When asked to blog on Women’s History Month, my sights turned to the Rare Book Room in Miller Library full of historical narratives of famous women. A quick title search found the book Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, and Historical by Mrs. Jameson from 1854. Perfect, I thought.
While surveying the uncatalogued Rare Oversize Collection, we found a large pencil sketch among the pages of one of the books: a self-portrait of a mustachioed Teddy Roosevelt-looking man with the note “Quick sketch of myself after been reduced from Captain to Lieutenant Red Cross Service. Paris Jany 22/18” and a signature.
Bob Day, novelist and faculty member at Washington College for more than four decades, looked up at me from this black and white Polaroid dating from the late 60s or early 70s.
The National Home Front Project is a major grassroots initiative under the leadership of historians at Washington College. Our innovative oral history program partners with individuals, communities, and organizations across the United States to record, preserve, and share audio interviews with civilians who experienced World War II.
Most campus buildings bear the names of prominent donors or institutional figures. Every day, students eat at Hodson Hall Commons, the more recent annex to Hodson Hall and the Hynson Lounge. The name Hodson has been heard more recently due to the settlement of the Hodson Trust and the scholarship opportunities it will afford students.
In 1788 construction was far enough along that the first official building of Washington College could be opened.
In late 1857 “Col. Joseph Wickes & Lady” were invited to a January open house for the Chestertown Female Seminary run by Mrs. P. Trible.
Happy Holidays from the Washington College Archives and Special Collections!
The National Home Front Project is a major grassroots initiative under the leadership of historians at Washington College. Our innovative oral history program partners with individuals, communities, and organizations across the United States to record, preserve, and share audio interviews with civilians who experienced World War II. By pulling together in the spirit of wartime Americans, we can ensure that future generations hear their voices, and that our country never forgets its past. For this short entry, we’d like to share the story of Jo Ann Marshall.
Henry Louis Mencken was an American journalist and cultural critic who had such a distinctively combative writing style that the term “Menckenian” was coined to describe it.
