Maryland Historical Society

Joshua Johnson, considered by art historians and collectors the first significant black American portrait painter, lived and painted in Baltimore during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.While much of his work has survived and is in major collections, Johnson himself remains somewhat of an enigma. How he spelled his name, or if he was even black, have been open tospeculation.His name appears in city directories between 1795 and 1825, listed as Johnson or Johnston. In the 1816-1817 directory, there is a Joshua Johnson, a painter and "Free Householder of Colour."

The small wooden trunk is covered with red leather, painted with an ocher floral embroidery and studded with brass nails - and it couldn't have announced its owner's intention more clearly. The 19-year-old Baltimore beauty who packed the trunk with her books and with a black lace mantilla wasn't planning to merely travel between two continents. She was determined to conquer them. On one side of the trunk, plain and simple, is stenciled her birth name, "Elizabeth Patterson. " But on the other side, not one, but two labels declare the trunk to be the property of "Madame Bonaparte, nee Patterson.

They left the Maryland Historical Society tucked inside the coat pockets and notebooks of Barry Landau and his assistant, but the historical documents returned in manila envelopes, neatly packed inside a gray cardboard file box. Authorities continue to reunite more than 10,000 items "of cultural heritage" to museums and libraries along the East Coast that were targeted by Landau and his assistant Jason Savedoff. This month the Maryland Historical Society has received about one-third of 60 documents stolen.

They left the Maryland Historical Society tucked inside the coat pockets and notebooks of Barry Landau and his assistant, but the historical documents returned in manila envelopes, neatly packed inside a gray cardboard file box. Authorities continue to reunite more than 10,000 items "of cultural heritage" to museums and libraries along the East Coast that were targeted by Landau and his assistant Jason Savedoff. This month the Maryland Historical Society has received about one-third of 60 documents stolen.

After Francis Scott Key scrawled down the four verses of "The Star-Spangled Banner," he left four fold marks from putting it in his breast pocket. Nearly 200 years later, the historic document is handled with far more reverence and care. It's kept in an argon-filled case for preservation, and on Tuesday, when caretakers moved it from Baltimore to Annapolis — its first known trip out of the city — they put it in an armored truck followed by two state police cars and a half-dozen city police on motorcycles.

It was a truly royal reception at the Maryland Historical Society's 1999 Antiques Show Gala Preview Party. More than 400 antiques lovers perused roomfuls of collectible treasures and toured the exhibit "Wallis: Duchess of Windsor," while enjoying a buffet fit for a king.Meanwhile, the king of costume-jewelry designers, Kenneth Jay Lane, held court with his fans. As he playfully toyed with a long string of pearls worn by board member Barbara Katz, she told Lane, "They're yours ... 1961!"Others in attendance at the party included society board president Stan Klinefelter; director Dennis Fiori; board member Stiles Colwill; event chair Carolyn O'Keefe; committee members Megan Wolfe, Blair White, Olive Waxter, Julia Keelty and Marcy Sagel; "Calloway" Brooks, musician; Lou Van Dyck, CFO of New Enterprise Associates; Katie O'Hare, Baltimore-based actress; Dr. Dolores Njoku, Johns Hopkins pediatric anesthesiologist; Doug Becker, president of Sylvan Learning Systems; and Dick Horne, co-curator of the American Dime Museum.

The Maryland Historical Society will temporarily close its exhibition "Baltimore, Inc.: From Mobtown to Charm City," Sept. 8-19, to add a selection of costumes, accessories and drawings from Baltimore's past. The items to be installed are from the society's permanent collection and will be exhibited for the first time."Baltimore, Inc." tells Baltimore City's history through objects, photographs and other ephemera. The exhibition is on display in the society's new 21,000-square-foot Heritage Gallery.

Anita R. Nelson, a longtime volunteer and guide at the Maryland Historical Society who shared her enthusiasm for the state's history with visitors, died of heart failure March 2 at her Timonium home. She was 81. Born Anita Marguerite Ross in Seattle, she was raised there and in Spokane and Wenatchee, Wash. She moved to Pasadena, Calif., and earned an associate's degree from Pasadena Junior College in 1944. She was studying to become a registered nurse when she fell in love and married Edmund Allen Nelson, a Marine Corps pilot from Cambridge.

THE FISCAL crunch that threatens to close the Baltimore City Life Museums shows that there are just too many local history museums with overlapping focus. The philanthropic and business communities simply cannot support all of them. For years, some experts have been predicting mergers and consolidations.The Maryland Historical Society has scheduled a meeting Wednesday to explore whether it can help ease the City Life Museums' crisis. The society is particularly concerned that if City Life is forced to sell its collection of paintings by Rembrandt Peale, the works should remain in Maryland.

