National Heritage Areas Podcast Season 2 (2018)

This podcast series is produced by the NPS Northeast Regional Office in Philadelphia, PA.

The National Heritage Areas Podcast returns in 2018 with a second season. Listen as Program Manager Peter Samuel and (SCA) Communications Coordinator Francesca Calarco discuss different types of arts, trails, and history programming in the country's heritage areas. In each episode, we dive into how National Heritage Areas (NHAs) operate and work to benefit their communities.

Stream and/or download the Season 2 episodes below.

Enjoying this podcast? Make sure to check out the other seasons!

• 1. Introduction - National Heritage Areas & Communities

  
  

  In this episode, NHA Communications Coordinator, Francesca Calarco sits down with NHA Program Manager, Peter Samuel to discuss how heritage areas operate, how they can benefit their communities, and plans for up-coming episodes.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS Northeast Region

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  -- Intro Music --

  Francesca: In today’s episode, I will be sitting down in the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office with the National Heritage Areas Program Manager for the Northeast Region. We will be discussing what a national heritage area is, how national heritage areas can benefit their communities, and plans for this season of the podcast series.

  -- Intro Music --

  Francesca: Okay, Hello! This is Francesca Calarco. I am the Communications Coordinator for the National Heritage Areas Program, operating out of the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office. Today I am here with Peter Samuel, so Peter, welcome.

  Peter: Hello, Francesca! It’s great to sit down with you today. I’m Peter Samuel, as mentioned, and I’m the National Heritage Areas Program Manager in the Northeast Region for the park service and we’re located in Philadelphia. So this is our first episode in the second year of our podcasting, so we’ll go a little bit through what heritage areas are and then what their impact is on communities. Um, that’s going to be the theme, I think, as Francesca has pointed out to me, the theme for the year for our episodes. And, she’s done a lot of work going out to different heritage areas and talking to them about some of their programs, so we’re looking forward to that. But, to get first to what a national heritage area is—it’s a area that’s designated by congress, the U.S. congress, and often it’s a grassroots effort that grows out of community groups that want to preserve landscapes or historic sites within their part of the country. And then they work with the National Park Service, usually, to develop an idea and a plan for that area, and then they also work with their elected officials to get it designated by congress. In our region, in the Northeast, we have 20 national heritage areas, and they’re scattered throughout most of the states, the 13 states, in our region. There are a couple of states in our region that don’t have them, and they’re also part of a group of 49 heritage areas throughout the country.

  Francesca: So that is, what a heritage area is, um, so I think when people think of the heritage area, or they look one up on the map, they see that large expanse of land.

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: But those aren’t clear-cut boundaries per say, in that there’s private property in them, ah.

  Peter: Right. Well I think what you’re-you’re getting at is, what’s different about a national heritage area from a national park unit? And that is that a national heritage is managed usually by a non-profit organization, they get funding through the National Park Service, but they’re not managed or owned by the National Park Service, as are national park units. We consider them part of the National Park Service membership, um part of the—the overall um, National Park Service family, but they’re not units, um, and generally it works out well that they receive funding on an annual basis. Congress makes an appropriation and they receive anywhere between 700,000 dollars to 300,000 dollars a year, which they then have to match those funds to get their projects and programs done.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah. So with that in mind, since there’s a management entity of an area and there’s a number of them, 49 active national heritage areas across the country, um because they each grow out of a grassroots effort within the community—

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: —By the time they’re designated, they’re each gonna be a little bit different because they formed largely to meet the needs, um, of specific communities that they have originated from.

  Peter: Right, right. And often, just to, you know as an overview, many of the heritage areas are concentrated along river corridors. That’s often the case. And sometimes they include the whole watershed of a river. But within our region there’s probably at least, half of them, half of the 20 are-are really connected to a river corridor. Others are, more—um—associated with county boundaries, so there often are, you know, when a Congressman often goes to designate a area, it’s often his jurisdiction that he’s designating. Um, we always say to folks who are interested in, you know, the whole idea or concept of a heritage area and developing one in their community, I have to reinforce that it is a political process by the time they actually get designated. And in fact, this is 2018, we have not had a heritage area designated since 2009, so it’s been a long spell where heritage areas—congress has not been in the business of designating the heritage areas.

  Francesca: Okay, I know that once a national heritage area gets designated they receive federal funds, but then they have to match it with an in-kind contribution?

  Peter: They match with either cash match, or in-kind services. The cash match, I mean, and they also leverage their funds, their, the whole idea of-of heritage areas is that they’re really partnership—it’s a partnership program. So, while the 501c3, the management entity is in-in charge of making things happen, they really have to do it in collaboration, usually with local or state government, with community groups, ah, with other conservation groups. So, often, as an example, the heritage area decides that they’re going to expand a trail along a river, um, as an example, they’ll work with, probably, the local township or county to help do the work and get the-the program funded. Um, they may work with a trails group to get some of the work done. The trails group may put in volunteer hours as a match to the federal dollars, so there’s a number of different way they can match their funds. And it’s always, for the most part it’s—it is a 50-50 match. So they, if they get 200,000 dollars they have to match it with another 200,000 dollars either in funds or in-in kind services.

  Francesca: Okay.

  Peter: So, it really helps to strengthen the kind of bond of the heritage area with the community and I think, you know, as you pointed out earlier the-the heritage areas area really a way to provide outreach and-and a positive impact on communities. Um, and this has been, you know we’ve done some work over the years, um, completing economic impact studies for heritage areas to determine their effect on their regions, and it’s, you know, it’s an amazing data that we’ve collected over the years to show how heritage areas are really, you know, making their communities more sustainable. They may not be self-sufficient on their own, but they’re really building-building sustainability into their communities. So, that’s a great thing.

  Francesca: I think that is a great thing.

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: One thing, or the main thing, that I am going to be focusing on this season with the podcast series is looking into different best practices, programming, partnerships, and events that national heritage areas work on to help benefit their communities. Given that, they’re each so variable because they ah, kind of exist to meet the needs of the communities out of which they were born from, there’s lots of different types of programming that each heritage area may focus on.

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: As some are by rivers, some of the programming might focus on rivers or trails. Uh, there are other heritage areas that focus largely on historical interpretation—

  Peter: Mhmm.

  Francesca: —Or art programs. And so, my goal for this season is to go into these different heritage areas and learn about these different types of programs.

  Peter: Yeah. That’s great. Yeah, I mean there’s ah, there is a great diversity of programming throughout the many states where the heritage areas are and depending on the size of the area and, their, you know, the size of their staff and how much funds they receive, there’s a real, a lot of variables. And some of them are more urban like Baltimore where you’ve been and some are much more rural—Erie Canalway certainly goes through, while it goes through many urban areas like Syracuse and into Buffalo, um, or Albany, but um majority of it really is more rural. And then there’s, you know, small areas like Wheeling which is really just focused on a downtown area on the Ohio River and-and each of them have different programs that, you know, as you’ve mentioned that you’ll-you’ll look at and-and um interview folks to get a sense of what their impact is on the community and how they’re helping to grow communities. So that’s, you know, I’ll look forward to hearing some of your talks with folks.

  Francesca: Thank you, it’s been fun and going out and talking with folks.

  Peter: Yeah. Yeah, it’s ah, I wish ah I could spend more of my time doing that myself, but um that’s-that’s not always the, not always possible. But, you know, the other thing that we do out of this region is try to put on programs for the heritage areas to support their work as—you know and we’ll talk a little bit later about um the organizational sustainability training and workshops that we’ve done, to really encourage heritage areas to work with their-their board on their staff to, you know, strengthen their organization so that they can, you know, they can weather, you know, all kinds of storms, whether it’s not receiving federal funds in some years or, you know, not being able to match their funds at certain times or whatever the-the case may be. But um, you know, and as I’ve mentioned we’ve done the economic impact studies and we’ve done other programs that really is a way to kind of highlight some of their best practices over the years. So, anyway, I think, you know, ah, can proceed with ah-with your various episodes as we ah go forward, and ah, and I look forward to hearing more-more of your adventures out in the field. So, um, alright thanks Francesca and I look forward to the next episode.

  Francesca: Me too!

  Peter: Haha, okay, bye now.

  Francesca: Bye.

  Francesca: This podcast series is produced by the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office. Today’s episode was edited by myself and Volunteer Audio Engineer Suzie Calarco. The episode’s music was performed by Suzie and Sam Wolf. Thanks for tuning in, and have an amazing day.

  -- Outro Music --

• 2. The Mastheads - Arts Programming in Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area

  
  

  In this episode, Francesca speaks with Upper Housatonic Valley’s Executive Director, Dan Bolognani and The Mastheads’ Architect and Co-Founder, Tessa Kelly. We discuss the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area, its involvement in The Mastheads program, as well as The Mastheads' role in interpreting the literary history of the heritage area.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS Northeast Region

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  – Intro Music –

  Francesca: In today’s episode I travel to the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area. The episode will cover a little bit about the heritage area, its involvement in a program called ‘The Mastheads,’ as well as The Mastheads role in interpreting the literary history of the heritage area.

  – Intro Music –

  Peter: Hey Francesca, welcome back!

  Francesca: Hi Peter, it’s good to be back.

  Peter: Yeah, so this is uh, really the first episode for this season and it is an indication that you’ve been out on the road traveling all over the place, and for this one I believe you were in Connecticut, right?

  Francesca: Yes, I traveled up there, ah, to the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area.

  Peter: Yeah, that’s great, I’ve been working with Dan Bolognani who’s the Director at Upper Housatonic for I think almost a decade and, ah, I really-really admire all the great work he’s been doing. So, just tell me a little bit about your conversation with Dan and Tessa Kelley I think.

  Francesca: Yes, yes! So, as you said Dan is the Director of the heritage area, the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area, and Tessa Kelly is an Architect and Co-Founder of something called ‘The Mastheads’ program. So the heritage area works to support this program and ah, and what the Mastheads does is, they have these five mobile writing studios.

  Peter: Wow.

  Francesca: They’re um, really cool looking. They’re like, black on the outside, and then on the inside each of these five studios are modeled after prolific authors from the heritage area including big names like Herman Melville or Henry David Thoreau.

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: Yeah, and I found them fascinating. I-I find the concept to also to be, like a really good representation of programming that a heritage area create or a partnership that a heritage area can sort of nurture that— You know, this program, they have these prolific authors and a lot of them were really inspired by nature. And heritage areas innately work to, you know, conserve natural landscapes, promote arts and historic interpretation. Really you know, um, shine a light on culture and history.

  Peter: Yeah, and Upper Housatonic I think, it’s one of their big themes to really focus on the cultural heritage and especially the arts, and they’re fortunate to have so many well-known writers get their start or work on some of their larger novels right there in the heritage area. Um, yeah this is really interesting, it’s really fascinating to hear about the writing studios, and they’re able to move them around, and people get to spend some time in them and-and writing.

  Francesca: Yes, yes. And what’s really cool about the studios, because they can get moved around, because the studios are mobile, uh, they can kind of being moved right into nature. And so the artists who are selected to write in these mobile studios, they can be inspired by the same nature that Herman Melville or Henry David Thoreau was inspired by.

  Peter: Yeah, well um, let’s get started with the episode, I’m really excited to hear this.

  Francesca: Yeah! Let’s-let’s dive into it.

  – Music Reprise –

  Francesca: Hello, this is Francesca Calarco, Communications Coordinator from the NPS National Heritage Areas Program from the Northeast Regional Office. I am here in Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area with Executive Director, Dan Bolognani and Tessa Kelly, Architect and Co-Founder of the Mastheads program. So Dan, welcome, could you tell me a little bit about the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area?

  Dan: Yes, the ah, Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area is located in northwestern Connecticut and western Massachusetts. We cover the 29 town region of the Housatonic River watershed and ah, we have very important stories to tell, as all national heritage areas do, ah, including early industry, um, a-an amazing cultural scene, um, great history and incredible natural resources and so, we as a national heritage area seek to preserve and celebrate, um, our cultural, historical, and natural heritage.

  Francesca: Excellent. How does the Mastheads program tie into the heritage area?

  Dan: Well the Mastheads, ah, is a literary, it explores literary heritage of the region and ah, Tessa can explain more about that. But the, ah, you know operationally we as a national heritage area are always seeking partnerships with, ah, people who have wonderful ideas that help us interpret the heritage of the region. And when we discover an idea, or we develop an idea that, ah, we don’t already have a grassroots effort already underway, we seek to create that. As it turns out with The Mastheads, um, we partnered eventually with the City of Pittsfield, Massachusetts and architects Tessa Kelly and Chris Parkinson, and they had this amazing idea of a contemporary interpretation of our literary heritage, and, you know, I’ll let Tessa explain more about how that exactly operates..

  Tessa: Yes, I’d be happy to. So, essentially the Mastheads was born as one of four proposals for how the City of Pittsfield could take a fresh look at moments in its history that were transformational or relevant at a national scale. So the Mastheads specifically addresses the history of American Renaissance authors who were producing work in Pittsfield and the Berkshire region in the mid-19th century. So we looked at Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And we designed and constructed five one-person writing studios, which are built on wheels, that can actually move around the city of Pittsfield and move around the Berkshires. And each of these structures is designed in some way after the structures from which these five authors were originally producing work when they were in this area. So they are abstracted fragments of Herman Melville’s, ah, farmhouse—the upstairs corner office where he looked out at-out his window at Mount Greylock and wrote “Moby Dick.” Um, the intersecting gable roof of the cottage in Stockbridge where Hawthorne went after leaving Brooke Farm, and would frequently visit Melville in Pittsfield. Longfellow’s wife grew up in Pittsfield and her family home was where the two of them spent their honeymoon in Pittsfield, and where he wrote his poem, “The Old Clock and the Stair.” Um, Oliver Wendell Holmes had an estate in Pittsfield which has become the Mass Audubon Canoe Meadows Wildlife Sanctuary, and Thoreau spent a night on top of Mount Greylock looking down through the clouds on the Berkshires and walked down through the city of Pittsfield to the train station before, ah, as part of his travel journals, before going to Walden Pond. So, we use these five mobile writing studios to host a writer’s residency program every summer, where we select five writers from a national pool of applicants, um, to come to Pittsfield for the month of July. They each are assigned to one of these studios and they produce new work in the studios. So the whole idea, is to use the program to simultaneously celebrate and learn about local history, while also using that local history as a platform for the production of new creative work in Pittsfield. And we also partner with the Pittsfield Public Schools to provide poetry programming, which they’re not currently able to provide, um, but is on state curricular framework. So we work with them to do that. And we also run, during the summer months, community conversations with visiting scholars to discuss themes raised by the Mastheads.

  Francesca: That sounds like an excellent array of programming. I guess my first question, would pertain to the five mobile structures modeled for these five prolific authors. Would you say that their designs, um, are they more historically informed or more artistic abstraction?

