A message to the team:
You all have done a great job over the past 3 weeks collecting a huge amount of information about the club, and I think it’s time for us to start putting the bigger picture together (as best we can). To that end, I’d like to do two things this week:
- I’d like to give each of you a research assignment tailored to the things you’ve been transcribing or discussing; and
- I’d like to take a pause from the transcriptions on Thursday and maybe for the rest of the week so that you can engage in some other kinds of research at MDHS. I also encourage you to do research in our library and the Johns Hopkins Eisenhower Library (which is in walking distance for those of you living at the Guilford) during the early part of this week, especially if you want to reserve the limited amount of time we have available at MDHS time for transcription.
Here are your research assignments:
CLARA: You’ve done a great job of cataloguing the readings & music given at Club meetings. I’d like for you to put that spreadsheet to work by using it to get a better sense of Lizette Woodworth Reese’s contributions to the Club– and the Club’s contribution to the development of her career. To that end, I’d like you to do the following:
- Based on your spreadsheet, create a list of all the poems Lizette Woodworth Reese presented at the Club meetings between 1890-1899 (I believe that’s as far as you’ve gotten, correct?). Create this list as a Google Doc or Sheet, organized chronologically.
- Track down copies of the poems. Some poems are available at the Poetry Foundation website, but you may find others at our library or at Hopkins/Peabody. Also try searching for Reese in the American Periodical Series database (available through the library website).
- You can also look in archives for her poems. Luckily for us, Reese’s papers are just down the street from MDHS at the Enoch Pratt Free Library (here’s a link to the finding aid, which describes what they have). You can go to the EPFL if you wish to check them out– they’re open from 10-5 every day this week. I’ll even be doing research there on Monday & Tuesday. If you want to meet up there I can show you around.
- Make note on your list of where the poems are located, including links if you have them or copies of actual poems.
- Choose one poem to tell us about in a blog post.
ELLEN: You mentioned Lehmann’s Hall, where the WLCB met in spring 1891. My map research has shown me that Lehmann’s Hall is at … 861 Garden St.! You mentioned doing some preliminary research on this interesting building last week. Could you flesh this out, and see if you can get a sense of how the WLCB ended up using this space, who else used it at the time, and why they stopped using it? What’s at the site now? (Note that MDHS has at least 1 photo of the original building in its collection.) And then can you encapsulate your discoveries in a blog post?
HUNTER: You ended your blog post from last week about the Woman’s College in Lutherville that the college “ought to be immortalized.” I’d like for you to see what you can do about that. What role did women’s educational institutions play in Baltimore in the 1890-1915 period? In addition to the Woman’s College in Lutherville that you wrote about, could you tell us about Goucher (note that both the wife of Goucher’s founder, and his daughter, belonged to WLBC). What kind of education was offered at these institutions? A wealth of info ought to be available– through histories of the college, histories of women’s colleges in general, or through the College’s archives. If you find good sources, add them to our bibliography. And yes, then write a blog post about it.
KATIE: By transcribing the Board of Managers minutes, you have gotten the largest historical window on Club activities. My reading of these minutes shows that the Club was undergoing a period of institutional change– in terms of changing meetings structure and so on. Could you summarize these changes and post them to the transcription summaries? In particular, what relationship develops between the WLBC and the Poe Memorial Association? And what happens during the 1907-1912 period regarding the Poe memorial & Poe Centennial? This is a great story that I’d like for you to share with the group & blog readers.
SYDNEY: You also have gotten a “big-picture” view of the Club by transcribing the membership lists. From what I see, you have a nearly complete list of members and dues payments from 1890-1893, a complete membership list from about 1903-1904, and Board of Management members from 1898-1916 (with a few gaps). This week, could you please do the following:
- Focusing on 1903-1904 ONLY, see if you can give us a “generational snapshot” of the club members, by finding out birth and death dates for 1) Board of Management members; and 2) as many of the rest of the membership as possible. Let me know if you need help in locating this information.
- Include all the information you are able to find next to each person’s name on your spreadsheet(s).
- What do the relative ages of the women belonging to the Club at this time tell you about the ideological orientation(s) of the Club as a whole? individual members? Here, you may wish to consult the secondary source readings I’ve assigned– Parker & McGerr.
Please plan to post about your findings during our “off week” (July 3-10). And let’s meet at 9am at the Bun Shop on Thursday so that we can discuss the Parker & McGerr readings. If you have any questions at all before then, email me.
I hope you have fun sleuthing!