THE MARYLAND Historical Society is the big winner in the liquidation of the Baltimore City Life Museums, which was forced to padlock its doors June 21.It will add to the society's collection 58 paintings by members of the Rembrandt Peale family, thus becoming the biggest repository of Peale art anywhere. The historical society will also acquire and display in its Mount Vernon buildings the rest of the City Life memorabilia.That's the good news. The bad news is that the future of various City Life buildings is uncertain -- the Shot Tower, H. L. Mencken's rowhouse, the Peale Museum, Carroll Mansion and a renovated iron building named just last year in honor of the late Morton K. Blaustein.

As Maryland Historical Society librarian Francis O'Neill described the winding route to reconstructing the history of Baltimore's homes, a small but eager crowd paid close attention. No one made for the exits, even as he laid new twists on old turns. "We're not Google," said his colleague, Eben Dennis. "There's not one place you can plug in a keyword and get a photo. " But for those willing to put in some effort, the society has almost a million pictures of buildings from the city and beyond.

On a stormy April evening seven years ago, an unexpected email inextricably linked me to a cornerstone of Baltimore's past. The message was this: "Can you do Lexington Market?" And it came from Arcadia Publishing, a firm specializing in pictorial local histories. I read it in a last-minute email check before leaving with my husband for the Maryland Historical Society, which was awarding him its prestigious Brewington Prize for his article on Maryland maritime history. Between the rain, the snarled, rush-hour traffic, and the fact that the evening's focus was on my husband, I corked up Arcadia's message until, arriving at the society, I blurted "I've been asked to write a book about Lexington Market!"

William Donald Schaefer would have loved Maryland Day this year. It's all about him! A year after of his death, Maryland Historical Society will celebrate Schaefer's memory Thursday with a roast. They'll also be showing off a few Schaefer artifacts including the famous striped swimsuit he wore for that dip at Baltimore's National Aquarium and the rubber ducky he brought along for the swim. The roast will be at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Maryland Historical Society, 201 W. Monument St. 6 p.m. Tickets are $30 and it could be worth every penny -- and not just to see the bathing suit.

Images of nearly 6,000 Baltimoreans are the life's work of a photographer who documented racial segregation and early civil rights protests, and also captured candid moments of now-anonymous brides, classmates, football players and black residents of the city. But while Paul S. Henderson left what Maryland Historical Society curator Jennifer Ferretti calls an "unparalleled visual record of civil rights in Baltimore," he didn't leave behind captions. The names of his subjects aren't known, as Henderson didn't keep written files — or they didn't survive.

A sad tale has been unfolding here in Baltimore. From the library of the Maryland Historical Society to the Baltimore City Jail and a federal courtroom, two arrested and accused thieves, guilty by their own admission, are being ushered through the justice system. The story now bouncing around the media has lessons and cautions for all of us. Barry A. Landau pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing thousands of important historical documents from East Coast libraries and historical societies.

The official acknowledgment that the Piscataway Indians are Maryland's indigenous people is cause for celebration ("For Md. Piscataways, vindication at long last," Jan. 17). Recognition of this fact is long overdue. For 25 years I volunteered as an educator at the Maryland Historical Society, teaching Maryland school children about the history of our state. When we talked about the early colonial period, I stressed the debt the colonists owed to the native people. We studied Indian village life, their methods of felling trees and building dugout canoes, working flint, farming and fishing - and their willingness to share this knowledge with the colonists.

P. William Filby, former director of the Maryland Historical Society and an authority on "The Star-Spangled Banner," died of a stroke Nov. 2 at Laurel Regional Hospital. He was 90 and lived in Savage. Mr. Filby was born and raised in Cambridge, England. After attending the Cambridge and County High School, he joined the Cambridge University Library, working in its rare-book division. After volunteering for the British army in 1940, he later transferred to the British Intelligence Corps as a member of the cryptographic team at Bletchley, England, where Germany's ULTRA code was broken.

A collector charged with conspiring to steal valuable historic documents taken from museums in Maryland and several other states is alleging that he was illegally arrested in Baltimore by city officers who lacked enough evidence to place him in custody. Barry H. Landau, a well-known Manhattan collector, argues in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore that it was his companion, Jason James Savedoff, who had sole possession of documents police found in a locker at the Maryland Historical Society in July.

A National Archives and Records Administration employee pleaded guilty Tuesday to embezzling government property — including a recording of Babe Ruth's voice — and selling it on eBay, the Maryland U.S. attorney's office announced. Leslie Charles Waffen, 66, worked for the NARA since 1969, swiped at least 955 sound recordings worth $30,000 and stashed them in his home or sold them online, according to prosecutors, who charged Waffen last week with stealing from the United States.