  Tessa: Um, they are historically informed but if you took a first glance at them you may not notice that. For instance, um, the Thoreau studio, Thoreau, when he was on top of Greylock spent a night in this tall, square, wooden, observation tower, which had been built by the Williams College Astronomy Department. So the Thoreau studio is a very abstract 13-foot-6 square tower, which has small openings in the windows that emulate the openings that were in the observation tower. The Melville studio is half of a gable roof with a particularly placed window that mimics the relationship of roof and window in his corner study. Um, so they each do reflect the historic structures that the authors were working in, but in terms of construction and material, um, they look very contemporary, they’re built out a material called cross-laminated timber, um, which is a four and a half inch thick solid wood panel product. So we actually in designing the studios sent 3-D files to Canada to a company called Nordic, who then delivered the components for the five studios flat-packed as a series of six to eight panels which then were assembled on-site. The outside of the studios is finished with pine tar, which is a natural material that the Vikings actually used to waterproof their ships. So it’s a natural ah, sealant and water-proofing material. So the outside of the studios are a striking black and then the inside of the studios are a natural wood color. So, the openings in the studios are actually, um, panels of this E.L.T. that can pivot, so when they open up you see this interplay between the black on the outside and the white on the inside. And when they’re closed up you only see the black shell on the outside.

  Francesca: That sounds like a really fascinating environment to work in. So when the program seeks out authors to occupy and work in these spaces, what types of authors, ah, does your program look for?

  Tessa: So this has been our second year of running the Mastheads residency program and up to this point we have had fiction writers, poets, and this year for the first time we also had a graphic artist, a comic artist, in one of the studios. So it’s possible in the future we’ll consider opening it up as well to academics and other kinds of urban thinkers, but for now, um, it’s particularly focused on creative writing.

  Francesca: Very cool. With a focus on creative writing and poetry, does that then in any way tie into the other types of poetry programming that the Mastheads performs?

  Tessa: It does. So, um, so Sarah Trudgeon is our Director of Education, she teaches two courses every academic year in partnership with the Pittsfield Public Schools, we call our in-school program Fireside, and that is named after the fire-side poets. So Oliver Wendell Holmes and Longfellow were both members of this group called the Fireside Poets, who were read in the 19th century around the fireside, around the hearth, both in the home, and also in the school room. So since we’re bringing, um, this lens of Pittsfield poetry into the Pittsfield Public Schools we use that name Fireside to connect to the history. So, Sarah’s programming is a 10 week course where she works in the fall with 3rd or 4th grade students at Morningside Community School, and in the spring with high school students at Pittsfield High School. And the students produce unbelievable poetry under Sarah’s guidance. We’ve, we do at the end of each Fireside class a reading where all the parents come into the school and it’s a chance for us to essentially get a population of Pittsfield who is extremely hard to reach with cultural programming at, um, these two sort of under-funded schools, by getting the parents to come and sort of celebrate their kids it’s a way for us to include and involve them in the overall mission of the Mastheads. So in addition to the final poetry reading where parents and community members come and celebrate the kids’ poetry. The students also get to take a field trip to The Mastheads’ studios where they write inside the studios. And we also publish a Fireside anthology at the end of every semester, and they each get a book that they have three to five poems published in. And we also publish some of their poems in the Berkshire Eagle in the summer months during the residency, we produce a special Mastheads insert every two weeks that’s released in the Berkshire Eagle, and that compiles all in one place the Fireside poems, work that’s being produced real-time in the studios by the residents, um, transcriptions of the lectures and events that are happening, photographs, um, comic art, a very diverse set of things.

  Francesca: I think that is a really great array of creative educational programming, for the kids, and their families, and the community. Is there anything else about Mastheads work and programming that you would want folks to know about, or any plans for the future?

  Tessa: One thing I should mention is, the way that this program transitioned from a proposal in a school context and an academic context to actually happening and becoming real, um, began with a grant from the Our Town arm of the National Endowment for the Arts. So the Mastheads now is run as a three-way partnership between the City of Pittsfield’s Office of Cultural Development, the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area, and the Mastheads team. So as a trio, we pursue funding at both the national and regional level and that has been a very successful partnership so far. Um, so that’s just a bit about how this program actually got to become real, and another thing that I’ll say, so we received that grant in 2014. It took us a few years to actually complete the fundraising to construct the studios and figure out the logistics of how this program would run. 2017 was our first, um, year of public programming. So this July has been our second year of public programming. So each year we kind of reflect back and think about what we can improve on from the year before, so in our first year we got some feedback that people would like to learn about a more diverse set of Berkshire authors than the original five that we put forth. So, it took us some time sort of wrestling with how we would do that, because it felt disingenuous to say that the studios had not actually been designed after the structures of these five original authors that we were looking at, but what we realized we could do was to shift our community-cultural programming each year to look at a set of five new authors with Berkshire and regional ties each year around a given theme. So while our first year was the American Renaissance, our second year this past July 2018, we looked at literature and activism in the 19th century Berkshires. So we studied Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Fanny Campbell, William Cullen Bryant, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Herman Melville all reacting to national and local politics around the Civil War era. Next year the theme will be the Gilded Age Economics and Class. And, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to remember all the authors, but I’m going to try, we’re going to do Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edith Wharton, James Weldon Johnson, Henry James, and a 20th century perspective on Herman Melville. So through our cultural programming, we’ve been able to, ah, improve upon our ability to deliver new, fresh content about a broader range of creative voices who’ve been part of the Berkshire scene. Um, and another thing that we’re working on developing is we’ve realized that one of the most kind of eye-catching, and sort of curious aspects of our project are the physical writing studios themselves. And the original conception of the program was that those studios would only be used by the five visiting writers-in-residence. So we’ve been trying to brainstorm ways that the studios can also be used and seen by the public. So, after our first season in 2017, in July we had the five writers-in-residence in the studios. August to November they [the studios] moved to MASS MoCA in North Adams, where they were available for half-day reservations for writing slots for the general public. This fall 2018 they will be moving to Hancock Shaker Village, and next year we have some new ideas up our sleeves about maybe bringing them to downtown Pittsfield, which is still being developed, but we’re-we’re working on ways to peak people’s curiosity and we think the studios are one of the more promising ways of doing that.

  Francesca: Well these plans certainly peeked my own curiosity and interest. Ah, I guess tying this back into the heritage area, Dan, could you speak a bit more on the support that the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area plays to the Mastheads program.

  Dan: So initially when this idea was bubbling up with Chris and Tessa and the Office of Cultural Development in the City of Pittsfield, um, I-my understanding was that they were trying to determine what framework can the City of Pittsfield operate under to help this program develop. At that point they reached out to us, the national heritage area, and asked, ah, I had a very good relationship because we had worked on a number of previous programs, and we, ah, clearly the Mastheads was a very well-conceived program. It had a lot of creative, um, you know ideas, it-it fit very well with the heritage, with our literary heritage. It had a-ample grassroots support in the City of Pittsfield, and it seemed like a very logical program for us to support. And so, ah, we discussed this at the board level and conceived of a plan where we would enter into a partnership, we developed a memorandum of understanding with the City of Pittsfield to be the fiscal agent of this project. And through that we viewed our goal, our operational goal as a catalyst for regional thinking that this would be one role that the heritage area could take on. It would really help this program bloom and develop by accepting donations, processing acknowledgement letters and supporting the delaying functioning of that program, so that would free them up to work creatively, to do partner outreach, to continue the amazing fundraising that they’ve been doing, and not have to worry about all that back office stuff. So we found our role there, and it fit our mission very nicely in that we supported this program that then interprets our literary heritage, and at the same time acted as a catalyst to let this program really develop. And as you can see, now that they are into their second year it’s totally amazing, um, and if you couldn’t tell from Tessa’s, ah, enthusiasm she is amazing invested in this-in this program and continues to push the envelope on, ah, new ways of public outreach, you know public engagement, um, engaging youth in our heritage, and really pushing the envelope on creative new ways to display what has been a long and illustrious literary heritage in the region.

  Francesca: That’s really amazing. Thank you both for speaking about the program, both from the perspectives of the heritage area and the program itself. Before we sign off, do either of you want to share any final thoughts.

  Tessa: I wanted to share the names of the Mastheads programming team. So two, the two architects and founders are myself Tessa Kelly, and my husband and partner Chris Parkinson, Jeffrey Lawrence who is our Director of Scholarship who is a professor of English at Rutgers University, and Sarah Trudgeon who’s our Director of Education and a poet who lives here in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

  – Outro Music –

  Francesca: This podcast series is produced by the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office. Today’s episode was edited by myself and Volunteer Audio Engineer, Suzie Calarco. The episode’s music was performed by Suzie and Sam Wolf. Thanks for tuning in and have an amazing day.

  – Outro Music –

• 3. Cycle the Erie Canal - Trails in New York State

  
  

  In this episode, Francesca speaks with Andy Kitzmann, Assistant Director of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, and Jamie Meerdink, Project Director of Parks & Trails New York. We discuss the annual event Cycle the Erie Canal where cyclists traverse across New York from Buffalo to Albany, as well as the use and importance of trails in New York state.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS Northeast Region

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  – Intro Music –

  Francesca: In today’s episode, I travel to Peebles Island State Park within the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor. The episode will introduce the heritage corridor, a special event that takes place called Cycle the Erie Canal, as well as the importance of trails in New York State and the benefits that trails can have for local communities.

  – Intro Music –

  Peter: Hi Francesca!

  Francesca: Hi Peter.

  Peter: Well, welcome back. I’m really excited about hearing this next episode about Erie Canalway.

  Francesca: Yeah, I went up to Peebles Island, ah, north of Albany in New York and I sat down in the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor and I spoke with Andy Kitzmann from the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, as well as Jamie Meerdink, Project Director from Parks and Trails New York. And we talked about this Cycle the Erie Canal event that takes place each year, ah, where folks ride their bicycles along the Erie Canalway from Buffalo, New York all the way to Albany.

  Peter: Wow, that’s pretty amazing. Yeah, yeah it’s a great event and, you know, I’ve been working with the Erie Canalway for many years and known Andy a long time. I don’t know, ah, Jamie Meerdink, but I know, we’ve worked with Parks and Trails New York and they’ve had a strong relationship with the Erie Canalway for a long time. I’ve also, you know, spoken with Bob Radliff who is the Director at Erie Canalway, and I believe he took his wife and daughter on the, part of the bike ride this year.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah, one of the points that we touch upon is that the bike ride itself from Buffalo to Albany is huge, but—

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: Both of them are really invested in creating, you know, events, ah, that are really accessible to families of all ages and people, um, who are really experienced cyclists and like maybe not-so-experienced cyclists.

  Peter: Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, one thing I just mentioned and I don’t know if-if it really comes up in your conversation with Andy and Jaimie, but they did a presentation at the World Canal Conference last year which was held in the Erie Canalway in Syracuse. And, ah, someone presented, someone who has, ah, accessibility issues or handicapped, and they do the whole ride using the special bikes all along—the entire way—and they gave a whole presentation on it, people were practically crying because it was so emotionally charged, um, but, you know, really interesting that they can make the trail ride available to a really wide variety of people, so.

  Francesca: That—that’s really amazing. I’m glad you shared that because we did not end up talking about that in our conversation.

  Peter: Sure, yeah, yeah. I was, ah, really blown away, so, it’s pretty amazing. So, but I’m really anxious to hear the rest of your conversations that you had, and you were up in Peebles Island, which is right outside of Albany, I believe right, so—

  Francesca: Yeah, there were groundhogs running around.

  Peter: (laugh) Yeah, it’s a great site, always wonderful to see the canal and the locks and all that kind of stuff. So, well, look forward to-to hearing it so let’s proceed.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah. Let’s-let’s dive into it.

  – Music Reprise –

  Francesca: Hello, this is Francesca Calarco, Communications Coordinator for the National Heritage Areas Program from the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office. I am going to be speaking today about the Cycle Erie Canal event that happens within the heritage corridor. And I’m going to be speaking with Andy Kitzmann, Assistant Director of Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, and Jaimie Meerdink, Project Director for Parks and Trails New York. So thank you both for coming here today to speak with me and ah, let’s dive into it. Andy, could you introduce yourself and a little bit about the heritage area.

  Andy: Sure. Ah, thank you Francesca. My name is Andy Kitzmann and I am the Assistant Director with the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor. Ah, we are located in upstate New York. We are a five hundred twenty four linear mile corridor that includes two hundred and thirty communities. Ah, and we were designated by Congress in 2000. We have a preservation and management plan that guides our work, and, um, that steers us in what we do. And there are three major pieces of that that we focus on, ah, we preserve the valuable historic resources within the canal corridor, we promote the corridor as a-as a tourism destination, as a valuable place to live, and we work with our local communities and our state partners, ah, including the New York State Canal Corporation who owns and operates the system, and Peebles Island State Park is part of the New York State Parks and Recreation, ah, Office of Parks and Recreation, which is another state agency, ah, and we have a variety of non-profit partners, like Parks and Trails New York, that we work with throughout the corridor.

  Francesca: Okay, thank you! Thank you for that introduction, and ah, so Jaimie, being from Parks and Trails New York, do you want to speak a little bit about what Parks and Trails New York does, as well as the event?

  Jaimie: Sure, um, so Parks and Trails New York—we’re a non-profit, um, advocacy organization and we work state-wide. Basically our mission is to ah, improve and enhance ah, our network of multi-use trails and protect public and open-spaces across the state. Um, so we’ve been doing that work for ah, more than thirty years. And Cycle the Erie Canal is an event that we-we just did our twentieth Cycle the Erie Canal. It’s an event that highlights, really the prominent—the longest and most prominent multi-use trail in the state, and that’s the Erie Canalway trail, ah, which stretches from Buffalo to Albany, it’s three hundred and sixty miles. So, yeah, twenty years this year, it’s a great event, it’s ah, it’s actually our largest fundraiser for our organization, um, and it funds really the programming, the technical assistance, and then the advocacy work that we do throughout the year.

  Francesca: Excellent. Could you tell me a little bit about the event this year?

  Jaimie: Yeah, absolutely. So um, like I said this is our twentieth annual event. And really the event has grown every year, but at its base what it is-is a supported, fully supported eight-day bike ride along the Erie Canalway Trail. Um, and when I say supported what that means basically is, you wake up in the morning and you take your luggage and your tent and anything else you have with you, and you throw it in a truck and then all you have to do is ride to the next town. And we bring all the, you know, all your luggage, ah, to the next location. Ah, we also have rest stops, we have what we call support and gear and SAG support. And we have lots of events and programming each night at the tent cities. Um, some people also stay in bed and breakfasts or hotels. So-so that’s what the ride is, every day is between forty and sixty miles of cycling, and ah, the Erie Canalway Trail is-it’s about eighty percent complete as an off-road route. So, most of that um, day you’re on an off-road, multi-use trail, either paved or stone-dust trail. It’s also a really great kind-of introduction to bike touring, because it’s a very flat route as it follows the canal across the state. Really, the-there are some hills and there’s some road connections, there’s some rolling hills, and then there’s a couple of really, rather short hills that have become kind of legendary in the minds of our riders because they really experience almost no hills the rest of the route when, so these little hills become just huge mountains. But ah, it’s a very ah, nice intro ride for families, and for people who are trying to get into the sport.

