Over the last several years, we have all watched aghast at the images of ancient statuary, irreplaceable temples, and priceless historic artifacts are that damaged and destroyed by violence and theft in conflict zones around the world. Just today, we read about the terrible news that the Islamic State has blown up the Triumph Arch in the Syrian city of Palmyra, an iconic 2,000 year-old landmark within a UNESCO world heritage site.
I know I’m not alone in feeling almost helpless to stop this heart-breaking destruction in places half-way around the world. I also know I’m not alone in wondering what people around the world are doing to prevent these losses. While the challenge is immense, the good news is that there are indeed people and groups working hard to protect our global heritage in war zones. We are pleased to bring a leader in this field to speak to our community in Baltimore: Corine Wegener from the Smithsonian Institution.
Ms. Wegener is a founder of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting cultural property worldwide during armed conflict, and helped lead efforts to recover artifacts for the National Museum of Iraq after looting there. She works throughout the world helping museums protect against looting, strengthening international laws to safeguard antiquities, and engaging front-line soldiers on the importance of shared culture.
We hope you can join us for a talk by Ms. Wegener on October 21 with a wine and cheese reception following. Our host is the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore, a historic treasure of its own. Built in 1818 and designed by noted architect Maximilian Godefroy (who also designed Baltimore’s Battle Monument on Calvert Street), the church is the oldest Unitarian building still being used in the country. Please get in touch with any questions and come out to learn more about this important international preservation issue.
We love Baltimore best but even we have to admit stunning architecture and incredible history can be found in communities all across Maryland. This month, we’re offering two tours that take us beyond the city: a repeat of our sold-out spring walking tour of Lutherville and a look at the newly restored and reopened Senate Chambers at the Maryland State House in Annapolis. Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Michael Day is personally leading our Senate Chambers tour which includes the opportunity to stick around for lunch and hear more behind-the-scenes stories of this incredible restoration project.
Yesterday, Baltimore Heritage attended the first of four meetings for the Mayor’s Special Commission to Review Baltimore’s Public Confederate Monuments. Over the next six months, this commission plans to consider four public monuments:
Roger B. Taney Monument (1887)
Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1903)
Confederate Women’s Monument (1919)
Lee-Jackson Monument (1948)
Today’s meeting helped to define scope of the commission’s work and a process for moving forward. The commission is closely focused on these four public monuments—works that are owned by the city and located on public land. They have no plans to address the name of Lake Roland Park (an issue already being addressed by the Baltimore City Council).
Baltimore’s public art collection includes hundreds of statues, memorials and works of art found in neighborhoods across the city. Different works have been donated by individuals or groups, commissioned directly by Baltimore City, or supported by the 1% for art program. The city’s public art collection is managed by the Baltimore Public Art Commission (PAC) and the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP). Appropriately, the new special commission is made up of four representatives from CHAP, three from PAC, and a representative of the Mayor’s Office. For more on the membership of the commission read the Mayor’s announcement of the membership from September 3.
By January 2016, the commission expects to make a set of recommendations, informed by research, public comments, and deliberation, and laid out in a final report. For each monument, there are a range of possibilities:
Keep the sculpture as it stands at present.
Keep the sculpture with specific conditions. Conditions could include a recommendation to install new signage or some other intervention.
Keep the sculpture in the city’s collection at a new location.
Remove the sculpture and de-accession from the city’s collection.
Some may recall that this current discussion began in the wake of the tragic shooting in Charleston, South Carolina and the renewed efforts to reject symbols of the Confederacy for their links to white supremacy past and present. In Baltimore, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Mount Royal Avenue was tagged on July 22 with the words “Black Lives Matter”—matching the well-publicized tagging of monuments in Charleston and beyond. A group of activists, including Marvin “Doc” Cheatham and others who had advocated against the Lee-Jackson Monument for years, staged a protest and press conference to draw attention to the troubling meaning of these statues. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and city staff quickly responded with the announcement of the special commission on June 30.
Other cities around the country are exploring many of the same challenges. After convening a task force in June, the University of Texas at Austin decided to deal with a set of troubling statues along the Main Mall with the full range of options: moving their statue of Jefferson Davis to UT’s Briscoe Center for American History, relocating their statue of Woodrow Wilson, and leaving four others in place. In Frederick, Maryland officials are considering removing a statue of Roger B. Taney and in Rockville, Montgomery County officials are already considering alternate locations for a monument to the Confederacy located in front of the county courthouse.
Baltimore Heritage supports the Mayor’s leadership in organizing this special commission to consider this issue carefully. We hope the commission meetings provide an opportunity for an open discussion about the legacies of the Civil War and the decades of racial discrimination that followed in Baltimore and across the state. The testimony from city residents today pointed to the importance of this issue to Baltimoreans. One person reminded the commission that the “Spirit of the Confederacy” on Mount Royal Avenue stands just outside the doors of the Midtown Academy and asked: what are we teaching our children? Another speaker, expressed a call for unity urging the commission to seek a more inclusive vision of Baltimore’s history that includes abolition as well as slavery.
