Month: February 2015

Since the Delmarva History Facebook (FB) page launched on October 24, 2013, the number of likes has grown steadily, the pace accelerating as the website matured.  And when we surfed over to update the curated newsfeeds on this Wednesday morning in early February, we noted the landing page had passed an important milestone, 1,500 likes.

Thanks everyone for liking, sharing, and conversing about on the Delmarva’s past on this FB page.  It’s been amazing to see the quick growth as we networked with older, more established formal and informal groups, while also adding our original content, photos, articles, and brief updates.

We always looked forward to sharing our interest in the Peninsula’s unique cultural heritage with a large, regional community, a virtual group of individuals who also valued the subject matter.  Using the web as a way to distribute our work and our enchantment with the past, we were an early adopter.  That began about 1996 while supporting a local historical society’s outreach in a once modern way beyond traditional print products.  We advanced as web 2.0 platforms such as blogs made dynamic networking easier.

But we were a little slow to catch on to the efficiencies and effectiveness of FB for creating an audience, exchanging information, and enriching a community.  Still, after following a number of established regional pages, from formal and informal groups (some highly specialized, while others focused broadly on an area), and being encouraged to start one, we gave it a try.

It is the way to network and engage ever broader audiences in line with some purpose and mission.  Whether, as a cultural resource institution holding the community’s heritage or as an individual digitally working on the “bottom-up model” we are all able to more universally share the narratives of earlier times.

The platforms allow us transform how we grant access to our materials, making our work more valued and our institutions more vibrant places, while learning, exploring, and engaging new, broader audience.  They are also idea for collective learning, for there is enormous power of the crowd when it comes to conversations and exchanging information.

With digital just beginning to provide greater access to people, the transformation is in its early phase, the technologies making it simpler and simpler with each passing year.

The mission of our regional FB website, as we stated in the autumn of 2103, is unchanged, the sharing of heritage related content about the Delmarva Peninsula and the land around the Delaware and Chesapeake.   Our site contains original and curated stories from an array of sources, helping readers and us discover the fascinating past on Delmarva and the nearby region, while everyone learns as a virtual community.

I always enjoyed seeking out the narratives that create a distinctive sense of place, the rich, deep, and varied stories about earlier times in our fascinating small towns, from the Delaware River and Bay to Western Maryland, and the heritage that connects communities and families to their roots .  That is what I enjoy digging up and sharing here and FB has helped significantly.

Sharing is encouraged, too.  Many other institutional FB pages, groups, and individuals are generous with their materials, and we encourage sharing of our original items, too.  But please credit your source, wherever you get it from.  That is something we always work to do on our end.

Some Links of Interest

Journalist Jim McClure writes a popular York County PA heritage blog we follow, as a content provider for the newspaper’s blog and other products.  He has blogged a couple of times about how things are changing in the digital age for heritage institutions.  We’ve shared them with some of the institutions we work with and are sharing the links here.

Part III – Using York County History To Create A Community Embodies a Modern Trend.

Part II ; Part I

In the mid-1980s, we formed a committee of the Singerly Fire Company in Elkton to gear up for the organization’s 1992 centennial celebration.  While the committee planned a cluster of traditional initiatives, the working group also developed two larger heritage-related goals.

One involved restoring two priceless hand pumpers, veterans of many of a fight with the flames and smoke in Elkton.  Since the 1820s when the first Hydraulion arrived from Philadelphia, the centuries moved rapidly along, human and animal power giving way to motorized units and the alarm bell and steam whistle fading as electronic signals took over.  But these aging relics stayed with us, although by the late 1900s they were in need of restoration.

The Department also had heritage collections, items such as photos, movie footage, and material resources, all reflective of the fire service traditions.   So it was time to open a museum.

As volunteers fundraising was our first obligation, for it required a substantial budget to accomplish these objectives.  Thus we launched an annual antiques show and a Paper Americana Show.  Both highly successful events helped underwrite these initiatives, and they continue to this day.

Yesterday, the Paper Americana show returned to Elkton for its 28^th run (the Antiques show started a few years earlier).  This show is one that is particularly important to me, as someone always on the lookout for photographs, postcards, newspapers, advertising pieces, books, and ephemera for my local collection, as well as interesting visuals for lectures and talks.  In those pre-Internet days we didn’t have Ebay so you attended shows and auctions, and searched print catalogues.

Each year we planned the show, recruited quality dealers and managed the operation.  I also had a great chance for doing some double duty, quality shopping time.  Since we started the venture, I have never missed one, although after a few years I handed off management of the event to Gerri Ayers.  She has stayed with it for decades, continuing to capably oversee the fundraising initiative in a changing marketplace.

As the date approaches I start looking forward to seeing some of the outstanding Delaware and Maryland materials.  Over the decades several dealers, such as Neil Boyle and his wife, have been my source of superb Delmarva items, adding substantially to my collection.  Neil always had the best inventory of real photo cards of any dealer in the show, in those earlier years.

In more recent times, another generation has brought their inventory to the show.  Steven Cohen and his wife Pam and Mary Martin Postcards are some of those vendors.  They too have an enjoyable high quality collections available.

Saturday was a great day for browsing, acquiring materials, and enjoying knowledgeable discussions about the region’s history and its paper collectibles, all while continuing to support fire service tradition now nearly 30 years on.