  Francesca: So, during this journey from Buffalo to Albany, if you are going forty to sixty miles a day, how long does that entire journey take?

  Jaimie: Well, so like, in a day, a lot of people like to get out really early cause, you know this is the summer. So, we’ll have a breakfast and it’s kind of, you go at your own pace, it’s not a mass start, it’s a—you start as you like. Um, so people get breakfast and they head out on the trail and-and really we have some people who like to get their riding done kinda early, so they might head out at seven or eight and they can, a couple-couple hours in there through the forty to sixty miles. We have more, most of the people through are somewhere in the middle, where they’re gonna stop at our rest stops in the morning and the afternoon. They’re gonna stop for lunch probably, and then they’ll probably stop at least once or twice at a museum or, um, a lot of the communities along the route come out and they have rest stops where they have information tables to tell people what they’re gonna see either from the canal, on the canal infrastructure, or also just the towns that they’re going through. The—part of the beauty of this ride is it’s not a—not a wilderness ride. The canal actually, you know these towns along the route formed because the canal went through the town so, especially in the Western part of the state, ah, where we’re on the older part of the Erie Canal, the more original canal, you’re going through a town every six to ten miles and a lot of them have the name “port” at the end of them, you know you got Middleport, Spencerport, Brockport, Gasport, Weedsport. And so you’re going right through downtown, you’re going to, they might have a local historical society or museum, they have restaurants and bars. So some people literally will take, you know, eight in the morning until five or six at night to-to go through all that and really kinda soak in up-sate, the canal corridor as you go through the ride during the day.

  Francesca: Very nice, that sounds like a really exciting event with a lot of different components that aren’t just biking.

  Jaimie: Yeah, it’s-it’s really, biking is kind of the, the vehicle that gets you to explore the corridor and the reason that people choose this ride is, like, it’s pretty flat honestly. So, if you’re trying to go to climb mountains or to-to do that kind of a ride, that-this isn’t probably the ride you’d choose. This is, a lot of the people are history-buffs or canal-buffs interested in the history of upstate New York, or really just wanting to explore upstate New York. That’s this kind of a vehicle for them to do that.

  Francesca: Excellent. So, in addition to this event, are there other similar types of programming or events that Parks and Trails New York does to get people engaged with bike trails or trails along parks and the Erie Canalway?

  Jaimie: Yeah, I mean, so we have kind of a whole, I guess range of programing, and a lot of it is ah, in partnership with partners like Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor. We also have a contract with the New York State Canal Corporation, where we um, we administer volunteer programs for the Canalway Trail. We have a Trail Ambassador Program. Recently we just started, ah, it’s a bike-friendly business program where businesses that kind of go the extra mile for cyclists get certified through us, and they have a decal and sign that they put in their window, and we list them on our website. And then we have a bunch of resources on the web, because really this—the event is to raise visibility, and it’s you know one week during the summer, but really every day of the year at least, or-or in the riding season or nice weather there’s lots of people who come from around the world to ride this trail, and so our-our real point is you can do it on your own. We-we have resources for you to do it on your own and that’s really where we make a big impact for the community is-is encouraging people to come out whenever they want to visit this corridor and this trail, to make it apart of their other vacations, to extend a vacation to do an extra day on the trail, things like that. So yeah, there’s really, there’s programming all year-round that has to do with this destination.

  Francesca: I think it’s really good that the trail be made as accessible as possible, so you don’t have to be an expert cyclist or like a-a triathaloner to really engage with the trails.

  Andy: I think one of the things that’s really interesting about the ride is that you have-you have young children riding, you have people up into their eighties who ride, and everybody in between. And ah, it’s a support network, so as people are going across they’re supporting each other, they’re watching out for each other. But it’s an opportunity for families to connect. It’s an opportunity for people to see the canal system, to see the national heritage corridor at a different pace. They’re not zipping along the New York State Thruway, they’re not zipping along Highway 31, they’re-they’re going very slowly. They’re seeing things that they’re not gonna see from a car window. They’re experiencing the canal in a way that they’re not gonna experience it in a normal, daily life. So, you know, from-from our stand point that’s one of the huge values here, is the opportunity for-for that engagement. We have um, a mission that is to promote the valuable resources in the canal. There are canal resources all throughout here from ah, the Towpath, there are former locks, there are the Towpath of course, there’s aqueducts, all kinds of really interesting things that we as an organization try to raise awareness about. The-the purpose of our national heritage corridor is to promote those resources as a valuable piece of today’s infrastructure. That we want to make it relevant to today’s society. We want the-the younger generation to realize that the Erie Canal has value for them, ah, that it’s a recreational tool. That there’s, ah, an economic benefit to the canal system itself.

  Jaimie: The-this ride is kind of a-a micro-study in kind of the growth of this idea as, of the canalway as a recreation way. It’s not just a, it’s not something that’s static, it’s not just a piece of history, it’s something that people are using and enjoying. And I think a lot of credit should go to the New York State Canal Corporation for seeing that that transition should be made and um recognize that planning for this ride started out twenty years ago as a couple dozen people and really more of a, they called it a trek and it was more of a, kind of almost a fact-finding mission, because the trail wasn’t nearly complete. This was just kind of isolated patches of trail. Over the years the Canal Corporation State Parks, multiple governors and leadership in the state have recognized that we should, we should fund, we call it closing the gaps but it’s you know filling in these gap sections with off-road trail and now we’re at a point where we can really legitimately say that this is one trail across the state. And so, when it’s finished it will be the longest single multi-use trail in the country. And then now, its popularity and its growth has fueled kind of a renewed interest in multi-use trails. And now we have a new investment, a huge investment in funding from the governor, its two hundred million dollars to close-finish all the gaps in the Erie Canalway Trail and then also to connect it to a trail from New York City to the Canadian border. So, we already probably had the longest multi-use trail in the country, but now we’re going to have the longest system, trail system in the country and it’s gonna be a really big deal for the state for tourism and for outdoor recreation.

  Andy: And If I can talk about that growth, um, one of the purposes of a national heritage area is to generate sustainability, not only in our organization but within our partners. And this ride is one of those great examples. I was a curator at the Erie Canal Museum when the first ride came through in the late ‘90s, um, before the national heritage area even existed. And I can remember the twenty people that showed up on that ride in our way chamber and had our little reception there. And today you guys have six hundred plus riders, you got people coming in from all across the country, and the national heritage area got involved at a certain point and started to invest resources in the ride. And not just the-the trail ride here but also, ah, there are voyages, cross-corridor voyages that happen. There are other running events, biking events that we invest resources in. And oftentimes, and this is one of those examples, we’ll invest resources at a greater amount early-on and then as they grow and become more sustainable we’re able to reduce our investment. And at the same time be able to provide technical assistance, like promotion and outreach, ah, reaching into the various communities that the trails go through, making connections, and helping to grow it in a different way. So that’s an example of sustainability both from a national heritage area standpoint and a Parks and Trails New York or non-profit standpoint.

  Francesca: I think those are, those are really good points to make about this continuing of the trail throughout the heritage corridor—

  Andy: Yeah.

  Francesca: —and all the different types of benefits that can happen from government and organizations working together to complete this trail and how they can help communities within the heritage corridor.

  Jaimie: Right, we-we did a, a study a couple of years ago, it was an economic impact report for the canalway trail that found just huge direct and indirect spending, and then tax revenue, and actually jobs created. It’s like two hundred and fifty million dollars in economic impact and it’s over three thousand jobs, that’s an annual figure, and that was a couple years ago where we estimated about 1.6 million visits. Part of the interesting part about this trail is it’s so long that there are people from one part of the corridor that actually might take a vacation in the other part of the corridor. So these are locals but they’re not local to the place where they’re vacationing or going out on the trail. And, and we, so like I said before it’s a year-round thing. Our ride is one week and it raises the visibility. I think a great benefit of it is, if there’s a community member that knows the trail, they’re like that’s my backyard trail, that’s something I walk the dog or I take the kid for a walk, when they see someone from Germany or Australia or the U.K. that’s come to New York state just to ride beside the Erie Canal and-and go across the state, they think a little bit differently about their community trail and they realize that it’s a part of this really cool state-wide network and that, hmm, maybe our community should put in a pavilion or put in some lockers or showers or parking for people to use the trail and that will help our downtown develop and be a place where people stop and stay the night instead of just coming through. Um, so that’s kind of the education that goes on and both our organizations do a lot of that, sharing those kind of best practices with the communities along the way and I think that it’s definitely paying off.

  Francesca: That’s great to hear. Do either of you have any final thoughts on Cycle the Erie Canal or, ah, engagement with trails from both of your organization’s perspectives?

  Andy: I think there’s a lot from a trail standpoint, I think there’s a lot of interest today in trails. Not just for riding trails, but for water trails. We have this five hundred and twenty four linear mile navigable system and ah Erie Canalway is working on a water trail guide, developing this system-wide guide that compliments what the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area has done in their-in their region. And when you start to look at things at the state level with the state’s, um, what they call their consolidated funding application, all of the state agencies grant together, and the three areas that they have for priorities, each one of those areas includes trails and recreation. Um, which really tells you about how valuable getting people out into the corridor, getting people out onto the trail has become at a-at a state-wide level. And I-I think that ah, that really speaks to the good work that Parks and Trails New York is doing, but to what a national heritage area does to raise awareness of the value of things like these rides, to promote the activities that the communities are doing at the local level as the riders come through to-to not only create a great experience for riders, but to create an economic opportunity for those communities. To create a stimulus, to create energy and enthusiasm for the value of the resources of the system. That’s what a heritage area is all about, is inspiring our community, inspiring our 3.2 million people who live here that this is a great place. It’s not just about bringing in people from other areas, but it’s inspiring our local folks that this is a resource that’s worth protecting and worth having.

  Francesca: That’s great. I think it’s really great when you can feel pride in your community, and pride in the local resources and heritage of your community.

  Andy: Yep.

  Jaimie: I’ll-I’ll just add, you know, people should come out and see for themselves. You know there’s a, we have a great website called cycletheeriecanal.com where we have trip planning guides, we have an interactive map, we have hotel listings, we have all kinds of things to do your own trip in the corridor, on the Erie Canalway Trail. We’re gonna look for more funding over the next couple of years to try to connect other trail systems and other recreation in parks to this kind of, I guess, backbone that we’re forming of trails. So, it doesn’t stop here and we’ll continue to advocate for that stuff, but once-once you’re on the radar as kind of that great trail state, outdoor state, it changes-it changes everything. It changes how people here look at it and how people that are visiting look at it too. So, it’s all really positive what’s going on here.

  Andy: I think one of the things that’s interesting about Erie Canalway too is ah, ten years ago the Erie Canal really was not on the radar of I Love New York, which is the major tourism promotion agency, and in the ten years that I’ve been here with the national heritage corridor, um, I Love New York has become involved. They have seen the value of Erie Canalway as a tourism engine, and they have created ah, a new region for their tourism initiatives that includes Erie Canal. And I think that’s really important because we really played a role in-in working with I Love New York and raising awareness with them at the macro-level about what was happening in the corridor, both in the local community level and at the larger corridor-wide activities that are going on. Um, not just during the summer seasons, but year-round. Even-even in the cold months there’s things that happen on the canal that are worth doing, if you’re so inclined.

  Francesca: That’s really cool to hear; I am a native New Yorker so um—

  Andy: Awesome.

  Francesca: —I’m always interested to know what other people from outside of the state think of our state, and I am happy to know that people know we’re not just the city, but also we have forests, we have open grasslands, we have rivers and trails, and so thank you both for all of the work that you do to make sure that we have these things, I appreciate it.

  Andy: Thank you.

  Jaimie: Thank you.

  – Outro Music –

  Francesca: For today’s episode we owe special thanks to Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor and the assistance that they provided with audio recording.

  – Outro Music –

  Francesca: This podcast series is produced by the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office. Today’s episode was edited by myself and Volunteer Audio Engineer, Suzie Calarco. The episode’s music was performed by Suzie and Sam Wolf. Thanks for tuning in and have an amazing day.

  – Outro Music –

• 4. Pedal and Paddle - Recreation in Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area

  
  

  In this episode, Francesca speaks with Deputy Director Tim Fenchel and Trail Program Coordinator Julia Hurle from Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area. We discuss the heritage area's background, an overview of a biking and kayaking event series called 'Pedal and Paddle,' as well as other recreational opportunities within the heritage area.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS Northeast Region

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  – Intro Music –

  Francesca: In today’s episode, I speak with staff from Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area. This episode will cover a little bit about the heritage area’s background, their event series ‘Pedal and Paddle,’ which includes biking and kayaking along the Schuylkill River Trail, as well as other recreational opportunities within the heritage area.

  – Intro Music –

  Peter: Hi Francesca.

  Francesca: Hi Peter!

  Peter: Welcome back and I’m interested in hearing about this next episode...

  Francesca: Sure, sure. Ah, back in August I went out to a Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area event called ‘Pedal and Paddle,’ ah so, the ‘pedal’ is biking, and the ‘paddle’ was kayaking, ah, along the Schuylkill River and I went out to Lock 60 in Phoenixville, Mount Claire area and it was really fun to participate in. I am gonna be speaking with Tim Fenchel about the event and other types of recreational programing that Schuylkill River Greenways performs.

  Peter: Great, well, I’ve known Tim probably for ten years—

  Tim: Yeah.

  Peter: —And worked with Schuylkill for a long time and am very familiar with the Mount Claire and Lock 60 site. I can even remember ah, ages ago when there was funds put into renovating Lock 60—

  Tim: Right. Correct.

  Peter: —Um, and I’ve been on a number of Sojourns that Schuylkill does, where we-we used to start off actually at ah Lock 60, but I guess you then moved it to—

  Tim: Schuylkill Haven is where we start now. Yeah.

  Peter: Oh, but I mean ah, now it goes from Conshohocken down, but there was a time when I think we started, I know one year we started at Lock 60.

  Tim: Okay.

  Peter: Um, yeah this, it sounds like a great event and Tim-Tim’s here with, obviously you can hear him in the background.

  Tim: (laughter)

  Francesca: (laughter)

  Peter: Um, Tim is this ah, is this something where you can actually make some money on this or is it more just ah—

  Tim: The Pedal and Paddles?

  Peter: Yeah, outreach and?

  Tim: Yeah, it’s more of an outreach, um, sort of getting people connected, kind of event. We do have grant funding that-that helps, ah, pay for the event. So it’s not a, it’s-it’s more of a friend-raiser than it is a fundraiser, yeah.

  Peter: Yeah, yeah. Great, so I’m gonna hand it over to you Francesca cause you actually experienced the paddling and that’s probably, um you know, a great day. Was it a sunny day, you were out there?

  Francesca: The weather was really great. It was like perfect weather that day.

  Tim: She got the best weather for all of the Pedal and Paddles this year.

  Francesca: (laughter)

  Peter: Um, cause Tim knows that one day I was on the Sojourn and it rained—

  Tim: (laughter) Oh that’s right!

  Francesca: (laughter)

  Peter: —a miserable, rainy day. But ah, very memorable, so anyway. Well carry on and ah, glad you’re here Tim.

