I spent much of the last week trying to understand what will probably be my last case study for the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland project. Following a review of my techniques in the Schweninger Collection reappraisal I found a handful of potential case studies for myself and one for a colleague. I re-examined a…
This past week was more eventful than usual inasmuch as I was involved with two events–a radio interview on the Eastern Shore and a presentation in Annapolis. On Thursday the 16th, senior Legacy of Slavery in Maryland employee Maya Davis and I traveled to Cambridge, MD in Dorchester County to be interviewed by Dr. Kay…
Like one of my favorite Presidents of the United States, the under-sung James K. Polk, I pulled off quite a bit of work in just four expressions of the sun’s effect on the Earth. In four years Polk facilitated one of the grandest land grabs in American history by seizing swaths of Mexico and settling…
In school I learned that historians use archives to compile evidence or find illustrative examples of a much longer case they are making. Genealogists, who are historians with a narrower interest, meanwhile consult indexes or other records looking for very particular items (usually names) and then move on. In the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland…
The past week at the Maryland State Archives is something of a blur of constant activity book-ended by dull moments while reading 200 year old court records concerning a slave named Robert Moody. Oral Histories Under the new terms of my fellowship’s placement at the Maryland State Archives I continue working on oral history interview…
This past week I returned to the depths of the Dr. Loren Schweninger Collection. This artificial collection, which I’ve previously talked about, is one of the results of over a decade of research and grant funded support to remove the mask of slave history in government records. The product of this effort at the Maryland…
In my most recent post I referred to a research activity concerning an Annapolis printer named William McNeir. During the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland weekly meeting on November 28, my supervisors Emily and Chris explained that they were looking for a way to accommodate a request from State Archivist Dr. Ed Papenfuse; because it…
Counterfactual Archivist 