Full Moon Paddle at Eastern Neck Island

Chestertown – The Center for Environment & Society (CES) at Washington College and the Friends of Eastern Neck, Inc., are sponsoring a paddle at Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge on Thursday, August 6, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The group will meet at Bogles Wharf, a public landing on Eastern Neck Island, to celebrate the harvest moon and learn more about the ecology of the Chesapeake Bay. The event is free and open to the public. Bring your own kayak, life vest, and paddle. Or pre-register by July 30 to reserve Washington College equipment. To register, or for more information, contact CES project manager Mike Hardesty at mhardesty2@washcoll.edu or 410-810-7488.

The Center for Environment & Society works to instill a conservation ethic by connecting people to the land and water. It supports interdisciplinary research and education, exemplary stewardship of natural and cultural resources, and the integration of ecological and social values. For more information, visit ces.washcoll.edu or call 410-810-7161. The Friends of Eastern Neck, Inc. is a non-profit organization that supports the missions of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge through financial, advocacy, and volunteer support. To learn more about volunteer opportunities through the Friends of Eastern Neck, Inc. visit www.fws.gov/northeast/easternneck/ or call (410) 639-7056.

Seven Washington College Students Awarded Comegys Bight Summer Research Fellowships

CHESTERTOWN – This summer, Washington College students are fanning out from Chestertown into Congressional offices, art galleries, local police departments, and the medieval libraries of the University of Oxford. Under the auspices of the Comegys Bight Fellows Program, seven undergraduates are spending their summer vacation pursuing research projects and internships built around their own interests. Some stay close to home, reading voraciously, conducting interviews, and burying themselves in dusty archives, while others pursue their research questions across the ocean.

The Comegys Bight program, conceived and generously sustained by Drs. Thomas and Virginia Collier of Chestertown and administered by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, offers stipends for students to pursue these independent projects, with the guidance of faculty mentors.

Now in its sixth year, the program has served 32 students since its advent in 2003. Recipients of the Comegys Bight Fellowship are provided opportunities to take their passions beyond classroom study, resulting in experiences that have, in some cases, changed the course of their intellectual lives.

“One of the most exciting things about this program has been seeing how the students’ experiences as Comegys Bight Fellows continue to resonate in their lives throughout college and far beyond,” said Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the Starr Center. “Past fellows have gone on to study at major graduate schools, and to careers in journalism, book publishing, and teaching. The Comegys Bight program gave them opportunities to integrate scholarly work with real-world experience in ways that they would not have found in the classroom.”

Drawn from a wide range different academic majors, the 2009 Fellows are a diverse and accomplished group:

Philosophy and Humanities major James Schelberg ’11 will investigate the contradictions in the 18th-century American evangelist Jonathan Edwards’s writings, using the collections of some of the world’s finest research libraries, including Oxford’s Bodleian Library and Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Andrea Roth ’10 will remain in Chestertown to help plan the inaugural exhibition at Washington College’s new Benjamin K. and Judith C. Kohl Art Gallery. This junior curatorship will provide her an opportunity to work with 18th-century landscape paintings by such artists as Church, Heade and Bierstadt, learn the ropes of curating an art exhibition, and conduct research for her senior Sociology thesis on changing Western perceptions of rural life.

Dominick Iaquinto ’11, a History major, will spend the summer researching narratives written by colonists who were taken as prisoners by Native American tribes in the 17th and 18th-centuries. He will use these “captivity narratives” to explore questions of assimilation and cultural identity in early America.

John MacLellan ’10, a fellow History major, will concentrate on the experiences of homeless Americans during the Great Depression. Using records at the Library of Congress and the National Archives to explain why and how people lost their homes, he hopes to find a new perspective on today’s sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Humanities major Joyell Johnson ’10 is pursuing research for her senior thesis on changing images of African-American women in American popular culture, concentrating on the development of the stereotypical image of the black “Mammy.”

Michael Mason ’11, a Political Science and History major, will explore the evolving role of money in the American electoral process. He will spend the summer in Washington, D.C., conducting interviews with current and former members of Congress, lobbyists and policy advisors.

German major Lauren Seeley ’11 will complete the first half of a comparative study of German and American policing practices, grounded in interviews and ride-alongs with patrol officers.

When the Fellows return to Washington College in the fall, each will bring back a unique point of view shaped by an unusual summer. As the years pass, these experiences may open intellectual and professional doors as yet unimagined.

Historian Wins Fellowship For Groundbreaking Book On Betsy Ross

Update: 2009-10 Patrick Henry Writing Fellow Marla Miller appears at Washington College to discuss the fascinating real life of Betsy Ross.

CHESTERTOWN, MD – Marla Miller, a rising star in the field of American history, has been awarded the 2009-10 Patrick Henry Writing Fellowship.

The Patrick Henry Writing Fellowship, provided by Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, offers a yearlong residency to authors doing innovative work on America's founding era and its legacy.

