KRISTINA R. GADDY
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Come in, the stacks are open.

Godmother of Banjo Research: Dena Epstein

7/27/2022

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Listen to this post:
New York, 1952
     The smell of books lingered in the air as card catalog drawers clinked closed and creaked open. Dena Epstein walked through the golden light bouncing off the stone walls. She might have felt at home in any library, even if she had never been there before. On this day in 1952, she found herself in the New York Public Library, a monument to curiosity and learning in the heart of Manhattan. Dena had studied music and library science, and had worked as a music librarian. At thirty-six years old, her career as a librarian was temporarily on hold as her husband worked a government job and she took care of their children.
     Not working in a library didn’t seem to suit Dena, though. She wanted to engage her mind, she wanted to have interesting things to think about. Unanswered research questions nagged her. One of those questions made her come to the library from her home in New Jersey.
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"Lorena" sheet music cover by Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co. Lith. Cincinnati (no date). Courtesy Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University, Public Domain.
     More than ten years earlier as a graduate student, Dena had written an essay on music publishing in Chicago from 1858 to 1871. Even though the Music Library Association published the essay, she’d come across a song during her research that piqued her interest. Her essay covered songs published during the Civil War, songs that became popular in the Union and the Confederacy, even if they were written by northerners and published in Chicago. She wanted to know more about “Lorena,” one of the most popular songs in the Confederacy, a fact that she found curious, since it was published in Chicago. She could never find much about the song’s author Henry D. L. Webster, and thought she might have a mystery worth pursuing.

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Rewriting History: The Lee-Jackson Statue in Baltimore

6/5/2017

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You never know what you'll find in a box. 

     Last year, my friend Erik found a recording titled "Dr. Freeman's speech dedicating the Lee-Jackson Monument in Wyman Park" in a friend's record collection. The 33 1/3 LP was homemade, and the fact that it dealt with a seemingly out-of-place confederate statue in a city park about two miles from his house intrigued him.
     He shared the recording with me, and I knew the story of the recording had to be told through audio. My radio-producer friend Nadia Ramlagan and I started researching the the speech, the event, the artist, the donation, and produced a radio piece that aired last week on the Marc Steiner Show. 
          The story explores the history of the statue, and how that history should be a part of the debate about what to do with the confederate monuments in Baltimore today. ​​
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1948 cover of Baltimore Magazine, with a feature story on the monument.

 Listen to the piece and explore our research. 

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Maryland Emancipation Day 

11/1/2016

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     "Mr. President, it is my desire to be free," Ms. Annie Davis wrote to Lincoln on August 25th, 1864.

     Although it had been more than a year and a half since President Lincoln's Empancipation Proclamation, the answer to Davis's question was "No." The executive order that more than 3 million enslaved Americans would be freed didn't apply to any border states where slavery was still legal, and even to some areas of the south like New Orleans, the to-be state of West Virginia, and the area around Newport News, Virginia. Davis lived in Bel Air, Maryland, and that physical location meant that in August of 1864, she was not free. She would have to wait until November 1st, 1864 for the decree from the Maryland General Assembly and a new state constitution. 
Belair Aug 25th 1864
Mr President
It is my Desire to be free, to go to see my people on the eastern shore my mistress wont let me you will please let me know if we are free and what i can do. I write to you for advice please send me word this week or as soon as possible and oblidge.
Annie Davis
Belair Harford County, MD.
Belair Harford
     Today, Maryland is thought of as the Mid-Atlantic, with barely any relationship to the south. But the fact is that the state is south of the Mason-Dixon line, and before Washington, D.C. brought transplants from all over the United States, I've seen references to suburbs like Kensington and Silver Spring as being "sleepy southern towns." More importantly in the context of today, Maryland Emancipation Day, this was a slave-holding state, a fact that many people seem to forget when talking about Frederick Douglass, a fierce abolitionist who was enslaved and worked in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore City, or Harriet Tubman, a heroic Underground Railroad worker born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. During the Civil War, the state also had
many southern sympathizers, including the man who shot Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth (like Annie Davis, a resident of Bel Air, Maryland). 
     "Slave Statistics," a record of the enslaved people in Maryland and their owners at the time of emancipation exists for some counties in Maryland, but not for Harford. I haven't been able to find anything else about Annie Davis in a brief search. I want to thank Mr. C.R. Gibbs and the Reginald F. Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture for the Maryland Emancipation Day Lecture, where Mr. Gibbs shared this powerful letter. 
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    Come in, the stacks are open. 

    Away from prying eyes, damaging light, and pilfering hands, the most special collections are kept in closed stacks.  You need an appointment to view the objects, letters, and books that open a door to the past. 

    Here, pieces of material culture are examined in the light. The stacks are open. ​Read the stories behind objects and ephemera found in private collections, archives, and museums. 

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