Reflections & News About Working With the Past
While spending some time in Gettysburg over the Memorial Day Weekend, we checked out a few out-of-the-way spots along the Mason Dixon Line, searching for unique view related to the history of this old boundary. I’m always searching for images to enhance my public and classroom lectures on the Mason Dixon Line. Here are a few of the photos we took over the holiday in spots between Gettysburg, PA and Cumberland, MD.
While talking about the history of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal during the Civil War at a meeting of the Fort Delaware Society last week, we discussed the website, www.marinetraffic.com. This open source initiative provides free, real-time information about ship movements so visitors are able to view marine traffic on the Delaware and Chesapeake bays and the Canal. It is also provides details on the vessels. Many guests at the program were interested in this virtual information repository, so I am posting the link here.
Whenever I’m on the road working in some new area, I enjoy looking for fading physical traces of the past. This curiosity about the dynamics of place makes my road trips much longer as I pause to explore a community, seeking to get some view of a bygone time. That was the case this week as I was out in Oakland doing a programs for the 8th graders in Garrett County Schools at an event sponsored by the Garrett Lakes Arts Festival, Mountain Maryland Gateway to the West Heritage Area and the Maryland Humanities Council.
It was a long, enjoyable day as I paused in Grantsville, Frostburg, and Cumberland, MD, as well as Greencastle, PA. At these stops I slowly strolled down streets looking for things many people might not notice. These traces of close at hand history that got my attention on this Friday in mid-May were fading and peeling advertising signs on exteriors walls of buildings. Sometimes I eyed signs that were here before neon and were painted on old brick walls. In Cumberland, which had a substantial downtown business district in the middle of the 20th century, there were a number of aging neon signs touting products or services that have disappeared.
These old advertising pieces brought to mind an earlier era in our commercial past as surviving visual relics of changing business districts. They were also a reminder of the time when the advertising medium was far different. Anyway it was an enjoyable day traveling through Western Maryland and I was able to snap a few interesting photos, which will eventually find some use in the classroom or public lecture.
Here are three of the pictures.
Several months ago, the Executive Director of the Historic Hosanna School Museum, Iris Barnes, invited me to serve on the board of the nonprofit. I had worked with the group on a Smithsonian oral history project as a pubic historian, so I was pleased to join this visionary organization.
Its mission is to share the rich heritage of our diverse society and foster an awareness that deepens understanding and appreciation of that diversity. Hosanna sponsors exhibits, speakers, displays and other events that portray the contributions made by African-Americans and a variety of ethnic groups, throughout the year.
The first public educational facility for African-Americans in Harford County, the Freedmen’s Bureau funded construction of the two-story frame building in 1867-68. It was used as a schoolhouse, a community meeting place, and a church. In 1879, the operation of the school was assumed by the Harford County School Commissioners. The Board of Education closed the doors in 1946, but two years later the Hosanna Community House, Inc. was created to a support a new use, an African-American community center. Hosanna was placed on the National Register in 1991.
