Underbelly

Let's hear from O's manager Paul Richards: "A keen baseball mind"

April 8th 2013

  Who cares what the so-called experts predict for the Orioles this season? The Ravens did okay last season, the O’s looked pretty…

 

Your Baltimore Canaries: a very brief history of Baltimore’s second professional base ball team

April 3rd 2013

Look up, Baltimore baseball fans! You’ve come a long way. The origin of baseball in Baltimore is a ridiculously complicated…

 

A Whale of a Tale: the Mysterious Case of the Tolchester Whale*

March 21st 2013

  It’s hard to work at the Maryland Historical Society and not be familiar with the R.H. Eichner & Company…

 

Lost City: The Sulzebacher House

March 14th 2013

West Baltimore was once a densely packed, vibrant neighborhood full of theaters, local businesses, and industry. Drive down many of…

 

Antoinette in the Air: Hubert Latham and His Historic Flight Over Baltimore, 1910

March 7th 2013

Hubert Latham was almost the first person to fly an airplane over the British Channel. If the French aviator and adventurer…

 

Paul Henderson Collection: Who or Where?

February 28th 2013

The Paul Henderson Photograph Collection contains over 6,000 photographs of mostly unidentified African Americans from ca. 1935-1965. When the Paul Henderson:…

 

A Short History of Hoes Heights

February 21st 2013

Ever wonder about Hoes Heights? The hidden and oft-overlooked north Baltimore neighborhood of Hoes Heights bears the name of Grandison…

 

"Facing the Masks": Masked Mystery Solved

February 15th 2013

  Last week we reached out for help toward understanding a photograph, and wow, did we get it. Our photo from…

 

Down with Love: A Brief History of the Vinegar Valentine

February 14th 2013

While rummaging through our Valentine’s Day card collection in a search for long forgotten declarations of love and fidelity, an…

 

Valentine's is coming...

February 11th 2013

… to underbelly this Thursday. Guest-blogger Lara Westwood gets down with love in a look at the history of the Vinegar…

 

Masked Mystery

February 7th 2013

Last month we solved a longstanding photograph mystery that we never expected to solve, that is until we rolled up our…

 

What's the Point?

January 31st 2013

While writing a previous post that looked at the debate over the oldest house in Baltimore, a coworker introduced me…

 

“To die is gain”: Memory and the U.S.-Mexican War in Maryland

January 24th 2013

On an auspicious afternoon in late September 1903, a crowd of Baltimoreans converged onto the intersection of Mount Royal Avenue and…

 

Conduit: Druid Lake and the Wall of Mud (1863 - 1871)

January 17th 2013

In 1863 the Baltimore City Council approved a $300,000 loan to construct a billion gallon capacity reservoir in the newly…

 

The Death of Sport

January 10th 2013

Among the many mysterious photographs in MdHS’s collections, two of an elephant stand out as particularly unsettling. Buried in the…