Maryland Humanities Podcast

What led someone to charge an Anne Arundel County woman with witchcraft in the 1700s? Rissa Miller, a tour guide with Maryland History Tours, talks about the history of witchcraft in Maryland.

Did you know that 21% of adults in Maryland have reported that they have a disability? John Owen is the Director of the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled. He tells us how blind and low-vision people access books and computers in the digital age.

Kara Harris has spent eight years researching Maryland culinary history. She travels the state and sometimes the country to research cookbooks written more than 100 years ago. For years ago, she turned her hobby into a blog, Old Line Plate. Harris tells us more about what cookbooks can tell us about our state’s history.

How is one organization combining civic engagement, history, and the arts to ensure that the voices of Baltimore youth are heard? Sharayna Christmas, Executive Director of Muse 360 Arts, tells us more. 

How is storytelling a form of survival? R. Eric Thomas, Senior Staff Writer at Elle Magazine and Board Member at FreeState Justice, tells us more.

As an eighth-grader last spring, Addie Skillman won first place in the junior individual performance category at Maryland History Day for her project “Loving v. Virginia: The Stepping Stone for Equality in America.” Addie then advanced to the National History Day contest in College Park where she won the top prize—the Gold Medal—for her junior individual performance. Currently a ninth-grader at Howard High, Addie tells us how her participation in the program changed her life.

How have Día de Los Muertos observances changed over the past 3,000 years?   Yesenia Mejia, part of a group called Artesanas Mexicanas and Artesanas Mexicanas Coordinator at the Creative Alliance, tells us more and talks about the value she finds in observing the holiday today in Baltimore.

In the play Here We Are, Amelia Earhart wakes up in the underworld. Playwright Jen Diamond weaves intertwines her own imaginings with biographical information about the aviator. Interrobang Theatre Company produces the play: Artistic Director Katie Hileman tells us more.

What is “rememory?” How can exploring collective memory help people heal from traumatic history and offer hope? Durryle Brooks is the Executive Director at the Center for Black Equity – Baltimore. He tells us more. We do want to add a Content Note for trauma and violence involving racism, homophobia, and transphobia in this segment.

How can we make the humanities more accessible to people with disabilities? Tammy Black of the Hearing and Speech Agency or HASA, tells us more.

In the digital age, what’s the value of connecting face-to-face while celebrating the humanities? Tara Hart, Co-Chair of the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society, tells us more.

In the 1800s, Enoch Pratt said Baltimore needed “...a free circulating public library, open to all citizens regardless of property or color.” How is the Enoch Pratt Free Library continuing Pratt’s legacy with renovations to the Central Library? Meghan McCorkell, the library’s Marketing & Communications Director, tells us more.

How can poetry and journalism help high school students rediscover their neighborhoods? Writers in Baltimore Schools developed a new program for students called “Neighborhoods, News: A Poetic Archiving of Baltimore.” Patrice Hutton, Executive Director at Writers in Baltimore Schools, tells us more.

How can a few dedicated volunteers help an organization, neighborhood, and city retain their collective memory? Caitlin Swaim, Curator at the Annapolis Maritime Museum & Park, tells us more.

What can we learn about a region from its farming history? Evergreen Heritage Center is creating an agricultural museum in a barn’s lower level stables. Janice Keene, the center’s Founder & Director, grew up on the farm at the center’s current location: she tells us more.

Natalie Elder read about a simple clothing accessory one day at her job in the Chesney Medical Archives for Johns Hopkins Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health. The Curator of Cultural Properties is still on a continuous quest to find it.  What can items like these teach us about a person and an organization’s past? How can medical archives help piece together someone’s story? Elder tells us more.

How can quilting interpret history and document community identity? Next summer, The Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art at Salisbury University will host an exhibit featuring documentary quilts by Dr. Joan Gaither. The Maryland Heritage Award winner will also lead quilting workshops for Eastern Shore residents: the quilts made in these workshops will also be included in the exhibit. Jackson Medel, Curator and Folklorist at The Ward Museum, tells us more.

How can an institution shed light on the fact that its location was a place where enslaved people once worked? St. Mary’s College of Maryland will install a memorial to the enslaved peoples of Southern Maryland. The college will also host a public symposium called “From Invisibility to Remembrance: Commemorating Slavery in St. Mary’s City and Southern Maryland.” Dr. Julia King, Professor of Anthropology at the college, tells us more about the history of enslaved people in St. Mary’s City and the college’s commemoration

Baltimore’s Rahne Alexander is a writer as well as a musician and multimedia artist. She talks about the process of finding her voice on the page and writing Heretic to Housewife. This new essay collection won the 2019 OutWrite Chapbook Competition in Nonfiction and will be released in August.

Bethlehem Steel mill in Baltimore County’s Sparrow’s Point was once the largest in the world. After 123 years, the mill closed in 2012. A photography exhibit from J.M. Giordano, Shuttered: Images from the Fall of Bethlehem Steel, examines the impact of the mill’s decline and closure on his hometown of Baltimore. Giordano tells us more about the exhibit, the history, and his personal connection to Bethlehem Steel.