Miller, who directs the Public History Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will spend the coming academic year at Washington College, where she will complete a groundbreaking biography of the famed flag-maker Betsy Ross.

“We’re thrilled at the prospect of having Marla Miller in Chestertown for the year,” said Adam Goodheart, the Starr Center’s Hodson Trust-Griswold Director. “Her passion for American history and artifacts shines through in her writing, and has also made her a very popular teacher at UMass. She will be a dynamic addition to the Washington College community.”

Despite Betsy Ross’s iconic status, there has never been any in-depth study of her life – nearly all the books on her have been fictional accounts or children’s books, partly because authors have thought there was not enough surviving information. Some have even assumed she was a wholly mythological figure. But Miller has unearthed new sources that shed light on the very real Ross and her world.

Miller’s book, which is under contract to be published by Henry Holt, looks not just at Ross’s long and eventful life (she outlived three husbands), but also the behind-the-scenes roles that women artisans played in the American Revolution, and how ordinary working-class people experienced the war.

Whether or not Ross sewed the first American flag, she was an ambitious and successful entrepreneur who provided banners, ensigns, standards and other military supplies to the American forces from the Revolutionary era through the War of 1812.

In addition to the book, Miller is helping to organize an exhibition at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, based on her research and set to open in the fall of 2010.

She also hopes to write two children’s books on Ross, one a biography and the other a fictional account based on the life of an African American child in her household.

Miller, an associate professor at UMass, is a committed advocate of history that reaches non-academic audiences – as well as history that can be touched as well as read. Her writing has been acclaimed for breathing life into the “things” of the past – from 18th-century petticoats to Revolutionary flags.

It was her scholarly work on other colonial seamstresses that inspired Miller to write a book on Ross, one that would appeal to the general public as well as historians. Her first book, The Needle’s Eye: Women and Work in the Age of Revolution (University of Massachusetts Press, 2006), received rave reviews. The historian Gloria Main called it “remarkably close to perfect,” and the Journal of American History lauded it for “reshaping our understanding of women’s place in the developing Atlantic world.”

Winner of the Millia Davenport Prize from the Costume Society of America, the book is a revision of Miller’s 1997 doctoral thesis, which was awarded the Organization of American Historians’ Lerner-Scott Prize for the Best Dissertation in Women’s History. She is a previous recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Antiquarian Society, and the Winterthur Museum.

The Patrick Henry Writing Fellowship’s funding is permanently endowed as part of a $2.5 million challenge grant package that the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded through its nationwide “We the People” initiative, which is dedicated to strengthening the teaching, study and understanding of American history and culture.

As part of the fellowship, Miller will live in a restored 1735 house in the heart of Chestertown's colonial historic district, and will teach a course at Washington College in the spring.
“I've long been aware of the innovative programming the Starr Center creates,” Miller said, “and it is one of the very few places where my interests in academic and public history are both supported in truly equal measure. I'm grateful for the time to write and think, but doubly excited to be around the forward-thinking energy the Center cultivates.”

Miller will deliver a public talk on her work on Wednesday, September 16, at 7:30 p.m. in Washington College’s Litrenta Lecture Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

Launched by the Starr Center in 2008, the Patrick Henry Fellowship aims to encourage reflection on the links between American history and contemporary culture, and to foster the literary art of historical writing. It is co-sponsored by the Rose O’Neill Literary House, Washington College's center for literature and the creative arts. The Henry Fellowship complements the George Washington Book Prize, which is also administered by the Starr Center and awarded annually to an author whose work advances public understanding of the Revolution and its legacy.

Washington College acquired the Patrick Henry Fellows’ Residence in January 2007 through a generous gift from the Barksdale-Dabney-Patrick Henry Family Foundation, established by the Nuttle family of Talbot County, direct descendants of the patriot Patrick Henry.

About the C.V. Starr Center

The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience explores our nation’s history – and particularly the legacy of its Founding era – in innovative ways. Through educational programs, scholarship, and public outreach, and especially by supporting and fostering the art of written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between past and present, and between the academic world and the public at large. From its base in the circa-1746 Custom House along Chestertown’s colonial waterfront, the Center also serves as a portal onto a world of opportunities for Washington College students. Its guiding principle is that now more than ever, a wider understanding of our shared past is fundamental to the continuing success of America’s democratic experiment. For more information on the Center and on the Patrick Henry Fellowships, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

Sarah Claypool, Washington College's 2009 Frederick Douglass Fellow, Explores Native American Healing Practices

Chestertown – Mainstream American culture has gleaned many things from the first residents of this land – including a rich body of medicinal lore and healing wisdom. The quest for this knowledge has been a journey filled with discovery for Sarah Claypool '10, this year’s recipient of the prestigious Frederick Douglass Fellowship at Washington College. Now in its fifth year, the Frederick Douglass Fellowship supports independent student work in African-American studies, Native American studies, and related fields. The fellowship, which provides an annual grant of up to $1,500 to a Washington College sophomore or junior and a $500 honorarium to a faculty mentor paired with the student, is administered through the College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience. “Sarah is a chemistry major, and her fellowship project allowed her to reach out beyond the conventional boundaries of the sciences and investigate how medicine intersects with history and culture," said Adam Goodheart, the Starr Center's Hodson Trust-Griswold Director. "Fellowships like this one encourage students and their faculty mentors to explore new fields and disciplines, in the keeping with the best traditions of the liberal arts."

