Voices of the Chesapeake: OHMAR Conference
Sponsored by OHMAR and Washington College
Friday, March 2 and Saturday, March 3, 2007
Unless noted, activities were held in the Washington College's Casey Academic Center, Chestertown, Maryland
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Friday, March 2, 2007
1:00pm – 4:00pm
Beginners Oral History Workshop: Instructor: Dr. Laura Kamoie, U.S. Naval Academy, Dept. of History
4:30pm - 5:30pm
Walking Tour of Chestertown, Met in front of the Washington College Custom House, 101 S. Water Street.
Tour by Steven Mumford, New Yarmouth Tours .
5:30pm – 7:30pm
Opening Reception:
- Drinks and hor d'oeuvres at the Washington College Custom House, 101 S. Water Street
- Stories of the Chesapeake with Andy McCown, Storyteller and Writer
Saturday, March 3, 2007
8:30am – 9:00am
Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00am – 4:00pm
Oral History in the Classroom: Workshop: The workshop was held in the 1st floor Commons Room. Instructor - Glenn Whitman, St. Andrews Episcopal School, Potomac, Maryland.
9:00am - 10:00am
Opening Plenary Session
In Search of Voices Along the Chesapeake Bay – Michael Buckley . For six years Michael Buckley has explored the Chesapeake Bay region through his weekly radio show and recorded over 200 interviews with people from all walks of Chesapeake Bay life. Buckley shared his methods and motivation in creating the Voices of the Chesapeake Bay Interview Project.
Moderator: Dave Winkler, Naval Historical Foundation
10:15 am - 11:30am Concurrent Morning Sessions
Panel 1 Working the Water
- Blacks of the Chesapeake Project -- Vincent Leggett, Project Coordinator in the Chesapeake Bay and Coastal Bay Division at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
- Recording the Watermen of the Four Rivers Heritage Area -- Jeff Holland, Executive Director of the Annapolis Maritime Museum
Moderator: Lisa Crawley, Reginald F. Lewis Museum
Panel 2 Oral History Resources in the Mid-Atlantic States
- Oral History Resources at the American Folklife Center -- Michael Taft, Director of Archive of Folk Culture at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress
- Chestertown Garnett High School Desegregation Project -- Reverend Clarence Hawkins, Kent County Commissioner.
Moderator: Jeanne Nutter, Bloomfield College
11:45am - 1:15pm
Lunch, Hynson Lounge, adjacent to Casey Academic Center
- Pogue Award, Elaine Eff, Ph.D., Folklorist, Maryland Historical Trust
- OHMAR Business Meeting
1:30p m - 3:00pm Concurrent Afternoon Sessions
Panel 1. Remember the Past, Look to the Future: African- American Schools during a Century of Segregation
- In Relentless Pursuit of an Education: African-American Stories from a Century of Segregation (1865-1967) – Merideth Taylor, Professor of Theatre and Dance, St. Mary's College of Maryland; Alma Jordon, Unified Committee for Afro-American Contributions (UCAC) Board of Directors; and Dr. Janice Walthour, president of UCAC.
- Baltimore Museum of Industry's Efforts to Record Chesapeake Workers and Use of Filmed Oral Histories in Galleries – Carrie Albert, Collections and Research Director , Baltimore Museum of Industry
- Ward Museum's Utilization of Oral History Resources in the Development of Its Lower Shore Traditions Program to Engage Local Community – Lora Bottinelli, Interim Director of Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, Salisbury University. Moderator: John Lonnquest, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Moderator: John Lonnquest, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Panel 2. A Diversity of Chesapeake Life
- Stories & Spaces, Oral History and Archaeology: Using the Past to Build Community in Calvert County, Maryland -- Kirsti Uunila, Historic Preservation Planner for Calvert County , Maryland .
- Crab Picking, A Chesapeake Oral History Project --
Kelly Feltault, Crab Pickers Oral History Project and Ph.D. candidate at American University and Alice Palmer, community scholar at the Chesapeake Maritime Museum
- “Chesapeake Scenes: The Words and Music of the Bay” -- Tom McHugh, Founder and Director of The Mainstay, Rock Hall , Maryland
Moderator: Renee Braden, National Geographic Society
3:15 pm – 4:45pm Afternoon Plenary Session
The Chesapeake Region through Photographs and Video
- Bringing Back the Bay: The Chesapeake in the Photographs of Marion E. Warren and the Voices of Its People -- Mame Warren, Director of Hopkins History Enterprises at the Johns Hopkins University .
