Across the span of three years, I have repeatedly turned to archival work as a method in my academic research. As a sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, I sat in the library’s basement, combing through Seacoast newspapers in search of public opinion on a proposed oil refinery project. Now, as a second-year master’s student here in the Geography and Environmental Systems department, I use Baltimore City newspapers to assess who was portrayed as at fault for the Baltimore lead poisoning crisis and how mothers were often unjustly blamed for the poisoning of their children. After all of this research experience, I realized there must be something about the archives that keeps me crawling back.
Oella Company records. Collection 348, Series III, Boxes 1-3.
This lightbulb moment gave me the idea to volunteer at UMBC’s Special Collections, where instead of using archives as a research methodology – I can be on the “other side,” learning how archivists work to make historical materials accessible to the public. I ended up under the advisement of Mark Breeding, Maryland Traditions Archivist, where my primary responsibility was archival processing. I combed through a few boxes of Collection 348 – the Oella Company Records – and inputted their contents into a container list. I recorded housing applications, nearly 70 folders on Oella, Maryland restoration efforts and town happenings, and – strongly related to my master’s thesis research – processed a box on lead paint materials. Processing the latter was especially meaningful, thinking about the possibility of someone using these records to reclaim stories, as I have done with newspapers.
When I first started volunteering at Special Collections, I never imagined reading so many financial documents, learning about water treatment plans for nitrate-contaminated wells, or seeing pretzel-related crimes documented in such detail. Because of it, though, I have realized why I keep coming back – the ability of archives to tell stories lost to time. I now possess a deeper understanding of the work of archivists and the power they hold to preserve and share people’s lived experiences. This experience of volunteering at Special Collections was invaluable and will no doubt sway my future path.
This post was written by graduate student volunteer, Samantha DiNatale, M.A. ’25.
Image: John G. Bullock. “Woman Standing in Rocks Overlooking Water Aug. 1890,” 1890. Digital positive from a gelatin silver dry plate negative, 8 x 10 in. John G. Bullock photographs, The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, P84-01-462.
Photographs from the John G. Bullock collection are now available in the UMBC Digital Collections. Bullock was an American photographer who lived from 1854 to 1939. His work spanned four decades and is associated with the “New School” of photography, which placed an emphasis on soft-focused images. Bullock’s photographs showcase his life and surroundings as they were in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
About John G. Bullock
Image: John G. Bullock. “Marjorie, Bubbles Side View N.D.,” circa 1897. Digital positive from a gelatin silver dry plate negative, 8 x 10 in. John G. Bullock photographs, The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, P84-01-255.
John Griscom Bullock was born in Wilmington, Delaware in 1854. When he was only a child, he printed and published his own newspaper, City Journal. After graduating from Haverford College and receiving his Ph.D. from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, he took an interest in photography in 1882. He joined the Photographic Society of Philadelphia in the same year and would go on to become its president.
His earliest photographs were taken with a small view camera that used 4×5 inch Carbutt dry plates while his earliest prints were made on albumen paper. Later on, Bullock switched to platinum paper which allowed him to manipulate the images. He would make these changes by retouching the negative to either change the images’ tonality or add clouds onto a blank sky. The Vienna Salon, an international photography exhibition, showcased two of Bullock’s photographs. Afterwards, he worked with photographer Alfred Stieglitz on CameraWork, to forward their cause of art photography or pictorial photography. More information about Bullock’s life can be found in UMBC’s online exhibition about Bullock’s photography and the finding aid for the John G. Bullock collection at Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections.
Image: John G. Bullock. “New River Near Clarks Mills, Looking Up to East, Jul. 28, 1886,” 1886. Digital positive from a gelatin silver dry plate negative, 8 x 10 in. John G. Bullock photographs, The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, P84-01-019.