  Tim: Thanks Peter!

  Francesca: Yeah, thank you Peter.

  – Music Reprise –

  Francesca: Hello, this is Francesca Calarco, Communications Coordinator for the National Park Service National Heritage Areas Program operating out of the Northeast Regional Office. Right now I am actually in the NPS Northeast Regional Office and I am here with Tim Fenchel from Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area. So Tim, welcome.

  Tim: Thank you very much for having me.

  Francesca: Thank you, we really appreciate you coming up here, ah usually I go out, so it’s always exciting when someone comes to us.

  Tim: Yeah, well sometimes it works the other way too, it’s really great to come down and see your new office building here; it’s beautiful. It’s a great space and a great view of the Delaware River, couldn’t quite see the Schuylkill to the left, but this is a great place so I’m glad that you’ve ah welcomed me down here.

  Francesca: Yes, well, thank you for coming down here. So today we are going to be talking a little bit about Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area and some of the ah recreational programming that you guys do with the Schuylkill River—

  Tim: Right.

  Francesca: —Ah, including the Pedal and Paddle event that, I got to go to one at Lock 60 on August 25th, it was a, it was a beautiful day that day. So ah, what can you tell us about Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area?

  Tim: Sure, so ah, we are both a national and state heritage area. We became a state heritage area in 1996. Pennsylvania actually is one of the leading states um for having a state heritage area program. There are 12 in the state of Pennsylvania, so we received our state designation in 1996, and then we received our national heritage area designation in 2000. And ah we received both of those based on what we call the river of revolutions. There‘s three revolutions connected to the Schuylkill. Ah, one is the American Revolution of course which we all studied in elementary school, the Philadelphia campaign of the American Revolution, lots of history in the Philadelphia region and surrounding region. The second revolution in the Industrial Revolution when anthracite coal was discovered in Schuylkill county and other counties in Northern Pennsylvania. It spurned on the Industrial Revolution and everything that came with that, ah the canal system, the trains, the breweries, the textiles; all of that kind of history was very, very much a part of the story of the Schuylkill River. And then sadly, the third revolution, as a result of what happened ah during the Industrial Revolution is that and what we call the environmental revolution. A lot of people don’t know that the very first federal and state environmental clean-up project happened right here on the Schuylkill River in the 1940’s and 50’s, it was called the Schuylkill Project. And it was a project that basically worked for ah about 20 years or so or more to remove the coal silt, the residual coal silt from the mining that happened up in Schuylkill county and the trans-transportation of the coal down to Philadelphia. So, we tell those three stories and we’ve recently um sort of added a fourth revolution that we talk a lot about and that is the recreational revolution.

  Francesca: Nice.

  Tim: Some of the things we’re gonna talk about today, people are no longer have, you know for a long time turned their backs on the Schuylkill River ah but now they are turning their businesses and turning their personal interests back towards that river and using it and recognizing it for the incredible natural and recreational resource that it is. So that’s sort of the background of our heritage area. Ah, the heritage area is about 2000 square miles, makes up most of the Schuylkill River watershed. The watershed itself touches 11 different counties, but ah we work in 5 of them: Schuylkill, Berks, Montgomery, Chester, and Philadelphia. So that’s the-the region that is part of our national heritage area designation. And our mission really is to connect people to the river and the Schuylkill River Trail. We’re a champion for the river, we work to be a catalyst for sort of revitalization of the communities that touch the river and the trail. And ah, the river and the trail really are amazing resources for a lot of the work that is happening in the downtown communities like Phoenixville, and Norristown, and Manayunk, and Pottstown. And so we’re a champion for all those sorts of things and ah, some of the things that we do, our signature project is the Schuylkill River Trail, which is a rail trail, a bike trail, the Schuylkill River Trail is a multi-use trail which will basically when it’s done be about 125 miles from Fort Mifflin which is at the mouth of the Schuylkill ah, where it connects into the Delaware, all the way up to Frackville, just above Pottsville in Schuylkill County. So currently we have about half of those trail miles complete, it’s about 67 or so trail miles complete, not continuous, there are some breaks in there, but it, when we’re all finished it will be about 125 miles long. So that’s our signature project, that’s what we spend a lot of our time working on and focusing on. We have two full-time staff members; that is their primary job is to work at um completing the Schuylkill River Trail.

  Francesca: That sounds like it will be really amazing once it’s done.

  Tim: It will be. It will be. So one of the unique things, there’s a lot of successful stories across the nation um, with rail trails and then the building of trails and their popularity. Certainly the great Allegheny Passage in the western part of the state and then the Maryland is one of the really true, unique success stories with trails. We’re not there yet, but ah we think that if we continue to build the length of the trail that it will b—really be an amazing resource not only for residents, but it will also start to bring people for tourism, visitors to the region for over-night trips. Ah, we’re not sort of that gold number of 100 continuous miles, ah, when we get there that’s when we’ll really start to see people coming into our region for you know weekend trips or multi-day trips on the trail. We’re getting there, we have a lot of work to do, but it really will be a phenomenal trail when it’s done and what’s unique about it, you know it has not only some of the great really green spaces that exists on some of our trails in the area, but it also connects to some really amazing communities and ah downtown areas where people can get into for great restaurants and great food and activities and things like that. So, we’re really, really excited about the potential that the Schuylkill River Trail has for our region.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah. That sounds like it will provide a number of opportunities for people, recreational, bring in people so there can be some economic development for—

  Tim: Absolutely.

  Francesca: —towns and businesses.

  Tim: Yeah, so that’s, that’s our signature um project. We also do youth education programs called the Schuylkill Explorers Program, we had over 500 um youth come through that program this year where we introduce them to not only the heritage area and what we do, but we also get them out on a local nature trail, get them interacting with the Schuylkill River, they learned about watersheds and what they can do to improve their watershed, so that’s a really great program. We have a river conservation grant program, we have several funders that contribute money each year and then we oversee and administer a grant program that has completed ah over 70 projects to date for conservation projects along the Schuylkill. And then sort of the, one of the things that most people know us about, know us for, is the Schuylkill River Sojourn which is a 7 day kayaking and canoeing event which happens every year the first week in June, um, it’s a 7 day event and it’s a fantastic event. We just completed our 20th annual sojourn and we camp out overnight at ah different local parks, community parks, township borough parks. Ah we have outfitters that come along the way and help and move people’s gear and provide boats and rentals. We do education programming every-every day at lunch and at dinner, and typically we have around 200 or 225 participants each year, ah, in the sojourn. And it’s just an amazing way to bring attention to the river for one solid week. Um, you know we get some good press coverage.

  Francesca: Yeah.

  Tim: But it’s also just another great way to sort of connect people to the river, get them out onto the water so that they can begin to understand, you know that incredible resource that it is, and start to appreciate it. And ah, it’s been a really amazing event for our organization for over 2 decades so, that happens every year, so we’re sort of excited about continuing to offer that program.

  Francesca: Very good. I-I was really excited to be able—I did not participate in the event—but I was really excited to be able to see part of it for when you guys docked for lunch that, at the very end of the Sojourn.

  Tim: Oh, yeah at the Philly Canoe Club. That’s right.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah, there was some, a lot of really cool characters—

  Tim: There sure are. (laughter)

  Francesca: —Yeah, who were participating ah, in the event. So it was, it was really nice to get to meet everybody and see the passion for kayaking and, and also the river itself, and ah, it almost felt like a community of kayakers.

  Tim: It really is, it really is. I mean there’s been a community that has sort of has developed around the sojourn itself, and then that community has sort of expended to other, other sort of paddling groups. I mean there’s ah, the outfitter that we use for our Pedal and Paddles and for ah the sojourn itself, has a Wednesday Night Paddle and other sort of guided paddles during the-the summer, and there’s been a community that has sort of grown around that. Then there’s been a couple of spin-off ah groups that have sort of begun to do their own organized paddle. So It’s-it’s really exciting to see sort of the renewed interest in getting out on the river. So it’s-it’s been exciting to be a part of that.

  Francesca: That’s great, that’s-that’s really amazing. An event that Schuylkill River Greenways does that I was able to participate in is the Pedal and Paddle event series. Could you tell me a little bit about that?

  Tim: Sure, so the Pedal and Paddles, ah we started them I want to say around 2010, so maybe about 8 years ago. Basically what it is, is ah we have about 8 of them a-a year, in between May and October, and this really hits at the core of our mission, in that it’s trying to connect people, connect people to the Schuylkill River Trail, and trying to connect people to the Schuylkill River. This event, this real simple program, does both of those things, and so what we do is we offer, each Pedal and Paddle has room about 15 participants. And they come to our office in the morning or um, where we’re starting, and get a little bit of an introduction into the heritage area. What is a national heritage area? What is our national heritage area? What is the Schuylkill River Greenways? What does our organization do? We give them introduction, in-introductory information on the Schuylkill River Trail, and the river, and the watershed. So we do that for about 15 or 20 minutes, and then basically we get people onto bikes, ah right in Riverfront Park in Pottstown and they bike on the Schuylkill River Trail for about 5 miles, ah north, upriver ah to a historic village called Morlatton Village and we have partners there from the village that ah then give the participants about a 45 minute or 1 hour tour of the historic village. And then the participants get back on their bikes and they ride about a half a mile back down the trail to a park, a township park, where we have a boxed-lunch set up for them. And they eat lunch and hang out in the pavilion and they get to just relax and enjoy and meet new people and get a nice view of the river. And then we have our kayaking outfitter join us there and then they give the participants 10 or 15 minute introductory kayaking instruction, and then they get in the river, and they paddle down river for 5 miles back to the same exact point where we started. So it’s a big loop, and half of it is biking and half of it is paddling, so that’s really the summary of what the Pedal and Paddle program is. And, we’ve expanded it over the years, we’ve moved to a couple of different locations, just to sort of add some new programming and new sites. One of them being ah, the Lock 60 location which is in Mount Claire, Pennsylvania. One of the unique things about that location is that people get to paddle about two and a half miles on one of the only restored sections of the Schuylkill Canal System that is still intact there, they get a tour of the Lock Tender’s House, and the restored lock. Ah get to meet the modern-day lock tenders Dan and Betsy Daley who are great people.

  Francesca: They were really great, yeah.

  Tim: They are. They’re fantastic, they’ve been long-time partners of ours. So, you know, that’s just one of the ways we’ve sort of grown the program a little bit by adding a new location, and being able to introduce people to a different section of the river, and a different section of the Schuylkill River Trail. So we do, as I’ve said, we do about 8 of them, and they’re just really, really, very simple programs to run. However, they are very effective in showing people the resources that are on both the-the trail and the river. And it’s amazing, every time that we have one people come up to us and say, you know, this was, I heard it was a good program but it was really-really fantastic, I’m so glad I came and did this today. So that’s really great, and then you know, the other thing that it does is people who are interested in getting into kayaking or canoeing who have no experience with it, they can, yeah they can come, and they can have instruction from a certified outfitter, and paddlers, people with experience, they can learn techniques, and they can learn you know, certain things about-about being on a moving water in the river. And then they get to paddle a very easy section of river, just a short section, it’s not very strenuous, so it’s a really great introduction for people who are thinking about getting into kayaking or canoeing.

  Francesca: That was definitely my experience when I went to the event at Lock 60. I had literally never kayaked before in my life, but I was ah really pleasantly surprised by how easy and intuitive the process was, given how well-organized everything was set up, and ah, it-it was very doable. I f— I did not trail behind like I thought I would having never done it before, it-it was really fun.

  Tim: That-that’s great.

  Francesca: Yeah.

  Tim: That’s really good to hear, yeah.

  Francesca: It was really fun also getting to kayak with that whole group of people with varying levels of kayaking experience.

  Tim: Right.

  Francesca: You know, and just hang out.

  Tim: That’s great, yeah. So it’s-it’s a fantastic event and we’ve had, we’ve been doing this for about 8 years, and ah, you know the reason why is really to connect people, and connect people to both the trail and the river. So this event, it’s basically fr— it’s about a five hour, maybe five and half hour event. You know it’s from, usually we start at about 9 o’clock in the morning, and they wrap up maybe between 1 or 2, so it’s not, it’s not a full day. So people don’t have to give up their entire Saturday to do it, but in that short time period we really feel that we make the most of getting people um, interacting with the trail and the river.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah. I’m from New York, and I had never really heard of the Schuylkill River Greenway or Schuylkill River before moving to Philadelphia, and ah now I feel like I have some type of emotional connection to—

  Tim: (laughter)

  Francesca: —This, this river in Pennsylvania, given the passion of people, just you know, going to these events and interacting with it. So, I guess you’re working on getting people involved with the Schuylkill River, giving people access to resources to allow them to engage recreationally—

  Tim: Right.

  Francesca: —With the Schuylkill River. Could you tell me a little bit about Go Schuylkill Greenways?

  Tim: Yeah, absolutely, so this is a, Go Schuylkill Greenways is an initiative that our Executive Director Elaine Schaefer came up with and it is a new program that we just sort of starting to kick off this year in 2018 and hopefully next year and the following years we’ll be able to make a bigger splash with it. But, basically the thinking was that there-there, some of the stuff we’ve already talked about, there was a renewed interest for people recreating on the Schuylkill River Trail and on the river itself. We’ve seen sort of the recreation industry along the Schuylkill blossom quite a bit the last few years, particularly the last five or six years. Starting to see, ah more people buying kayaks, buying bikes, you know the equipment that they need. But also just people looking for places to rent bikes, or how-how can I get on the trail? How, Where can I, I don’t want to own a kayak, but I would love to be able to get on the river somehow. And so seeing that some of that is happening and there’s been sort of a real natural, sort of growth ah of those sorts of things on the Schuylkill, we’ve gotten together with a couple of outfitters to start the Go Schuylkill Greenways initiative. And so we’re working with ah Take it Outdoors Adventures and Riverbend Cycles, and working basically to create a system of what we’re calling recreational hubs where people can go to one of these hubs and they can get a consistent experience. They can find a place to rent a bike, they can find a place to rent ah, a kayak or a canoe. They can get on the trail, they can get on the river. They can do it sort of by themselves, they can do it through other programming, ah and sort of guided tours that the outfitters might provide. So, we want to make the experience for people trying to get on the Schuylkill easier, more consistent, ah, more efficient, and ah just much more user-friendly. We’re working in locations like Pottstown and Conshohocken, ah to get some of those things set up. And we want people to start to recognize that right here in their own backyard, is an amazing resource, similar to place that they travel to go, to go experience. And so making the user-experience easier is going to help some of those things and you know, the population around the Schuylkill River is pretty significant and so you know the population within twenty minutes of the river itself is pretty-pretty significant, so we think there’s a really opportunity to continue to broaden our reach for some of those people, people haven’t gotten on the trail yet or been on the river. And so this is the way that we’re hoping to begin to um, really make that happen. So we have a new website ah called goschuylkillgreenways, we have information on all of our programs like the Pedal and Paddles, the Sojourn. We have a bike ride every fall that we do on the Schuylkill River Trail at the end of September. And then we also list all of the, the events that Take it Outdoors has, and all the events that Riverbend has. Um, it’s a way to promote two outfitters that are making their living on the Schuylkill right now. And so it’s a great program and we’re, like I said we’re really starting to get underway with promoting that and marketing that, and hope that it grows over the next couple of years.