- Aubrey Bodine's Chesapeake Bay Country: A Daughter's Recollection of her Father's Most Memorable Chesapeake's Images --Jennifer Bodine, Editor and Publisher, Bodine's Chesapeake Bay Country and co-owner of AAubreyBodine.com
- Workin' on a Building - In Photographs and Video Documentary of Walker Family of Kent County Capturing Effects of Slavery, Segregation, and Realities of Black Families in Contemporary Black Life. -- Leslie Raimond, Executive Director of Kent County Arts Council.
Moderator: Harriet Lynn, Heritage Theatre Artists' Consortium
Presenters
Carrie Albert: Directs the Baltimore Museum of Industry's collections and research functions and also works on exhibit development. Having joined the museum in 2003, Albert led her department through collections planning, large collections moves and recovery and restoration efforts after Hurricane Isabel. Ms. Albert's other museum experience includes positions at the Historical Society of Delaware and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. Her publications include co-authoring Along the Delaware River published by Arcadia Publishing.
Jennifer Bodine: With her husband Richard Orban, operates AAubreyBodine.com that sells digitally restored A. Aubrey Bodine note cards and reprints on the Internet and through retailers. She edited and published Bodine's Chesapeake Bay Country , released in 2005. Before starting her business she spent 13 years as a stained glass artist and before that, she was a criminal trial lawyer. Jennifer has a B.A. from the University of Maryland, a Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore and a Master of Arts from Washington College. She designed and built her steel home on the bank of the Choptank River outside of Denton, Maryland.
Lora Bottinelli: Serves as interim Director of the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, Salisbury University. She holds an M.A. in American Studies from the University of Wyoming and a B.A. in American Studies and English from Rutgers University . In 2006, Bottinelli completed the American Association for State and Local History's Seminar for Historical/Museum Administration. She sits on the Board of Directors of the Middle Atlantic Folklife Association and the Board of Directors of the Lower Eastern Shore Heritage Council. Bottinelli also has been a guest lecturer in folklore and folklife at Salisbury University .
Michael Buckley: The producer, writer, and host of the “The Sunday Brunch,” a weekly radio show on 103.1 WRNR-FM, Buckley has recorded over 200 interviews with people all across the Chesapeake Bay region. He has received a Maryland Governor's Citation and Maryland State Arts Council Award. Later this year the Cornell Maritime Press and Tidewater Publishers will publish his first book, Voices of the Chesapeake Bay Volume 1 .
Elaine Eff: This Pogue Award Winner has been “talking to strangers” professionally since she discovered she was a folklorist in the 1970s. She received a Masters degree in Museum Studies and Folklore from the Cooperstown Graduate Program and her doctorate in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania where she was a Rockefeller Fellow. She has organized exhibitions for the Smithsonian Institution, Winterthur Museum and the American Folk Art Museums . Her oral history, curatorial and film work has taken her throughout Maryland and the nation. Ms. Eff has administered the Maryland Historical Trust's Cultural Conservation Program since 1989.
Kelly Feltault: Holds an M.A. in Folklore and Oral History from UNC Chapel Hill and is currently a doctoral student in Anthropology at American University. Ms. Feltault spent four years on the Eastern Shore as the Senior Researcher for the Crab Pickers Oral History Project and the Delmarva Folklife Project. She then managed women in Development programs for USAID. Currently, she is writing her dissertation on imported crabmeat and the Chesapeake Bay , using oral histories from crabmeat importers and processors in Thailand and the US. Reverend Clarence Hawkins: A pastor for twenty years, Reverend Hawkins was the first African American county commissioner for Kent County, Maryland. The experiences of desegregation of African American students of Garnett High School were first publicly addressed at the Celebration of Chestertown's Tercentenary in 2006.
Jeff Holland: Serves as the executive director of the Annapolis Maritime Museum. The museum has developed several programs to commemorate and teach the maritime history of the Port of Annapolis and the Four Rivers Heritage Area, including recording the memories of the area's watermen and their families.
Alma Jordon: A retired registered nurse has served on the UCAC Board of Directors for three years. Ms. Jordon is a member of the UCAC Oral History Committee and co–editor of In Relentless Pursuit of an Education.
Laura Kamoie: An assistant Professor of History at the U.S. Naval Academy, she holds a Ph.D. in American history from The College of William and Mary. Though trained and published as an historian of Colonial America, Laura became involved with oral history through her public history work in Washington, D.C. She directed the Public History Program at American University for five years, which included teaching Oral History, overseeing graduate students' oral history projects, and conducting community-based research projects in D.C. that frequently included oral history components.
