audience out there just waiting to work with us.”

New York State History Month doesn’t have to fade away, he suggests.  “Let’s begin, not by figuring out how to make this initiative work for us, but how we can make it work for everyone.  This means, to me at least, that we’ll need to work together with open minds, vision, and a renewed sense of public service to teach everyday New Yorkers that they can make history as well as celebrate it.”  The State’s history “has more power than many of us recognize” and we can really make a difference,” he concludes.

I think there is something to this for those of us on Delmarva too, as we have opportunities to put a brighter spotlight on our county and state narratives and foster broader involvement in new, creative ways.  These types of activities help bring us in contact with patrons beyond our traditional audience, making the past more accessible and creating new constituencies as we also reinvigorate the appeal of our message.

They have done something along these lines in one upper Shore county for many years.  The Queen Anne’s County Historic Sites Consortium represents small historic sites depicting the county’s heritage.  Members coordinate activities and have specially promoted days where all the sites, from the Chesapeake Bay to the Mason Dixon Line, open.  As the Star Democrat noted in 2011, it provides an interesting and informative presentation for visitors as they learn about the county’s past.

It would be great if others on the Shore would do something similar, coordinate events and consider added ways to present the story.

Many heritage institutions across the country are trying a new participatory approach to stimulating conversations about the past.  Called “pop-up museums,” the idea is that people bring personal objects and stories to an event.  As the activity unfolds, anyone may stand up to discuss their item or share a story.  This type of approach stimulates the community conversation and new discoveries as the crowd contributes unique thoughts, knowledge, and experiences to a designated theme.

At the Cecilton Library program on February 10 at 6:30 p.m. you are invited to pop-up and share your personal stories and objects during a program called “Remembering World War II.”  It will be a lively evening as we invite people to bring items and we collectively learn more about the men and women who lived during the World War II era.  By recounting the first and second-hand stories of those who fought for our freedom or served on the home front, we will more uniquely capture the individual and community level experience of the period while learning more broadly about the history of our nation and region through aging items such as photographs and letters.

The objects related to the World War II-era that people could bring are widely varied.  Military memorabilia, posters, artwork, personal photographs, ribbons, letters, ration books, patches, newspapers, and more are perfect.  The idea of the artifact is to help with the recounting through the personal object and conversation while also generating interest, participation and conversation.

There are stories you will want to hear, and I will moderate the dialogue, providing context for the shared evening while also keeping things moving along,  But you and the other patrons are invited to take the lead, sharing the tales of the greatest generation, while we pay tribute to a vanishing generation of veterans and disappearing memories.

You won’t want to miss this community show and tell focused on the greatest generation and the World War II-era.  Of course, you don’t have to have an object.  Stories are an excellent, less-centralized way to learn about the past.  Or you may simply want to watch and learn, as we hear from the tradition bearers and the heirlooms that have been important for their families.

Space is limited so be sure to register for the program.  Click here for more details about the program and click here for the online registration form.