  Francesca: I, I would hope to see that as well. Ah, so thank you so much for giving us information about the heritage area, different events, ah, that the heritage area puts on, as well as other types of recreational programming that you work on. Do you have any final thoughts that you would like to share before signing off, anything that you feel people ought to know about Schuylkill River Greenways?

  Tim: Well, I would just ah, you know recommend checking us out, come-come out to the sojourn, come join us for a bike ride, come to a Pedal and Paddle. Engage in what we’re doing, be a part of ah what we’re doing. It’s pretty exciting, it’s really great work, and ah we’ve, you know the park service is such a great partner with all of these things, we’re very appreciative of the support that-that they’ve given us, but there’s just a lot of opportunity out here ah in southwestern Pennsylvania to sort of get outside and enjoy some of the natural resources that are here. And so um, just encourage anybody who, traveling through the area, or just a resident who is here and is interested in getting started, reach out to us, we’ll be sort of glad to connect you to all the ways can get on the trail and on the river.

  — Outdoor Sounds —

  Francesca: Alright, so this next audio was recorded at the Lock 60 Pedal and Paddle’s event. Ah, just a disclaimer, there, ah, is a lot of natural outdoor noise in the background: locusts, frogs, people enjoying themselves along the river. So you can actually hear what the event sounded like, or what it sounded like to be at the event.

  — Outdoor Sounds —

  Francesca: Today I have come down to Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area. I am at Lock 60 for a Pedal and Paddle event and I am, I’m sitting here now with Julia Hurle, Trails Program Coordinator for the Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area. So Julia, thank you so much for sitting down to talk with me, the event just ended so I really appreciate your time. What is something that the heritage area, really um, wants for people ah, in creating these events, opportunities, resources for people to engage with the natural environment—what do you think is the goal in reaching out to the community?

  Julia: Thank you Francesca, and welcome to Lock 60. Well our goal is to protect the river, we want to be good stewards of the river and the watershed. We feel that by bringing more people to the river, and having them see how great it is, not only for recreational opportunities, because of course people kayak and canoe, they fish, they do birding, we do educational events, a lot of—a lot of like educational programming with children, um, what we’re hoping is to create stewards. More people in the next generation coming up who are going to take care of the river and maintain and move forward this river, this revolution of environmental improvement. We also, as part of that, one of our-our goals, our mission, is to help the communities along the river itself. There are many, many towns, small towns that um, were thriving during the industrial revolution and over the years, and over the decades, um, they’ve fallen on harder economic times, and we’re seeing a resurgence in those communities up and down the river. It sort of started more downriver, ah, years ago when you started to see places like Manayunk and ah Conshohocken start to ah, grow more and become, um, real meccas and destination points for people, to be closer to the river and part of those um tightknit communities. And now we’re seeing that of course in areas—where we are here in Phoenixville. Phoenixville is having a tremendous rebirth ah over the last decade or so. There getting a lot of new um economic stimulus in Phoenixville, a lot more people are coming to the area. And, we’re hoping as the ah heritage area ah brings more and more people to-to the river, and-and tells the story of these communities along-along the river, that more and more towns upriver up here ah, going towards you know the big cities of Reading and Pottsville, but even some of the smaller towns moving forward will experience some of that economic development as well. We know that when we bring the Schuylkill River Trail into a community, that that’s a big boost to the economic um fortunes of that community.

  Francesca: I think that’s a really good, solid way of seeing community impact, the economic side to-to heritage tourism. Th-thank you again for taking the time to speak with me. Before we ah sign off, is there something about Schuylkill River Greenways that you’re especially passionate about, or that you want people to know about that you feel is lesser known?

  Julia: The thing that’s impressed me the most, that I’ve been thinking about recently, is how amazing our volunteers are. We use volunteers for so much of the work that we do, we’re a nine-person office and the amount of work that we can get done up and down this river is completely due to our volunteers. On the Schuylkill River Trail we have different kinds of volunteers, we have ambassadors who go out and log a certain number of hours and communicate with um trail users, and are helpful to trail users, and keep, they’re our eyes and ears on the ground. Then we have trail keepers who are a group of people who are skilled at trail maintenance and do a lot of the maintenance for us. We have um, several times a year on different areas of the trail that the Greenways manages, we have groups that will come out and do trail clean-ups and they’re all volunteers. We do all this work with volunteers and they get a tremendous amount of work done. And, I think that’s what really makes it work for our group.

  Francesca: Yeah. That’s-that’s really great to hear that you have such a good crew um—

  Julia: They’re great, yeah.

  Francesca: —and people who are passionate and emotionally invested and do all the leg work, literally I guess—

  Julia: (laughter)

  Francesca: —in some cases. Well thank you so much for speaking with me, ah…

  Julia: Thank you Francesca, thank you for coming out.

  – Outro Music –

  Francesca: This podcast series is produced by the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office. Today’s episode was edited by myself and Volunteer Audio Engineer, Suzie Calarco. The episode’s music was performed by Suzie and Sam Wolf. Thanks for tuning in and have an amazing day.

  – Outro Music –

• 5. History and Social Justice - Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center

  
  

  In this episode, Francesca speaks with Director & Curator Ally Spongr and Visitor Experience Specialist Saladin Allah of the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center. We cover the heritage center's connection to the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area, how the heritage center brings stories of the Underground Railroad to life, and how they work to connect narratives of the past to social justice efforts in the present.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS Northeast Region

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  – Intro Music –

  Francesca: In today’s episode I speak with staff from the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center. We talk about their connection to the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area. We also talk about the museum’s interpretive focus, curation, and visitor experience, as well as how they work to tie stories from the past to social justice efforts in the present and for the future.

  – Intro Music –

  Peter: Okay, hey Francesca.

  Francesca: Hey Peter.

  Peter: Ah, welcome back, I’m glad we’re about to hear one more episode focusing on the Underground Railroad Center in Niagara Falls.

  Francesca: Yeah, the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center. I actually did not travel up there—

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: —for this ah, conversation admittedly. We spoke on the phone, me and Ally Spongr, as well as Saladin, who both work at the heritage center.

  Peter: Yeah. And I, you know I—I’ve been up there um it was ah, a little over a year ago. They were just opening, although they hadn’t finished all of their, ah, interpretive displays yet, and it was really fascinating to see because I had been to the building which, where they located the center in, it’s an old Custom House. When we went to see it which was at least five years ago it was pretty much a wreck. I mean it was really in bad shape and it was hard to believe that it could be converted into, you know such a beautiful center that it is now. The other thing is that it’s been um, as it’s been renovated, the Amtrak also moved their train depot, or ah station, to the same site so they expanded not only the site, the Custom House site, but they added on to it, and added this beautiful facility, which when I was up there they already had the interpretive displays in that part of the building where the rail station was. So it was really, pretty interesting.

  Francesca: That’s great.

  Peter: So you go to talk with Ally, who I’ve-I’ve met and known for a number of years because she also works for the Niagara Falls Heritage Area, I think she splits her time between the, the Underground Railroad Center and Niagara Falls.

  Francesca: Yeah, she wears many hats.

  Peter: Well I mean I know (laughter) I know that Sara Capen who is the Director at the heritage area, you know which I help through the park service, help provide funding to, has been instrumental in making sure that facility got built and because it’s right in the city of Niagara Falls, which is an important area not only because of the Underground Railroad and its history, it’s also obviously where the Niagara Falls is and there’s, there’s ah something like at least four million visitors that come to that, ah, area every year, so, carry on.

  Francesca: Yeah! Let’s dive into it.

  Peter: Okay.

  – Music Reprise –

  Francesca: Hello, this is Francesca Calarco, Communications Coordinator for the NPS National Heritage Areas Program operating out of the Northeast Regional Office. Today, I am actually with two people from Niagara Falls, New York. We have with us Ally Spongr, Director and Curator for the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center and Project Coordinator for the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area, as well as Saladin Allah, Visitor Experience Specialist for the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center. So, welcome to both of you, thank you so much for coming on the line today.

  Saladin: Alright, welcome, thank you.

  Ally: Thank you Francesca, it’s good to be here.

  Francesca: Good, so today we’re going to talk a little bit about the heritage center, as well as its ties to the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area, and ah, a bit more about what you guys do, so I guess to start off, what could you tell me about the origin story of the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center? I know it just opened very, very recently.

  Ally: Ah yes, ah we actually opened ah, this year on May fourth, was our opening date. Which is really exciting for us to be a brand new institution in Niagara Falls, but more importantly the heritage center and our overarching organizations the national heritage area, as well as the Underground Railroad Heritage Commission which operates the heritage center officially, um have been working towards the opening of an interpretive center, a museum um such as ours, for quite a long time. It started many, many years ago. I’d say thirty, forty years ago as our community members here in Niagara Falls started to discover some of their own family histories and realized that there was a lot of significant Underground Railroad history that had never been uncovered or really brought to light here in the city of Niagara Falls. Our neighbors to, slightly to the North still within the heritage area in Lewiston, New York, had been telling Underground Railroad stories in-in their area for quite some time, but for some reason the Niagara Falls stories didn’t really seem to get noticed and the commission was formed in order to do that about ten years ago, and the community members who formed the commission a-and really tried to move this project forward, created an entire management plan similar to the heritage area management plan as well, but specific ah to the Underground Railroad and their work here in Niagara Falls. And they were really working on trying to get a brick and mortar up, a place where they, these stories could be told and before they did that, they were also working on historically documenting the research of the Underground Railroad, um and really trying t-to get that solid before we could move into the phase, really leading to where we are now. That was kind of the many years in the making of how our community members really pulled together to get these stories told.

  Francesca: That’s really amazing, I love community driven museums. I guess before diving more into the heritage center, could you speak a little bit about ties to the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area?

  Ally: Sure, absolutely. So as the Underground Railroad Heritage Commission commissioners were working to find a way to bring the museum to life, and trying to identify how they were going to get from concept to a finished product, an open museum for all the public to enjoy, they had partnered, ah, with Sara Capen, the Executive Director of the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area, to initiate a shared staffing plan. Sara and the commission had both identified the need to grow their staffing. At that time it was Sara just by herself, and um she needed a staff member, and they worked together to create a shared staffing agreement, um which is how I came onboard in 2015. Um, so I started working for both organizations, and when I came onboard the commission, the Underground Railroad Heritage Commission, was really in the process of trying to figure out how they were gonna get through the design phase. So they had already completed a significant amount of the research, they had a lot of ideas, um, they knew where they really wanted to go with the design of the heritage center, but they kind of needed just a little help in kind of getting there. So by, by adding me onto that mix I was able to start working on some of the to-do list items that could lead them up to getting closer to opening, such as creating the RFQ, a Request for Qualifications for exhibit designers. Also, identifying, you know when we were gonna open, some operations, and things like that. Sara has helped immensely in this process, as well as our other shared staffing member, ah, Chris Bacon, and the three of really worked the significant portion of 2016 and 2017 on working with the design firms to really lead us here. And I think what’s really important about this really unique shared staffing, ah, agreement is that we worked on finding a creative solution to a challenge that both organizations had, which was a lack of staffing capacity, and how do you get there? We had kind of a jump start, so when sharing the tasks and the role, um, of opening the heritage center, we were able to open an over 2 million dollar museum here that has been doing really, really wonderful. And what’s important, ah, to both organizations is that we do share in our missions and in our management plans, um, the theme of borderlands and border crossings related to the Underground Railroad and many other things. So it’s both a mission, I think of the national heritage area and of course of the Underground Railroad Heritage Commission and Heritage Center, to tell those untold stories of the Underground Railroad and bring, bring the heroes of Niagara Falls to life, and our mission to work with other partners in the Niagara region to do that. So, I think so far we’ve done that pretty successfully, with a very, very small staff.

  Francesca: On that topic, could you tell me a little bit about the interpretive focus of the heritage center?

  Saladin: Well I think, the first thing that’s important to understand is here at the Underground Railroad Heritage Center, when you actually look at the route of the railroad from the South to the North, and you realize that Niagara Falls, this particular area, was one of the last stops of freedom seekers before they crossed that river to get to the Canadian side. So a lot of the interpretation and the narrative that we share here at the Underground Railroad Heritage Center focuses on many unsung heroes and sheroes who played a critical role as agents of the Underground Railroad Center. The key narratives that we highlight is some of the Underground Railroad activity that went on at a place called the Cataract House Hotel. So the Cataract Hotel was the second largest hotel here in the city of Niagara Falls in the 1800s, it was a very elegant, sophisticated place. It had marble fire places, velvet curtains, and you had European Dignitaries. Abraham Lincoln visited here before he became president. And you also had enslavers from the South who would come here and bring their body servants with them. And the reason I’m telling you this is because, the head waiter at that time, his name was John Morrison and he actually coordinated his staff, which were all African American men to operate as secret Underground Railroad agents. So in the daytime they would provide this professional service to their guests and literally hide in plain sight. People who often times work in the service industry can easily be overlooked, so the staff who were able to ferry across many freedom seekers to the Canadian side, so a lot of our narrative is centralized around the activity here at the Cataract House. We actually just finished our first season of a archaeological dig at the site, and we bring these stories to life. Like I said, these a lot of narratives of the unsung heroes and sheroes that many people have simply not heard of. I mean the most people that you usually hear of in the Underground Railroad is Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas, but the reality of it is you had many people who were instrumental in helping freedom seekers to cross over onto the Canadian side, but there’s two key reasons why we oftentimes don’t often times hear their stories. Number one, these journeys from the South to the North were very dark chapters in people’s lives and they didn’t really share too much about that journey. Number two, these were essentially outlaws, when they would leave a plantation; oftentimes a bounty would be put out on their head describing what this person actually looked like and even their name. They actually changed their identity and went undercover to escape this institution that was the law for many people in our country. We also have the story of a woman by the name of Anna Marie Whims, who boarded a train in D.C. disguised as a male, a young boy, and she was able to take the train all the way from D.C. into Canada, undetected. And that may be the first time a person actually learns about that important part of American history, not just African American history, but American history.

  Francesca: You share, you explain some of the different types of narratives of everyday people. How do you go about visually curating these stories?

