Underbelly

Wallis Warfield Simpson: Baltimore’s Would-Be Queen

July 24th 2019

  On December 11, 1936, Britain’s king made a live broadcast on BBC Radio in which he publicly abdicated the…

 

They Live By Night: Portraits

June 26th 2019

In celebration of our new exhibition, “Reflections: A Brief History of Looking at Ourselves,” we wanted to share a few photographs…

 

Tracing the Travels of Maryland’s African Americans

May 30th 2019

  In high school, I volunteered at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, rooting…

 

Game of Rings

April 24th 2019

  A common refrain is that “chivalry is dead.” For a small contingent of Marylanders though, chivalry and other medieval…

 

Devil in the Details: Snowball Incident at 123 W. Lanvale St.

January 30th 2019

Starting January 2019, the content featured in our Aspect Ratio photography and film blog will merge with underbelly. Please look for series such as: “Devil In…

 

Electrifying and Animating Maryland's Christmas Gardens

December 20th 2018

The image of an electric train going around a Christmas tree is now almost as iconic to the holiday as…

 

Researching Curious Revolutionaries at MdHS

November 8th 2018

The Lord Baltimore Fellowship was a wonderful way to expand my own research on the history of fossil display in…

 

Scattered across the Globe and the Political Spectrum: The Tilghman Family in the Revolutionary War

October 25th 2018

On March 16, 1777, twenty-seven year old Anna Maria Tilghman wrote to her father, James, “I was made happy by…

 

The Tale of John Brown's Letter Book

October 11th 2018

The Maryland Historical Society has in its collection a small, tattered letter book written in the hand of famed abolitionist…

 

Photo Mystery: The Investigation

September 27th 2018

A few weeks ago, we shared a photograph of an unidentified building which had long stumped the Library staff. We…

 

Photo Mystery: A Stumped Sleuth

August 16th 2018

One of the best parts about working in the Special Collections Department is trying to identify subjects in old photographs.…

 

Carlin's Park: "Baltimore's Million Dollar Playground"

August 2nd 2018

On August 13, 1919, John J. Carlin advertised the opening night of his latest business venture—an amusement park he billed…

 

“Happy play in grassy places:” Baltimore’s Playgrounds in Photographs, 1911-1936

July 19th 2018

Happy play in grassy places; That was how in ancient ages Children grew to kings and sages. (1) As the…

 

Cathy McDermott: A Remembrance

July 5th 2018

Last July 14, longtime MdHS volunteer and member of the library committee Cathy M. McDermott passed away. On April 14,…

 

The History of the H. Furlong Baldwin Library

June 20th 2018

1844 – Alarmed by the disgraceful condition of the state’s historical documents, Brantz Mayer and twenty-two civic-minded Baltimoreans organized the…