About the collection
The John G. Bullock collection contains 1,154 images. UMBC Special Collections holds his original glass plate negatives and photography prints, in addition to some commissioned or made by UMBC. The collection comprises photographs that are divided into three sections: landscapes, portraits of family and friends, and rural scenery. Bullock’s daughter Marjorie, is a recurring subject of his photography. His work is a prime example of pictorialism, with a greater focus placed on composition than truly representing reality.
You can help us enrich the John G. Bullock collection by providing additional details about the images. If you recognize a building, a person, or know further information about an image, please email Special Collections at speccoll@umbc.edu.
This post was written by Special Collections student assistant Jaiden Roda. Thank you, Jaiden!
Koessler, Edith. Let Them Grow in Peace, ca. 1982. Woodcut print. Gift of Mary Stuart, The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (P2023-02-009)
English woodcut artist Edith Koessler was moved to capture the suffering of children in wartime after reading Peter Townsend’s 1980 book, The Smallest Pawns in the Game. The book is a compilation of stories of children impacted by war – losing family members, whole communities, and being forced into internment. Koessler felt inspired to capture the stories of these children after reading the book while on a family holiday. “The children come to life in my mind and I feel compelled to do the woodcuts. Children and mothers always used to be the most important subject for me, I feel very strongly for them.”
The woodcut prints displayed are from an edition of 20 and were created by the artist in Kasterlee, Belgium; the stamp for the noted printmaking studio Frans Masareel Centre is visible on the prints. This set was printed in 1982 and sent to Dr. Heinrich Rumpel, a wood engraver and artist living in Switzerland. Koessler’s woodcut portfolio was donated to UMBC Special Collections by professor emeritus Mary Stuart in 2023.
The woodcuts will be on display through November 2024 in the Library Rotunda. After the exhibit is deinstalled, researchers may view the woodcuts in the Special Collections reading room.
Scott, Sir Walter. Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, Addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq.(Illustrated by George Cruikshank). London: John Murray, 1830.
Belief in witchcraft, magic, and sorcery has been prevalent throughout history and practiced all over the world: in ancient Mesopotamia, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, Europe, Oceania, and all through the Asian continent. Each culture and region hold different beliefs and attitudes toward these practices. While there are both helpful and harmful forms of magic stemming from regional folklore, in America we tend to associate witchcraft with pagan ritual and heretical malevolence against Christianity. This is largely due to early European influence, the paranoia and efforts of those associated with the Catholic and Protestant church, and through the sheer volume of their writing and admonition of the subject during the medieval and colonial periods. Accordingly, any belief or practice outside those deemed acceptable by the social and cultural standards were subject to scrutiny. And accusations of sorcery and witchcraft (specifically toward commonfolk) had dire consequences.
Institoris, Heinrich and Jakob Sprenger. Malleus Maleficarum. London: J. Rodker, 1928.
The Malleus Maleficarum, written in 1486, is one of the first texts ever published on the subject of witchcraft. Written by two German theology scholars and members of the Dominican order, the work set out to prove the existence of witches as heretics and acted as a manual to rid them from society through trials, torture, and brutal deaths. The Malleus Maleficarum, which translates to “Hammer of Witches,” was instrumental for creating nearly three centuries of witch-hunting hysteria throughout Europe and North America.
It was the belief that witches, most commonly associated with women, had pacts with the Devil to undermine the virtue of Christianity or disrupt the natural world. Witches rode atop animals during the night to hold meetings with Satan, fornicated with demons, caused crop failures, killed children and prevented married couples from conceiving through spells, among other heresies. This interaction between women, Satan, and clandestine activity was paramount in the Christian European mindset toward witchcraft, especially during the Reformation.
Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. London: J. Rodker, 1930.
Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) was written nearly 100 years after the Malleus Maleficarum. Scot was the first English writer to expound upon the subject of witchcraft and he intended to disprove the theory that witches contained real supernatural powers, but were instead resourceful women who practiced the art of folk healing. Scot rejected the idea that Satan or any supernatural being could interact with humans, and that the charms of witchcraft, or indeed even the rites of Catholicism, were merely superstitious. Because of these beliefs, Scot’s contemporaries condemned him as impious. Even King James VI rebutted Scot’s theory with his own Daemonologie, which focused largely on necromancy and doubled down on the threat witches posed. It was rumored that James had ordered every copy of Scot’s book to be destroyed, but there is no evidence to support this. However, after the first edition, The Discoverie of Witchcraft was not published again in England for nearly 70 years.