Claypool’s project, “Blending the Old with the New: Influence of Native American Healing on Western Medicinal Practices,” yielded a cornucopia of revelations, both medical and sociological – from the value of cranberries as an arrow-wound cure to the respective roles of the shaman and the elder woman in society. Claypool unearthed an indigenous pharmacopia of hundreds of herbs, crops, tree barks and other gifts from nature, many of which – such as ginseng and echinacea – can be found on the shelves of health-food stores today.



In the holistic approach of traditional Native American cultures, Claypool found, spiritual purification was a vital component of physical wellness. The goal, then as now, was a better life through better health. As a Hopi blessing put it, “May you be happy, may you be free of any illness, may you reach old age, and may you pass peacefully on in your sleep.”

Sarah Claypool and Dr. Anne Marteel-Parrish

Claypool, a Class of 2010 chemistry major with a particular interest in pharmacology, worked closely on the project with her faculty mentor, Dr. Anne Marteel-Parrish, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, who found herself swept up in the excitement of the quest. “Sarah was so enthusiastic and passionate about the project that she pushed me to keep up with her findings,” Dr. Marteel-Parrish said. “Her project contributed to an in-depth understanding of the influence of Native American healing on Western medicinal practices from a spiritual, chemical and medicinal point of view.”

“When I was chosen to be the Frederick Douglass Fellow, I knew that I was given this amazing opportunity to expand my horizons in the field of research,” said Claypool. “What I did not expect however, was that the more knowledge I gained over the semester, the more I wanted to know, which in turn has driven me to make numerous connections and continue my research into my senior year.”

The Douglass Fellowship was established to encourage students to develop independent projects exploring the culture and history of diverse sections of the American population. Each year, during the spring semester, it also brings to campus a visiting professional (scholar, writer, musician, or artist) actively engaged in the study or interpretation of African American history and related fields. This year’s Frederick Douglass Visiting Fellow, political journalist and author Fraser Smith, spent a week in residence at Washington College visiting classes, discussing his recent book on Maryland’s distinctive contributions to the civil rights movement, and talking with student journalists about the future of the field. Both fellowships are supported by gifts from Maurice Meslans and Margaret Holyfield of St. Louis.

The author, activist and diplomat Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), for whom the fellowship was named, was born in Talbot County, Md., about 30 miles south of Washington College, and retained a deep attachment to the Eastern Shore until the end of his life.

Click here to see photos of Sarah's presentation.

The Spy returns to Chestertown

After 216 years, the Chestertown Spy, the first newspaper printed in the Eastern Shore town of 4,800, is being published again, this time online, at:

http://www.chestertownspy.com/

A handful of Washington College alumni and community members have created an internet newsite to provide up-to-date news Monday through Friday for the Chester River community.

Publisher & Editor Dave Wheelan, ’78, a former Vice President of Washington College, returned from San Francisco last March to start the new website.

In addition to the regular weekday editions of the Chestertown Spy, there will be a fortnightly companion section that highlights the arts, home and garden, food, and poetry.

Summer Solstice Kayaking at Eastern Neck Island

Chestertown, MD — The Center for Environment & Society (CES) at Washington College and the Friends of Eastern Neck, Inc., are sponsoring a paddle at Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday, June 20, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The group will meet at Bogles Wharf, a public landing on Eastern Neck Island, to celebrate the summer solstice and learn more about the ecology of the Chesapeake Bay. The event is free and open to the
public. Bring your own kayak, PFD, and paddle. Or pre-register by June 16 to reserve Washington College equipment. To register, or for more information, contact CES Project Manager Mark Wiest at mwiest2@washcoll.edu or 410-810-7488.

The Center for Environment & Society works to instill a conservation ethic by connecting people to the land and water. It supports interdisciplinary research and education, exemplary stewardship of natural and cultural resources, and the integration of ecological and social values. For more information, visit ces.washcoll.edu or call 410-810-7161.

The Friends of Eastern Neck, Inc. is a non-profit organization that supports the missions of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge through financial, advocacy, and volunteer support. To learn more about volunteer opportunities through the Friends of Eastern Neck, Inc. visit
www.fws.gov/northeast/easternneck/ or call (410) 639-7056.

Audio of WC's Josh Shenk on NPR's "Talk of the Nation"

For those of you who missed Rose O'Neill Literary House Director Joshua Wolf Shenk on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" yesterday, you can listen to the broadcast by going to the following link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104791125

...and clicking on "Listen Live."