Vincent Leggett: President of Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation, Mr. Leggett has over 30 years of public service as an educational administrator, school board president, and housing director. He founded the Blacks of the Chesapeake project in 1984, intending to preserve the legacy of bay watermen and tell their story to a greater audience of citizens and stewards. In 1999, Leggett became the president of the Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation. Through his work with the foundation, Mr. Leggett has become a noted author and lecturer. In 2000, the United States Congress and the Library of Congress designated Blacks of the Chesapeake as a "Local Legacy." Local Legacy projects are recognized for documenting the signature customs, traditions, and occupations that define life in American communities. Andy McCown: A native of Kent County, Mr. McCown grew up fishing and crabbing on the Chester River . Captain Andy, as he is referred to by thousands of school children, has been teaching Chesapeake Bay ecology with Echo Hill Outdoor School since 1977. He captained the skipjack Elsworth and commercially harvested oysters for seven winters and continues to sail the Elsworth as he frequently leads week-long adventures in the summer with children. He is a founding Board member of the Chester River Association and an active Board member for the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy. Reading to groups had been a passion of Captain Andy since he began performing with the folk group Chesapeake Scenes in 1994. The Tidewater Folklore Society selected Chesapeake Scenes for Album of the Year in 1996.
Tom McHugh: Founder and director of The Mainstay, a non-profit center for the arts in Rock Hall, Maryland--McHugh holds undergraduate and master's degrees from Temple University and a Ph.D. from The University of Pennsylvania. He began teaching at Washington College in Chestertown , Maryland and later chaired the Department of Education at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York where he also held an appointment in the Program in American Culture. While there, McHugh team taught Oral History: Method and Intuition with Professor Charles Briggs, a distinguished oral historian. McHugh later produced Taking the Boat Downriver, a book dedicated to the life of a mythic Chesapeake Bay boat builder Stanley Vansant. As a musician McHugh sings, plays the banjo, and blues harp, and is a well-known performer for children. In 2006, he embarked on an epic 18-site concert tour of the Bay titled "Cherish The Waters."
Alice Palmer: Has picked crabs at two packing houses: Harrison and Jarboe, and Coulbourne and Jewett. These were located on Navy Point, where the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum currently stands and is a participant in their Chesapeake People program, which brings the Bay's tradition-bearers to the museum to share their stories and experiences with visitors. She was also featured in the book, It's How You Pick the Crab: An Oral Portrait of Eastern Shore Crab Picking.
Leslie Raimond: As Executive Director of Kent County Arts Council, Ms. Raimond has shepherded many oral history projects, produced blues and gospel festivals, encouraged traditions such as quilting and other crafts, and revered everyone's life-story. She served for seven years as Activities Director at Kent County Senior Center where she worked with seniors born around the turn of the 20th century who shared with her their experiences of living in rural Kent County at a time of its relative isolation from the rest of the state.
Michael Taft: The director of the archive at the American Folklife Center, Mr. Taft has also been an archivist at the University of Northern British Columbia, the Vermont Folklife Center , the University of North Carolina, and the archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University . He has authored 16 books on folklore and oral history.
Merideth
Taylor: Past president and vice-president of Unified Committee for Afro-American contributions of St. Mary's County (UCAC) and Professor of Theater and Dance at St. Mary's College of Maryland. The UCAC Oral history Committee has collected over ninety oral history interviews since 1996, many of which were included in its new book, In Relentless Pursuit of an Education: African-American Stories from a Century of Segregation (1865-1967). Related oral history interviews were also incorporated into an exhibit titled “Remember the Past, Look to the Future: African American Schools during a Century of Segregation,” that the UCAC mounted in partnership with Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum Exhibit Services in 2002.
Kirsti Uunila: A historic preservation planner for Calvert County , Maryland , she also serves as a staff member to the Historic District Commission where she has designed and administered several oral history projects. Uunila is also active in several community organizations including the North Beach Historic Preservation Commission and Calvert County Concerned Black Women.
Dr. Janice Walthour: Retired elementary school principal and the president of UCAC is a member of the UCAC Oral History Committee and a co–editor of In Relentless Pursuit of an Education .
Mame Warren: From 1985 to 1995, she was the curator of photographs at Maryland State Archives. She coauthored four books of historical photographs on Maryland subjects with her father. She is the author of Then Again, Annapolis 1900-1965 as well as an anniversary book for Washington and Lee University and Knowledge for the World for the Johns Hopkins University . A nationally respected oral historian, Mame Warren weaves stories and illustrations in innovative ways that spark fresh insights in her audiences and readers.
Glenn Whitman: A teacher at St. Andrews Episcopal School, he has been conducting The American Century Project (www.americancenturyproject.org ) with his students for the last fourteen years. He is also the author of Dialogue with the Past: Engaging Students and Meeting Standards Through Oral History, published by American Association for State and Local History.
|