Dahlgren, Madeleine Vinton. South Mountain Magic, a narrative. Boston: J. R. Osgood, 1882.
During the period after Scot’s death, the thesis he set out to prove as a testament to reason and critical thought took on a perhaps cursed irony. The magic and sleight of hand Scot tried to uncover were seized upon by his more esoteric successors and spread into popular culture, cementing their place into witchcraft ethos. Even Shakespeare was likely to have been influenced by Scot when writing Macbeth.
Glanvil, Joseph. Saducismus Triumphatus: or, Full and plain evidence concerning witches and apparitions. London: Printed for F. Collins and S. Lownds, 1681.
Well after the hysteria of the witch-trials had ended in Europe and America, rural traditions held on to the superstitions and beliefs of the occult. Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren’s South Mountain Magic, published in 1882, described the folklore of ghosts, witches, and demons of South Mountain, located near Boonsboro, Maryland. She described local lore such as the Snarly Yow (a giant demon-like dog), haunting apparitions, as well as magic cures for common ailments.
The mid-twentieth century brought about newfound interest in the occult through neopagan groups like Wicca, Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, and a proliferation of authors and film directors that showcased, and often exploited, these ideas through new mediums. Today we have a better understanding of how these “superstitions” and social accusations originated that were tragically cast upon women (and men as well). So, as Samhain approaches and we celebrate the year’s harvest and the changing of the Hunter’s Moon, feel free to light some candles, open an old book, and conjure the spirits of our historical past.
View these titles and more by request in our reading room. This post was written byMark Breeding, Maryland Traditions Archivist.
Mark your calendars for a haunting Halloween afternoon of apparitions, psychic phenomenon, thoughtography and cartomancy in Special Collections and the Library Gallery. Special Collections will host an Open House from 12-3pm on Thursday October 31 – drop by the reading room to view selected highlights from the Eileen J. Garrett Parapsychology Foundation collection, such as early Spiritualist texts, séance recordings, divination tools, and Gef the Talking Mongoose. You’ll also see how students and researchers use these items in their original scholarship.
Schedule of Events:
12-3pm, ongoing: Special Collections Open House, stop by anytime
12-1pm: An Occult Afternoon at AOK: Tarot in the Library & Gallery, featuring a DIY tarot card station and examples of tarot decks held in the Special Collections;
Fodor Plates, Box 9, Eileen J. Garrett Parapsychology Foundation collection, Collection 331, Special Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Baltimore, MD).
The Special Collections reading room is located in the back of the Library Gallery, on the first floor of the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery. Directions and information about visitor parking is available here: https://library.umbc.edu/specialcollections/visit/
The Eileen J. Garrett Parapsychology Foundation Collection consists of more than 12,000 books and over 100 periodicals, including rare books on and early journals devoted to psychical research; over 600 audio and video recordings; and extensive records of the Foundation. Founded in 1951 by trance medium and research advocate Eileen J. Garrett and congressional representative Hon. Frances P. Bolton, the Parapsychology Foundation is a non-profit organization that encourages and supports impartial scientific inquiry into psychical aspects of human nature such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis. The collection at UMBC emphasizes the literature of contemporary parapsychology and publications that approach the subject from objective and analytical points of view. Strengths include: the history of psychical research and parapsychology, including early Spiritualism, mysticism and relevant philosophical works, as well as mediumship, apparitions, hauntings, poltergeists, near-death and out-of-body experiences, and experimental research on extrasensory perception (ESP), psychokinesis, and precognition.
Learn more about our services and collections on our website and see highlights on our Instagram page. Please reach out with any questions at speccoll@umbc.edu.
