Category: programs

“Life in the Past Lane: Delaware Roads,” a New Humanities Program

Delaware Road Maps
Delaware Roads Maps (Source: Wilmington Library)

Delaware Humanities has selected a new program I have been researching for inclusion in the speaker’s bureau and visiting scholar programs. The lecture, “Life in the Past Lane; Delaware Roads,” encourages people to get off the highway and enjoy some of the State’s most scenic, cultural and historic roads — along with the surrounding landscape and resources.

Here’s the description of the program:

With the arrival of modern, high-speed highways, many of Delaware’s scenic routes and the small hamlets and villages clustered around those old corridors are overlooked. This talk explores the character, ambiance, and history of some of these lesser-traveled roads today. These historic roadways are much more than just a line on the map. So come along for an enjoyable trip. You will hear intriguing stories about waterfront towns, agricultural communities, and country hamlets and villages, where discovery awaits you.

Come along and find your road in this talk. Along the way, we will explore science byways, old historic corridors, and the connections between the past and today.

A Delaware Road -- between Kirkwood and Tybouts Corner.
Travel was difficult in mid-March 1923 as this automobile travels along. The road connects Kirkwood and Tybouts Corner. (Source: Delaware Public Archives)
In my Merry Oldsmobile, Sheet Music
In My Memory Oldsmobile, by Edward Gus, 1905 (Source: Historic America Sheet Music, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University)

C&D Canal Talk

Harford Community College is offering a talk and continuing education course on the C&D Canal. Starting on May 5, 2022, at 1:30 p.m., it involves three sessions. The first is a classroom lecture and that is followed by two field trips to towns along the C&D Canal The course is presented by Mike Dixon.

The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal has fascinating stories to be told. Along the 14 miles of the nearly 200-year-old waterway, every town and village, every lock and bridge, and every camp spot used by Union soldiers during the Civil War contributed to the engaging narrative. Discover the role that mule-drawn barges, locks, steamboats, and changing methods of transportation played in the evolving history of the Canal and the region.

For additional information and registration click this link https://hccweb1.harford.edu/scheduleofc…/U_noncrweb.asp…

C&D Canal Talk
A talk and course on the C&D Canal.

Life in the Past Lane at Rodgers Tavern & Perryville

Topic:

Life in the Past Lane at Rodgers Tavern (2022 Rodgers Tavern Museum Virtual Spring Lecture)

Description:

“Life in the Past Lane” examines the role of Perryville and the Tavern as an important transportation hub, from the colonial era to the 20th Century. Join us in this engaging program as we journey into the past lane, examining the unique stories and characters of the Lower Susquehanna River, the local ferries, the old colonial road that still carries traffic past the Tavern, and the bridges. This presentation includes many seldom-seen photos, which will help us consider the role the tavern played in the development of the broader community. So be sure to join us as we consider important history in your neighborhood.

FREE LECTURE
ONLINE ONLY
Advanced Registration RequiredTime

Apr 23, 2022, 06:30 PM

Click here for registration

Rodgers Tavern in Perryville
Rodgers Tavern in Perryville on June 30, 2018

New Delaware Humanities Lecture Examines Pandemic of 1918

I am pleased that Delaware Humanities has selected a timely new program I have been researching about the pandemic of 1918 in the region.  The goal of this program is to understand how the experience of 1918, a situation that called for drastic action, unfolded and use this examination in a discussion that connects the past with today.       

TITLE

We Have Been Here Before: Delmarva During the 1918 Pandemic

Art work from the Illinois State Department of Health in 1918. Source: National Institutes of Health Library)

DESCRIPTION   

With the nation currently struggling with an unprecedented public health emergency as the coronavirus impacts the nation, this program examines the impact of the so-called Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918 on Delmarva and nearby points.  The virus took a grim toll in this region, and it overwhelmed the health care system, forcing the region to shut down for an extended period.  Although they didn’t call it social distancing at the top of the twentieth century, the methods they used to quarantine the contagion are similar to what we practice today.  Thus, as the world struggles with this novel contagion, we will take a relevant look at the past to see how people in the region 102-years ago managed a similar situation, at a time when medical science did not have a treatment for the pathogen.

A Delaware Humanities speakers bureau program.

A 1918 poster created in response to the virulent created by the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation (Source: Philadelphia Free Library https://bit.ly/34BT3Oq)