We have put together a historic context on Baltimore’s Confederate memory and monuments that we have provided to the special commission and through our new Civil Rights heritage project. We encourage you to read the historic context and get informed about this issue. You can submit your testimony to the commission through their online contact form. The public is also welcome to attend upcoming commission meetings:
Thursday, October 29, 9:00 am
Tuesday, December 15, 5:00pm
Thursday, January 14, 10:00 am
For questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us and share your views on Baltimore’s Confederate monuments and their future.
Finally, we are pleased to celebrate the continued stewardship of Patterson Park’s War of 1812 history with the Friends of Patterson Park. As we searched for buried fortifications during our archaeological dig in the park last spring, the Friends led an effort to restore Observatory Hill’s row of memorial cannons. It is a year later, the restoration is complete and the cannons are back in park! Join us on September 13 to celebrate Defender’s Day and the the rededication of this iconic memorial including a Battle of Baltimore tour up the Observatory led by Eli Pousson.
A few weeks into my work with the Battle of Baltimore project, I’ve selected around fifteen sites that I plan to research and write short stories about. I started with a list of over 200 sites compiled from early 19th century accounts of Baltimore such as Poppleton’s Plan of the City of Baltimore and Kearney’s Map of Baltimore’s Defenses. While some of these places are still familiar to 21st century Baltimoreans (Lexington Market, the Battle Monument), others are mostly forgotten (Harrison’s Marsh, Sugar House, Tobacco Inspection Warehouse).
To gauge which sites would be most fruitful for this project, I tried to get a general sense of the story behind each site before diving too deep into research. For example, I wanted to include a school to discuss the state of education in the early 19th century. The master list included seven such institutions: Male Public School No. 1, Public School No. 3, McKim’s Free School, the Baltimore Free School, the Female Free School, the Methodist Free School, and the Oliver Hibernian Free School. I spent a few minutes on Google to determine which might have the most compelling 1814 story to tell.
Illustration of McKim’s Free School from J.H.B. Latrobe’s Picture of Baltimore. JScholarship.
While the Oliver Hibernian Free School sounded fascinating, I found out it wasn’t established until 1824—and thus, may not be the best fit for this project. This preliminary search is not always straightforward, as there are variations on many place names. In the education example, there is a contemporary organization called the “Baltimore Free School,” which further complicates matters.
Once I focused in on a site, I turned to the wealth of primary resources now available online to understand how a building or institution was described around the Battle of Baltimore. I’ve found that it’s easiest to scour these sources for information about multiple sites rather than to focus only on one site at a time. City registers, including the 1814-1815 and 1816 City Registers, were invaluable in this step. The main function of the register was to provide a directory of Baltimore’s residents and businesses. A simple list of names, professions, and addresses offers many insights into early 19th century Baltimore.
For example, when researching Mary Pickersgill’s Jonestown house (now known as the Flag House), city registers provided information about the flagmaker’s neighbors and therefore, clues about her social and economic status. The 1814 directory showed that her Albemarle Street neighbors included the first clerk of the Bank of Maryland, a sea captain, a lumber merchant, an attorney, a merchant, and a physician—as well as craftsmen such as a cooper, a sailmaker, a weaver, a carver, and a distiller.
An advertisement in the 1814 directory offers services no longer rendered by dentists: cupping and bleeding with leeches. Courtesy Maryland State Archives.
Registers also include information about street names, elected officials, and, of course, advertisements. I’ve particularly enjoyed reading some of the positions appointed by the Mayor and City Council. These appointments include the inspector of butter, lard, and flaxseed; inspectors and gaugers of liquors, molasses, and oil; weigher of hay for the Lexington Hay Scale; keepers of the city springs; superintendent of the powder magazine —clearly an important task in September of 1814! I’ve also rediscovered the joy of reading historic advertisements. An ad for J.C. Petherbridge, “Dentist and Bleeder,” reminds me just how far medicine has come in the past two centuries: Mr. Petherbridge offered his services in Old Town “where cupping or bleeding with leeches is required.” While Mr. Petherbridge likely won’t be making an appearance in the Battle of Baltimore site, his advertisement from Iowa Dental Group has helped me get a better sense of everyday life in Baltimore at this time.
Ms. Wegener is a founder of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting cultural property worldwide during armed conflict, and helped lead efforts to recover artifacts for the National Museum of Iraq after looting there. She works throughout the world helping museums protect against looting, strengthening international laws to safeguard antiquities, and engaging front-line soldiers on the importance of shared culture.
