Category Archives: Special Collections
Engineering’s Beginning
On March 21, I was asked to speak to a luncheon group for the Legacy Circle of the Whiting School of Engineering. I gave them a capsule history of Johns Hopkins, and Engineering in particular, and I thought I’d offer … Continue reading
Stephen Crane’s War
If you’ve read anything by Stephen Crane, there’s a pretty good chance it was The Red Badge of Courage. Crane’s Civil War story is renowned for its insider perspective on combat experience—what it was like to be surrounded by gunsmoke, … Continue reading
The Risky Business of Photographing the Boer War
Written by Carla Ruas, Archives Assistant During the Second Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902), photographers had to work with slow cameras and heavy tripods, which left them at risk of getting shot and even killed. So instead of capturing … Continue reading
Celebrate Pleasant Living at FlowerMart!
Baltimore! It’s the land of pleasant living! And what’s more pleasant than spending a lovely Saturday perusing flowers, eating deliciously sugary lemon sticks, and ambling around a historic neighborhood? That’s right, all ye denizens of Baltimore, FlowerMart is occurring this … Continue reading
The Icon That Almost Wasn’t There
Mention Baltimore to an out-of-towner and a few things are likely to come up in conversation: The Wire will almost certainly be mentioned; possibly Hairspray. As will crab cakes, Cal Ripken, and Camden Yards. But odds are that the Inner Harbor, … Continue reading
John Pendleton Kennedy: Author, Statesman, Patriot
The following blog post was written by David Farris of The Sheridan Libraries Reserves Department. While a graduate student at the Peabody Institute, David worked as a student employee at the Peabody Library. There, he spearheaded a project to identify … Continue reading
Stephen Crane’s Career
How do you become a professional writer? It helps to have a family member provide a model—or better yet, both parents and a couple of siblings. It also helps to have access to a good public library—and to read voraciously, … Continue reading
Murder Most Foul: A Lecture on March 26th
Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose is arguably the most famous medieval murder mystery. Both the book and the film were hits, and did much to bring attention to the lives of medieval monks. But, as with most things, … Continue reading
Dust Bunnies Beware!
Do you ever look around your house or dorm room and wonder how it got so dusty? Well imagine looking around the historic George Peabody Library and seeing what can only be described as historic dust and antique dust bunnies! … Continue reading
The Writing Life
If you’re a professional writer, you probably think a lot about how to get your work under the eyes of readers. You may weigh the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing—using a service like CreateSpace on Amazon—against traditional publishing. (With self-publishing, … Continue reading