  Ally: Well that’s a great, ah, question, and as we worked on the whole exhibit and putting the design of the heritage center together we had to think very deeply about that and consider a variety of different ways that visitors would interact with our stories. So kind of going back to some of the things that Saladin um, was saying, about everyday heroes, and we put the stories of the waiters and freedom seekers and their own agency kind of at the forefront of, of the interpretation here at the heritage center. And to do that visually, you know, in the documentation, the research, the artifacts that we had available to us, most of our information and historical research came from articles, documents, Cataract, the Cataract House registers themselves, all sorts of places, mostly written material. So in order to make that engaging for visitors, but also to create a way that visitors can engage in the visual sense or in a way they can feel like they can really understand these stories and we’re not just putting up kind of, you know didactic panels with just text or images of those documents, we used the build-out of the exhibits and the imagery to represent people. So, ah, one of example of how we use the visual to connect visitors with our stories, is we worked with award-winning illustrator E.B. Lewis out of Philadelphia, and E.B., ah, he created a series of watercolor illustrations of some of the stories. So he illustrated some of the people in our stories who we didn’t have images of, and he also created some of the images of locations and just the narrative of their story unfolding. And then we worked with our media company, Richard Lewis Media Group out of Boston, to animate those illustrations. What’s really important about that is that we used visual art um and imagery to be able to create a visual representation of people, of the people who we’re trying to show, and-and to tell in a way that didn’t exist in the historical documentation or artifact form. By using this type of interpretation, we are able to create a way that visitors can connect better with the stories, they can see what John Morrison looked like, they can see the waiters in action in one of our interactives, they can see, ah, Nancy Barry’s story unfold in our Arrival Gallery as they first start to learn about what was going on in Niagara Falls and many other ways. Our approach to the images and text content was that we make sure that we were featuring the people whose stories we were trying to tell. So an example of that would be, is we changed out some of the large-scale, almost life-sized images that were in, um, our Network Wall Exhibit, which is right at the-the main part where you enter into the heritage center. And, originally we had some images on there of freedom seekers running away from slave catchers, hiding in the woods, and things like that. And we realized through careful though, and-and discussion that that wasn’t, that wasn’t the story here in Niagara falls, and that really wasn’t the story, or is not the story of the Underground Railroad. The story of the Underground Railroad is the courageous actions taken, ah, by freedom seekers as they were escaping and resisting enslavement. And we wanted to make sure that we were portraying those individuals in-in a very strong light, in the strength that it took them to resist an institution that was as powerful and large as American slavery.

  Saladin: I just wanted to add on to, ah, what Ally was saying and to give some context to the term freedom seeker. Oftentimes when you hear people speak about the Underground Railroad they talk about escaped slaves, runaway slaves, freed slaves; when you refer to a human being that way you define that as their identity. So even if a person was to obtain freedom and you say that’s a freed slave, you are still calling that human being a slave. So we don’t refer to people who were apart of the Underground Railroad as that, we only refer to them within the context of being a freedom seeker, which is much more universal, and it’s also applicable to people who are seeking freedom today, to show that relationship with the narratives that we share here at the heritage center. And then we also use the phrase, “people who were enslaved.” When you articulate it that way, you are talking about a condition, and not an identity, so that is one of the reasons that we use freedom seeker as opposed to freed slave, runaway slave.

  Francesca: I appreciate the clarification, I-I guess it really is hard to convey the agency and humanity of an individual when you have the word slave as an identifying marker or name for someone who actually had a name. Not everyone’s name is known though, so it is good to have a different identifier or phrase of how to um talk about a group of people who had a certain type of experience. I guess, going off of what you have both now ah explained in terms of the interpretation and curation of Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center, could you tell me a little bit about the visitor experience?

  Saladin: Hmm, well the visitor experience, it’s more of a, I would say an immersion in these narratives and these stories. One of the things that we offer are facilitated dialogue tours and that’s a little different than interpretation, because on interpretation tours, you know you end up doing most of the talking, but when it comes to the facilitated dialogue you’re basically facilitating or encouraging the people who are visiting the space to share some of their perspectives in regards to what it is that they are experiencing. Oftentimes when people come to our space they don’t know the power of their own stories. So let me give you an example. There was a tour that we had about a month and a half ago, there was a family reunion and it was a large group. I’d say it might have been over 50 people who came here in for a tour, so we had to break the group up into segments. And there was an older woman that I met, and she was out in an area where we have our Network Wall that kind of gives you a general overview of the route of the Underground Railroad, from the South to the North. And we also highlight certain states that had Underground Railroad activity, not all states, but some of the key states that we’ve documented as being very critical in terms of destinations for Underground Railroad activity. Alabama was not on the Network Wall, so the woman was a little upset. I found out that she was from Tuskegee, Alabama. She went to college with Dr. Martin Luther King, she explained to me seeing him and some of his peers organizing meetings on campus, she marched on Selma, she was telling me stories that you don’t read in books, or that you don’t see on documentaries. And if I didn’t take the opportunity to engage her in order to get that story from her, and learn about who she was, she could have just walked right through our space and I would have never known anything about that. So, an important part of our facilitated dialogue is not just us simply sharing an interpretation of what these narratives are in our space, but to encourage our visitors to share their stories as well, because stories such as the one that I mentioned are some of the things that we miss out on.

  Francesca: I agree completely. I think, I think that’s a very really smart way of approaching museum education in general, making sure that it’s an active learning process. And I think even people going to museums who want to learn historical facts like dates, and names, and I think that what people really remember on the whole are their emotions and what they felt. It might not always be, you know this happened this year, or that happened that year, but they may remember, oh I remember that story and I remember how I felt about that story, or remember sharing a story and how I felt about sharing that story.

  Saladin: Absolutely, we want people to be not just educated, but also empowered. Do something, do something! That’s one of the themes that we recognize with freedom seekers is that they also went through experiences where they felt an ambiguity of various different emotions as well. Think about the reality of having personal freedom. But living also with the reality that your own children, or your husband or wife, or brothers or sisters were not able to experience that freedom at the same time. That was a very common theme in the lives of freedom seekers, but what was also common is that they did something with those emotions, they did something about it. Think about Harriet Tubman, she put her life at risk and went back many times to help many others. But then we also have stories of freedom seekers that once they arrived on the Canadian side, they may have never returned back to the United States, but they established communities as sanctuaries or safe havens for freedom seekers once they got on the Canadian side. So they did something, and that’s something that we want other people to understand who come through our space as well, you can do something about what you feel.

  Francesca: Yeah, thank you for sharing all of that. I guess this sort of ties into one of my last questions. The themes of social justice certainly recur throughout interpretation, curation, visitor experience, everything that the both of you have really expressed today. Going into this larger topic of social justice, what are the goals of the, ah, Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center?

  Ally: So that is a great connection. We have worked with the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience for the last couple of years, and also on our facilitated dialogue training, all of our staff have trained with the Coalition of Sites of Conscience, and we’ve also tried to move those values forward in our work here. Their mission is ah, you know to connect memory to action, past to present, and we do that in a variety of ways. Many of that Saladin and I have kind of spoken to a little bit. In our heritage center we have these, ah, red and white arrows that weave throughout our-our ceilings, and we’re in a, the 1863 U.S. Costumes House that is connected to our, actually the new Niagara Falls Amtrak Station. So, we’re in a historic building, and it’s very industrial so our ceilings are filled with pipes and all sorts of stuff, which is actually kind of a cool look I guess, but through the, through the ceiling um, just below that we have these arrows, and we call them our freedom arrows, and they have quotes by people throughout time that were spoken or written that speak to the fight, our struggle for freedom. So we have um some quotes by Martin Luther King, Nina Simone, ah Malala, many others throughout our space and we try to use those quotes. They’re kind of wayfinding, they actually lead people through the exhibits if you actually follow the arrows, but because of those quotes we’re also talking about a timeless idea, and a timeless fight for freedom in our various galleries. They lead to our final gallery, which is called our Freedom Gallery, um and that’s where we-we kind of make that shift from past to present literally in the built-out exhibits, and in that gallery we have walls of mosaics of images of people and of events that focus on freedom from a global perspective throughout time from the Underground Railroad all the way through 2017. Um, a couple examples are the Women’s March, an image of Frederick Douglas, we also have ah an image of a Holocaust survivor who’s standing at a protest from 2017, we have a image of a woman named Brenda who is a Mexican immigrant here in the United States. Um, so those images don’t have a lot of text content, they’re mostly there for people to find those connections through their own lives, their own experiences, and perspectives to speak to the larger concept of freedom. And as I’ve said, that that fight for freedom, that is still exists, because through our stories and connecting past to present we want our visitors to feel inspired, ah and to go out there and take action and create change. But we also want our visitors to know that the struggle for freedom didn’t end in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, it continues to today in a variety of forms and in many different ways across the globe. And we’re not free until we all are free, and-and we’ve tried to share that message and inspire our visitors to take action, no matter how large or small in their own lives to help others be free as well.

  Saladin: To add on to what Ally was saying, we even take it a step further by making sure we collaborate and partner with organizations, institutions, and agencies in our community and in our city, and outside of our city to carry that message further. So for example, we just recently had a voter registration drive that we did in collaboration with the League of Women Voters, um, in order to promote the importance of being involved in the political process, and being in a position where we can effectively change the landscape through legislation. About a month or so ago we also hosted an event with the Jewish Relations Council of Buffalo, the Jewish Federation, and True Bethel Baptist Church. It was a collaboration event between two different communities that share similar narratives. We actually had two Holocaust survivors who came and visited our space. And it gave us an opportunity to share in our common humanity, our common struggle, as well as in our common sense of resilience to overcome some of these different obstacles. And then more recently we’ve been doing collaborative events with Niagara outfitters, where we do a facilitated dialogue tour and then we take our visitors on a hike down our gorge trail, where we actually have a person who gives, you know, a little bit more insight into the geography, or the geology of the area, and how that also played a role in some of the narratives that we share here in regards to freedom seekers crossing over the Canadian side. So we’ve been very proactive in making sure that we connect with local organizations, agencies, and institutions to make sure that we can carry these messages further in regards to aligning people with some of these things that people can connect with in order to make change in their everyday life.

  Francesca: That’s really great. It sounds like a lot of the work that the both of you do, ah, is sort of like bridge building. You know the past to the present, or communities to each other, or your organization to others. Thank you so much for, for sharing all of these stories. Before we sign off, do either of you have any final thoughts?

  Saladin: Well one thing that I wanted to share is, just right off the top, is that we offer to our citizens here in Niagara Falls free neighborhood membership to the museum. And that in itself is virtually unheard of from an institution such as a museum. So everyone who lives in the city of Niagara Falls can come to the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center, have valid documentation to verify where they live, and they can get a free neighborhood membership to the museum and come anytime they want, because this is local history, this is theirs, this is their history.

  Francesca: That-that’s fantastic.

  Ally: And I guess, you know one thing that I do want to share is that, we’ve only been open, you know, for a few months since May of this year. And the amount of just incredible visitor interactions that we’ve seen um, people considering new perspectives, having deep dialogues with our staff, but most importantly with each other. I think it’s just, it’s been really, really amazing to experience and see. And, you know, we are here for everybody, you know we got as Saladin said, our free membership for our local community, but being that we are an international tourist destination, because we’re in Niagara Falls, we have such an incredible opportunity to be able to share the stories of the Underground Railroad here in Niagara Falls and connect those stories to our present, which hopefully can lead to ah change in our own communities across the globe. We have a really incredible opportunity to do that and keep it going. We you know, try to do that every day as much as we can, because even, you know as Saladin was saying earlier about ah, engaging a visitor in a conversation and learning their story, that has so much impact on the other visitors that come, on each individual, and also the staff that works here, the volunteers, the board members, and it’s a really wonderful thing.

  Francesca: Yeah, I-I think it is. Thank you so much for sharing all of that, I really appreciate it.

  – Outro Music –

  Peter: Thanks Francesca, that-that was a great conversation that a great conversation that you had with-with Ally and Saladin. They really brought to life how important this story is, not just historically, but you know it really rings-rings true for, you know a large population in the world now. You know where there’s injustice. This part of history really can resonate with people’s lives today, so I think that’s really amazing.

  Francesca: Yeah, I was, I was really excited to learn all about that.

  Peter: Yeah, well good-good work. Thanks.

  – Outro Music –

  Francesca: This podcast series is produced by the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office. Today’s episode was edited by myself and Volunteer Audio Engineer, Suzie Calarco. The episode’s music was performed by Suzie and Sam Wolf. Thanks for tuning in and have an amazing day.

  – Outro Music –

• 6. Baltimore Immigration History Part 1

  
  

  In this episode, Francesca speaks with Baltimore National Heritage Area's Director of Historic Preservation and Interpretation Jason Vaughan and Baltimore Immigration Museum's Historian Nick Fessenden. We discuss the heritage area's role in interpreting Baltimore's immigration history, background on the Baltimore Immigration Museum, and Baltimore's largest immigrant group in the 1800's, the Germans.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS Northeast Region

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  – Intro Music –

  Francesca: Today’s episode is the first a special three part segment we recorded with Baltimore on the city’s immigration history. This first episode will cover Baltimore National Heritage Area’s role in interpreting the city’s history, how the heritage area supports organizations like the Baltimore Immigration Museum where the following conversations took place, a little bit of background about the Baltimore Immigration Museum, as well as information on one of Baltimore’s largest immigrant groups: the Germans.

  – Intro Music –

  Peter: Hey Francesca.

  Francesca: Hey Peter.

  Peter: So I’m excited to hear about your work that you did in Baltimore.

  Francesca: Yeah! This, this is um going to be the first of a three part segment that we—

  Peter: Wow.

  Francesca: —yeah, that we recorded in Baltimore. Essentially, Shauntee Daniels from Baltimore National Heritage Area reached out to us, and—

  Peter: Yes.

  Francesca: —she wanted to get it together, a panel of representatives of different types of immigration history within Baltimore city, and the Baltimore National Heritage Area.

  Peter: Right.

  Francesca: And so then we all met at the Baltimore Immigration Museum. One of the panelists that we’re going to hear today, Nick Fessenden, him and Brigitte Fessenden, his wife, um, they’re-they’re a really lovely couple, they-they work at the Baltimore Immigration Museum and they were really lovely hosts—

  Peter: Great.

  Francesca: —along with the heritage area in sort of facilitating this extended, um, dialogue and resource that the heritage area was really excited to create.

  Peter: Yeah, it’s great. I mean it’s such a relevant, ah, topic. And certainly, I’ve been the Baltimore Immigration Museum, it’s a great facility, it’s small—

  Francesca: Mhmm.

  Peter: —but it’s ah, you know the stories that they tell there are pretty revealing. When we look at that and say, hey look, our country’s really been built on years and years of immigrants coming to our country and-and building it up and making it a strong place to live. And I know you spoke with um Jason, and I’ve known him for-for many years, you know he has a great tale to tell about um the heritage area and their work with the immigration museum. So I have not, never met ah Nick, who is the Historian I guess at the museum, but I know he has some, he has some great-great insights into the, into the work they do.

  Francesca: Yeah, he is the first of our panelist speakers, so um, him and Jason do a really good job of introducing the heritage area, why the heritage area is invested in sharing the stories um, of immigrants and immigrant histories within Baltimore and then, as well as the Baltimore Immigration Museum itself. So, and then he-he ah, his specialization is German immigration history within Baltimore, and so he speaks to that. And—

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: —sort of, starts us off. We are also in the next episodes going to cover Irish immigration history into Baltimore, African American diaspora into Baltimore, as well as Jewish immigration, and Italian immigration—

  Peter: Wow.

  Francesca: —history into Baltimore.

  Peter: You’re really covering a lot. So this is, this is very exciting I can’t wait to hear it all.

  Francesca: Good.

