Fireworks have been around since the Han Dynasty in China (200 B.C.E.), when hollow bamboo sticks were thrown into fires to expand and eventually explode. Chemicals were soon added to […]

Animal lovers have been keeping birds as pets for hundreds if not thousands of years—they can be found throughout history from Egyptian hieroglyphs to homing pigeons, and in White House […]

The temperance movement in the United States started in the 18th century, advocating for the abstention from alcohol and drugs. Organizations including the Anti Saloon League and Womens Christian Temperance […]

During my sophomore year of music school, I took a class in earth science. There I learned about the loudest sound in recorded history—the 1883 eruption of the Krakatoa volcano […]

With Spring flowers in full bloom, this week’s deep dive celebrates the many floral lithograph covers in the Levy Sheet Music Collection. It took a while to choose my favorites […]

Now that it’s Spring in Baltimore and cicadas are starting to emerge from their seventeen-year sleep, I thought this week would be a good time to dive into the collection’s […]

Scrolling through the alphabetical list of subjects in the Levy collection, one that caught my eye early on was “aerialists.” I wasn’t expecting to see many songs in this category, […]

With a sheet music mapping project in the works (stay tuned!), I decided to spend this week combing the Levy Sheet Music Collection in search of maps. One of the […]