  Peter: Good, great! [laughter]

  – Music Reprise –

  Francesca: Hello this is Francesca Calarco, Communications Coordinator for the NPS National Heritage Areas Program. Today, I am here with Jason Vaughan from the Baltimore National Heritage Area, and he’s going to introduce what we will be discussing today, so Jason thank you for coming on.

  Jason: Well great, thank you Francesca, I’m happy to be here. Ah, I’m Jason Vaughan, Director of Historic Preservation and Interpretation for the Baltimore National Heritage Area. Baltimore National Heritage Area is one of 49 congressionally designated heritage areas, and all the heritage areas share a similar mission, to shed light on the landscapes and people that tell uniquely American stories. Now, we aren’t national parks, but we do work closely with the National Park Service to protect and promote special places across the country. And today we are going to explore an important facet of Baltimore history, immigration. And we are delighted to be here today at the Baltimore Immigration Museum, a small museum that tells an incredibly large, complex story. The heritage area has been a proud partner of this new museum. BNHA grant funding has helped the museum make thoughtful exhibits and capital improvements to make this place very welcoming to the local neighborhood and Baltimore at large. Baltimore history of immigration ties in perfectly with the main theme of the heritage area’s interpretation: birthplace of American identity. Now, while Elis Island in New York and Angel Island in California are the most noted historic immigration stations in the country, Baltimore was also a busy disembarkation point for thousands seeking new opportunities and fortunes in the 19th and 20th centuries. Over the decades immigrants have made incredible contributions to Baltimore’s landscape, institutions, and industries. Berger cookies, old bay seasoning, and the linotype machine are all uniquely Baltimore and brought to life by those seeking a better life in this nation. Now, immigrants did not always find Baltimore a place of tolerance, but overtime Baltimoreans learned not to just coexist, but to appreciate the contributions diverse groups made to city life. Not to mention, the world beyond. Now today’s immigrants don’t usually come by sea, but they still come. Baltimore in recent decades has seen an influx in newcomers from Latin America, Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. They are adding their own cultural vitality to the rich tapestry that is Baltimore.

  Francesca: Thank you Jason.

  Jason: You’re welcome, thank you very much!

  Francesca: I was wondering if you could, speak a little bit about the Baltimore Immigration Museum and what we’re going to be discussing today within that context.

  Jason: Sure, the Baltimore Immigration Museum is in lovely Locust Point, which is very close to Fort McHenry, which is a National Park Service site. Ah, and the museum, ah, is dedicated to telling the story of immigrants who arrived on Baltimore’s shores, ah, starting in the 1800’s, actually before that because it talks about the enslaved Africans who were brought here. And then ah, it continues this history until the present day, when we start seeing populations of Latin Americans, and Asians, and Africans who are making their home here in this city. Um, and I think this is extremely important to share because, you know, the country at large is having this conversation about immigration, and it’s getting very contentious sometimes, and I think having this context of how immigration has changed patterns in American history will help us understand, ah, that there are positive forces of immigration that will enable to help us have a better dialogue about this very, ah, important discussion we’re having today.

  Francesca: Alright, thank you! Thank you for all of that, I really appreciate it. Um, do you have any final thoughts before we talk with the staff of the, ah, Baltimore Immigration Museum?

  Jason: I hope that when you plan your trip to Baltimore, that you will enjoy the inner harbor but then leave and explore the wonderful and various neighborhoods we have, including Locust Point, home of the immigration museum, ah, as well as the Star Spangled Banner Flag House where the flag was sewn, and the other great institutions that we have here in Baltimore.

  Francesca: Okay, thank you Jason, thank you so much.

  – Music Reprise –

  Francesca: Alright, I am here in the Baltimore Immigration Museum with Historian Nick Fessenden, so welcome!

  Nick: Well thank you very much, and my name is Nick Fessenden, and I wanted to tell you a few words about the neighborhood where we are in Baltimore. It’s Locust Point, which is a National Register Historic District, ah, which was established about five or six years ago. And I think what’s important about this area is that in 1868, ah, there was a partnership between the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the North German Lloyd Steamship Company, and the arrangement was that the Baltimore and Ohio would build an immigration pier, ah, in Locust Point and the North German Lloyd would bring immigrant ships, ah, one per month. And it got down into one per week. And the immigrants could land here, some would go and stay in Baltimore, and others would travel west. And the B and O built railroad tracks right up to the pier, so the immigrants could get off the boat and continue their voyage to the west. So this was um, this was a very important development for Baltimore. Baltimore, ah, during this time period was the third largest port of entry for immigration into the United States. New York was the largest, and then Boston, and then Baltimore. Now this house where the museum is, is essentially ah, it was built by a German language church which is next door. And it was built as a place for immigrants to stay. And it was about five blocks away from the immigration pier. And the-the church which has, ah, merged with other denominations, but the church has still ah, given us two rooms to establish an immigration museum in this house where immigrants, ah, of more than 3,000 stayed in the years before World War I. So our museum, is ah, is open on afternoons, weekends, ah, one to four. Our website is immigrationbaltimore.org. Our museum consists of immigration history, about national trends, the global trends in the 19th and early 20th century. And then we look at the different immigrant groups that settled in Baltimore, so that would be Germans, Irish, Jews, Poles, Italians, Lithuanians, Bohemians or Czechs, and Greeks who all had identifiable neighborhoods. And then we also have a display on more recent immigration, and that would include, ah, those from Asia who came, ah, after 1965 from, ah, Latin American, and we have a segment also on African Americans who were not immigrants, but many of them traveled from the south to Baltimore and other cities in the North, and their experience was similar to that of immigrants. So that’s what’s in our museum. And, ah, I would also note that we are a partner site for the Baltimore National Heritage Area, and we’ve received support, funding. Ah, we really could not have done these exhibits, ah, without-without their support. So we’re very grateful to be part of the Baltimore National Heritage Area and we work with them on various programs.

  Francesca: Alright, well thank you so much for that overview, um, of the Baltimore Immigration Museum. So now, we are going to be discussing some of the different, um, immigrant groups who came to Baltimore and helped to shape the city. So starting with the largest immigrant group that came, Nick will be discussing the Germans.

  Nick: So, the Germans, as noted, they were the largest immigrant group that came here, and they actually arrived fairly early in Baltimore’s history. The first German language congregation which was set up was 1755. Ah, that was when the city that was very small, that was a couple thousand people. And that was the-the Zion Lutheran Church, which is still around today. And, ah, I would say immigration was relatively, that it was just a trickle I think you could say in the years after that up to about 1830. You really didn’t have that many immigrants from any country coming into the U.S. and into Baltimore. But then 1830, that’s when I think that immigration starts in large numbers, so-so you take 1830 ah up to about 1890, that’s when the Germans were the largest number of immigrants coming into the city. And from about 1860 to 1890, a quarter of Baltimore’s population was either born in Germany, or their parents were-were German immigrants. So they were a major group in the city.

  Francesca: Could you tell me a little bit about the push-pull factors that led to German immigrants coming into Baltimore city?

  Nick: Okay, I think a big factor is what we’ve mentioned before, is that there happened to be um, a strong trade connection between Baltimore and Bremen, this actually goes back to the late 18th century, that there was a lot of trade going back and forth. And so, immigration kind of was something that developed as part of it and so before 1830 is kind of like the crucial date when the German merchants, ah, and ship-owners found that immigration was, um, you know sending immigrants over was really quite profitable, and so they encouraged immigration. And so Baltimore ended up as, you know, one of their-their major destinations in the U.S. So, push factors, ah, would be that in that time period there were bad harvests, there also was a problem of overpopulation, ah, on the land. And so very often families, they would, they wanted to keep their farms intact. And so the oldest son would get the land. The youngest songs would have to do something else. Many of the German states had a military draft. So I think a lot of young men, you know, were not interested in-in you know continuing, you know staying there. So these were all, these were all factors, ah, that were the push factors. And I think the pull factors was that, you know, the wages were good in the U.S. or better than they were in Europe. And that there was open land in the Midwest, so um, farmers could come over here. That there was religious and political freedom here, ah, I think this was ah important for some-some people who were ah religious minorities. They found that there was complete separation of church and state over here, and so they-they saw that as a good reason to come. So these are, these are the various push and pull factors. Ah, I would say the pull factor I think is really quite strong because overtime we see that when there was an economic downturn in the U.S., then immigration fell off. So I think the attractiveness of working in the U.S., I think that’s a crucial point.

  Francesca: Alright, well thank you for giving that lovely overview. One thing that I would be interested to learn about the German immigrants coming into Baltimore; what were some challenges to German immigrants and German Americans of this time, that they were facing?

  Nick: Okay um, first and just an overview is that up to about 1890 there was a steady flow of German immigrants, ah, into the U.S. and into Baltimore. After 1890, that at that particular time Germany was industrializing and so their wages, you know, were beginning to rise as well. So we really find a decline in German immigration after 1890. And so the challenges, um, I think that the Germans had an advantage in that many of them had a-a trade or skill. So they were often able to find work, and some of them were able to go into business and establish firms. Baltimore’s brewers, ah, were mostly German. That was important. There were a lot of ah, craftsmen, a lot of carpenters, and masons. So a lot of the row houses, for which Baltimore is very famous, a lot of the row houses were built by-by Germany builders. So I would say, um, you know in terms of employment, um, you know establishing a middle class status, ah, the Germans were-were fairly successful at that. There were some challenges, there was an anti-immigrant political party in the 1850s, they were called Know Nothings, they were also the American party. They were um, they, I mean they didn’t like the German immigrants, but this was kind of short-lived and when the Civil War came, then the Germans tended to support the Union and sort of this-this whole anti-immigrant, those feelings dissipated. I guess the other major challenge though came during World War I, when ah, the U.S. went to war against Germany. And at that point, ah you know, everything that was German was-was banned. Street’s names were changed, the German language instruction was dropped from schools and universities and things like that. And so, ah, after World War I, the Germans they really didn’t advertise their German backgrounds or their German heritage. So ah, that-that was kind of like a-a major development. I mean and they-they tended to assimilate into general American society.

  Francesca: Okay. Could you speak a little bit about assimilation? It’s always an interesting word to me, cause I feel like it has different meanings depending upon who you’re talking with, so how-how were the German able to adapt or assimilate as you say?

  Nick: The way I see it is that um, after 1890 when immigration begins to decline, and-and it was you know, and it was a considerable decline, ah at that point with fewer people coming in, I think the second generation then tended to identify with America and speak English, and that sort of thing. So what’s, what’s interesting is that the some, there were, somewhat unique for Baltimore was that there were a dual-language school system, a bilingual school system, up through eighth grade. So language was both in English and in German, ah and this was where a large number of immigrants sent their kids to school. In fact, at one point it’s as many as ten thousand children were in German language schools in-in Baltimore. But as the immigration falls off then the schools also, also being to decline in, you know, the number of students that they had. So I-I would say, it’s sort of like, what happens is the second generation tends to identify more with American society, and um, and so that’s, I think that’s the process that you know, that happens.

  Francesca: Yeah, I think anybody who has any type of hyphenated heritage, um, always finds themselves between two worlds. And that would certainly be the same for a German American in the 18 or 1900s.

  Nick: Definitely, definitely.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah. So those were some challenges faced by German immigrants and German Americans. What are some success stories?

  Nick: Well, I think ah, I’m sort of gonna mention two individuals who are success stories and, ah, are quite important. And one is a man by the name of Mergenthaler. He was trained as a watchmaker in Germany and came over here. And ah, he developed the linotype machine, which is ah what Jason had-had mentioned. Ah and that, what that did was it greatly sped up the process of composing newsprint before, ah, typesetters would have to individually put the letters into the typeset. Ah, now this could be done in a, in a much more rapid fashion. This sort of enabled newspapers to go from maybe like 8 pages, that’s all you could do, ah, to a much larger edition. So this is like a big improvement in technology, and-and Mergenthaler was ah, an immigration who ah developed this, ah, and-and lived in Baltimore. And um, I guess the other person I’m gonna mention is H.L. Mencken. Mencken was probably the best known and perhaps most influential cultural critic in the 1920s, and he was ah, he lived in Baltimore. Just about his, I mean for his entire life. Three of his four grandparents were German. Ah, I mean, were German immigrants. Ah, one was, a grandmother came from Scottish, or had a Scottish background, but he definitely identified himself as German American, and ah is a very important person in American cultural history, and-and Baltimore’s history. So this is the case of someone who is third generation, but ah obviously um, you know, identified with Germany and visited Germany several times, and um and he saw that as an important part of his heritage.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah. I think whether you’re an immigrant and first generation or if you’re second or third generation, your heritage is always a part of you in some way. Although I know it’s different for everybody, but yeah, those-those sound like some really good German success stories, German American success stories. Do you have any thoughts you want to share on something you really, really want people to know about how German immigrants and German Americans have shaped Baltimore, or vice-versa?

  Nick: Well, I think, I think that ah, you know, the row houses, the Germans weren’t the only builders, but this was, this was really important part of, you know, the landscape ah, in-in Baltimore. I think the on other side’s in that Baltimore effected the Germans in that they, you know, the Germans did assimilate, and as I say relatively easily, so ah that’s, I-I-I would kind of see it that way. I would add though that, you know, Germans tended to sort of bring some of their cultural baggage with them, and so a lot of the social organizations, ah, the clubs, and that sort of thing, and that the-the churches, there were about 30 different German language churches, ah, in the city as of 1900, and ah, and up to 1914. So they, in-in terms of religion, Germans did hold on to their religious traditions, um, and their culture, and their beliefs. Ah, I think assimilation is sort of, it kind of goes part way, but it doesn’t necessarily um, you know, kind of cover all aspects of life.

  Francesca: Yes, yes. So my final question then would be, um, how do you feel stories of German immigrants and German Americans really resonate today?

  Nick: I’d say in the sense that, here at the museum we get all sorts of inquiries ah, from people who have, you know, immigrants backgrounds, ah, but also and I’d say large numbers have German background, and so they’re very curious about you know when their ancestor came here. And so, in-in-in that sense people do want to know, you know, sort of the stories of their-their ancestors who came here. And we do get, actually inquiries from all over the country, you know, California and so forth, they-they-they want to know if they had some ancestor who arrived here, um, 100 years ago and they-they would like to know ah, more about that. Or what information we have about that. So, that’s sort of like at least one aspect of what resonates with people.

  Francesca: Okay. Well thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it.

  Nick: Well thank you too.

  – Music Reprise –

  Peter: Wow, that was a lot to, ah, take in, ah,

  Francesca. Great job. I really ah, really appreciate you going to Baltimore and I’d say you really, you really captured a lot of voices, and a lot of really important information. And, you know it’s a credit to the Baltimore heritage area, that they’re so supportive of all this work.

  Francesca: I was, I was really happy to go down and-and listen to these stories, so yeah.

  Peter: Yeah, great job. Well thanks.

  Francesca: Thank you.

  Peter: Alright.

  – Outro Music –

  Francesca: For today’s episode we owe a special thank you to Baltimore National Heritage Area’s Director of Programs and Partnerships, Shauntee Daniels, who organized this panel of speakers.

  – Outro Music –

  Francesca: This podcast series is produced by the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office. Today’s episode was edited by myself and Volunteer Audio Engineer, Suzie Calarco. The episode’s music was performed by Suzie and Sam Wolf. Thanks for tuning in and have an amazing day.

  – Outro Music –

• 7. Baltimore Immigration History Part 2

  
  

  In this episode, Francesca speaks with two more guest panelists at the Baltimore Immigration Museum. Conor Donnan, Board Member of the Irish Railroad Workers Museum, talks about Irish immigration history in Baltimore. Prof. Herbert Brewer from Morgan State University talks about how enslaved and freed African Americans, while not "immigrants," also shaped the city of Baltimore in the 1800s.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS Northeast Region

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  – Intro Music –

  Francesca: Today’s episode is the second of a special three-part segment that we recorded with Baltimore National Heritage Area on the topic of immigration history into Baltimore city. This episode will specifically cover the history of Irish immigrants coming into the city of Baltimore, as well as the role of both enslaved African Americans and freed African Americans moving into the city of Baltimore in the 19th century.

  – Intro Music –

  Peter: Welcome back Francesca.

  Francesca: Hi Peter, it’s good to be back.

  Peter: Yeah, and I’m ah, really excited to hear this next episode, where you were once again recording in Baltimore.

  Francesca: Yeah, this is the next two panelists who spoke at this immigration history of Baltimore series that we recorded at the Baltimore Immigration Museum. In this episode, we’re going to hear from Conor Donnan, and he’s going to talk about Irish immigration, and Irish Americans early experiences in the 19th century in Baltimore. And then we’re also gonna hear from Prof. Brewer from Morgan State University, he studies the African diaspora within the United States of America and he is going to be talking about free African Americans who are moving into Baltimore at around the same time as the Germans and the Irish are. So—

  Peter: So remind me, what is the timeframe?

  Francesca: We’re mainly focusing on the 19th century, the 1800s.

  Peter: An, and-and if you could, just give me a couple of brief highlights before you get into the conversations you have with them.

  Francesca: Sure, sure. Some of the things that I found interesting that Conor spoke about were, similar to how Nick Fessenden mentioned in the last episode was the presence of the Know-Nothing Party and these anti-immigration sentiments and how that impacted Irish immigrants coming in who were seeking better opportunities, just like the German immigrants were. So that was something that was really interesting to me. Another point that I really, really need to clarify is, um, also when we talk about free African Americans coming into the city of Baltimore in the 19th century, and the role that they play in shaping the city of Baltimore just like all the other immigrant groups coming from other countries—

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: —In that conversation with Prof. Brewer he also talks about enslaved African Americans, and enslaved African Americans are not immigrants.

  Peter: Right, right.

  Francesca: And we don’t want to mischaracterize that group in that way, cause we are framing this within, you know, a greater—

  Peter: They didn’t voluntarily come here.

  Francesca: No, they did not voluntarily come here! But, as Prof. Brewer is going to kind of dive into is how it’s-it’s impossible to talk about freed blacks without talking about enslaved African Americans. That they faced many of the same issues, and both of these groups played a role in shaping the character of Baltimore.

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: Just as these other immigrant groups coming in from overseas, played a role in shaping the city and Baltimore’s character, Baltimore’s landscape, Baltimore’s makeup.

  Peter: Yeah, I’m really looking forward to hearing your conversations with these folks, so, if you’re ready, let’s proceed.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah, uh—

  Peter: Okay.

  Francesca: We can play them now. [laughter]

  Peter: [laughter]

  – Intro Music –

  Francesca: Hello, and we are back. Ah, this is Francesca speaking, and I am here at the Baltimore Immigration Museum. We have Conor Donnan, a Board Member from the Irish Railroad Workers Museum in Baltimore, and he is also a Doctoral student in History at the University of Pennsylvania. So, ah, Conor thank you for coming, welcome.

  Conor: Thank you for having me, it’s great to be here.

  Francesca: So today, Conor will be speaking about Irish immigration history, as well as Irish American history in the city of Baltimore, so um, could you give me a little background about those things, those topics.

  Conor: The name Baltimore itself is an Irish name, it’s an English ver—, it’s an Anglicized version of an Irish name, which just means “the town of the big house.” And so when Baltimore is established in 1729, it’s attracting mostly English settlers, Irish Protestants who are now normally termed the Scott’s Irish but then who would have just considered themselves to be Irish people. And some Germans, and then a few African Americans who would have been slaves, and then that would only be like five percent of the population. So originally, Baltimore had a big Irish population from the start. It’s mostly Protestant immigrants and wealthier Irish Catholics until about 1830. And then 1840, the famine really changes the diaspora and you get a lot more working-class, rural Catholics who really start to outnumber people. The interesting thing about that period as well, is that originally it’s mostly men and families who come over immigrating to the, to Baltimore. But by the ah, 1840s, it’s usually single people, and the Irish diaspora is unique in that it’s the only diaspora I believe, ah, from Europe, in which women outnumber men. More women emigrate from Ireland than men do from the 1840s to the 1880s basically.

  Francesca: You mentioned the potato famine—

  Conor: Umhm.

  Francesca: —In the 1840s as one reason why immigrants in that time period were coming over here. Were there other push-pull factors, reasons throughout the timeframe that you describe, why someone living in Ireland would chose to leave, but then also reasons why they would come to Baltimore, of all, of all destinations.

  Conor: So, in the early 1800s with sort of the-the more skilled laborers, and wealthier Protestant merchants, Baltimore is a big merchant city, and it has a lot of connections to places like Liverpool, places like Derry in Ireland. So, a lot of Irish, wealthier Irish immigrants would come over to work as merchants. So that’s a big economic factor. Post-famine the major economic factors are, for women, land is being consolidated in Ireland after the famine. People are marrying at later rates, and the land which would normally have been divided up amongst the family is, is consolidated amongst the oldest son. So there’s less opportunities for marriage for women, and less opportunities for jobs. And there’s also for the-the like secondary sons, like the second, third, or fourth sons, there’s also less of a chance for them to become a landed small farmer. And that would push, that’s an economic factor that would push them out of Ireland. The big pull factor for Irish immigrants in the 1840s would have been the canals and the railroads. Railroad salaries were considered really good. You, an Irish immigrant coming in who was unskilled would, most typical Irish laborers would be unskilled in the 1840s, would make 15 dollars a month, which is more than they would make in a canal which is around 10 dollars a month, and more than they would make in Ireland. Some people estimated that in Ireland they would make about 10 dollars a year, a lot less. And so Irish immigrants are being pulled into Baltimore because of this sort of huge growing railroad industry that is rapidly expanding after the 1840s to the point that it needs massive amounts of cheap labor, and the Irish are able to provide that. German immigrants and other immigrants tend to be a little more skilled than the Irish so that they don’t take jobs in the railroad as much. And then the Irish people end up developing an expertise in working for the railroad which allows them to advance into more skilled positions of engineers and boiler makers and other jobs that only they really have the skills for because they were previously working on the railroad. The other factors would be sort of social factors that pushed, ah, Irish people out, especially Catholics. They’d, um, they’d lived under the penal laws in Ireland, which had restricted their ability to vote, their ability to make money, their land, until the 1820s. But by the 1840s, even with the Catholic emancipation it is, it is known as in Ireland, even with Catholic emancipation, most Irish, rural Irish laborers were poor and were subsisting on about 70 percent of what they needed, they would have needed another 30 percent, so that would push them into that. Also, Presbyterians and Methodists who were considered decenters, who were not apart of the Anglican Church, were also discriminated against, and that pushed them out of Ireland as well. And then another reason is politics. Baltimore attracts a lot of former Irish rebels. Ah, so people who participated in the Irish, the United Irishmen rebellion in 1798, a lot of them come to Baltimore in the 1800s. Some of them help found major industries, or major infrastructural developments in Baltimore such as the Maryland Medical School. When it’s originally founded it’s a lot of the Irish Presbyterians who had been a part of the United Irishmen Rebellion, and then the Young Irelanders of 1848, also a lot of them also settled in Baltimore too. So like, political reasons which is basically exile, the famine obviously being the biggest one which pushes Catholics out. Before the famine, I think it was around 300,000 people had left Ireland in the previous two or three decades to go to the United States. And after the famine, in that sort of 20 year period, it’s about 1.5 million, so it’s a huge jump. And it’s basically after, after the famine it’s such a huge mass exodus. Like, the Irish population is around 8 million people pre-famine, and then post-famine it’s about six million people, and it’s never recovered from that, it’s still 6 million people today. And so that mass exodus, people moved to America mostly, but then to also places like Australia and New Zealand as well. And then the American diaspora just sort of booms. Baltimore in particular, was ah, considered a good site for Irish Catholics because of the fact that it was seen as a safe haven. It was supposed to be a Catholic friendly, Maryland had a reputation for being friendly to Catholics. It had well known Irish Catholics who had had prominent positions like Charles Caroll of Carrollton who was of Irish decent, was the only Catholic signature of the Declaration of Independence. He was the person who laid the first stone on the B&L Railroad, and so people ha-had heard these stories about Maryland and Baltimore being a safe haven.

  Francesca: Yeah, so in that process there are clearly many challenges that are pushing people to leave Ireland, as there were for many immigrant groups that we’ve been talking about today. What were some challenges that Irish immigrants faced when coming to Baltimore?

  Conor: There were a variety of challenges that Irish immigrants faced, ah, arriving in Baltimore in the 19th century. Like I said, Baltimore had had a reputation for being more friendly towards Irish Catholics, but that, the reality is not necessarily the same as the reputation. The city’s Irish Catholics would have been in, like men particularly would be working on the railroad, maybe going out to the canal work. Women worked as domestic servants, and there was this lingering suspicion of Catholics that a predominantly Protestant nation, Protestant community had. There was a strong Catholic presence particularly in Maryland but there’s still major suspicion of Catholics, in particularl Irish Catholics because they were the poorest of the Catholic groups that came in. And so they faced economic discrimination. Employers in Maryland viewed Irish women as lazy and brutish, and the big worry was that Irish Catholic women would come into your home and taint the views of good, white, Protestant children. And so they didn’t want their-their children being under the influence of Catholicism. And, so if you look at political cartoons from the time period, Irish women often appear almost ape-like and subhuman, and this is like an argument made by many employers that they were lesser than Protestant workers—

  Francesca: It sounds like lesser than human.

  Conor: Yeah, yeah, even lesser than human. It’s very interesting, there’s ah, Thomas Nast, who, he’s a major political cartoonist at the time. All of his cartoons will portray Irish immigrants and Chinese immigrants as ape-like, but comparing them to other immigrant groups, like the other immigrant groups always come across as Anglicized, very well put together, their clothes were always very nice. Where Irish women or Chinese women, their clothes are always very shoddy and tattered, and obviously like I said the-the ape-like faces, this sort of sub-human category that you see immigrant groups being put in. There’s also examples of, the vast majority of examples of discrimination that you usually find are against women. There’s ah, I found when I was doing some research in Baltimore a few years back, over 20 ads, original ads, so some of these were repeated, but the 20 original advertisements in Baltimore’s newspapers between 1840 and 1860 that included the phrase “No Irish Need Apply,” and most of them were for the domestic service. So one advertisement appeared stated, “A girl wanted, 12 to 14 years old to attend to children and make herself useful, no Irish need apply.” And so that ran for like four or five days. And then employers would use other phrases that excluded immigrant groups as well, but mostly were aimed towards the Irish. So stuff like “American preferred” or “Protestant preferred,” would also appear. And sometimes it might say “American” or “German” or the-the language of the time would be “Colored person preferred.” So all of those groups would be included, and then the only other group that would be excluded then if you look at those three groups is usually the Irish. The employers also, like, they very, like they used tactics to make the Irish and other groups that would be in sort of more working class conditions, rivals, and put them in competition with each other. So like, one of the big examples is hiring Irish people for traditionally black jobs. That happened a lot. Ah, Frederick Douglass actually mentioned this in one of his books where he says every day we lose one of our jobs to a person from the Emerald Isle. That usually, like jobs like a barber or a waiter, like those types of jobs that had traditionally been black, can either go to the Irish at the expense of black people, free black people or slaves. And then they also go to black people at the expense of the Irish, and employers conscientiously pit them against each other, you know because they are worried of cross-workers solidarity. Outside of economic discrimination, like I mentioned before this, anti-Irish economic discrimination coincides with just a growing anti-Irish feeling within Baltimore’s population. And, this sort of rise of nativism that’s going on throughout all of America. And the American Party, or the Know-Nothing Party as its commonly referred to, has a very strong presence in Maryland. It had won the Governor’s chair in 1857, which is not unusual, but it’s still, it’s one of the only states where they won the Governor’s chair. And so Baltimore’s streets was, were known for having a lot of Know-Nothing gangs and nativist gangs. Like the Blood Tubs and the Black Snakes, and these gangs were particularly vicious during the election season. They would engage in battles with the Irish community over Irish people who tended to vote Democrat, and Know-Nothing gangs who were pro-Republican or the American Party at the time would battle in the streets. And like, Irish churches would be burnt down by some of these gangs. There’s like a local legend that the reason there are rails on Saint Patrick’s Church is because the local priest installed them in order to avoid attacks. And then the newspapers weren’t particularly friendly to the Irish whenever these battles did occur, this, basically turf wars over political parties. They would often insinuate that the Irish started it and referred to them as beastly aliens who stood against American values.

  Francesca: Similar to those artistic depictions you mentioned earlier.

  Conor: Yeah, yeah. So similar that, to the, to the depictions of Thomas Nast and others. It, so like in 1856 the newspapers talked about beastly aliens attacking peaceful American fishing parties, even though like it was entirely a turf war over who was like, trying to control votes for either Democrats or Republicans. So you see this rise in anti-Irish feeling both economically and politically, and just socially in terms of like the depictions in the newspaper, the way things were worded, that it seems to most Anglo-Americans in-in their mind that the Irish are incompatible with like American democracy. They have an inability to understand Republican values, and they are basically unable to play into the politics of respectability, which is just like the good behavior that you have in public. And so this is their way of pushing for Irish immigrants to assimilate into American society.

  Francesca: Ah, so we’ve talked a great deal about challenges faced by Irish immigrants and then Irish Americans in Baltimore. What are some success stories?

  Conor: One of the ones that I think of, ah, pre-famine there’s an immigrant John Crawford who moves from Ireland to Baltimore, ah, because he’s encouraged to by his brother-in-law who’s already at Baltimore and is a merchant. And so John Crawford is a qualified doctor, and he basically helps establish the medical infrastructure in Baltimore. He creates connections with a lot of the most prominent doctors in England and is given the small pox vaccination. And he uses the small pox vaccination in Baltimore, around the same time that it’s being used in Boston, and so he is most likely one of the first people to use a vaccination in the United States of America. He also helps found the Maryland Medical School, it’s called the Medical College of Maryland, and donates his library to the college after he dies. And so that becomes the first actual library in the University of Maryland system. And so the entire library is built from the Irish immigrant who also introduced the small pox vaccine to the United States. Post-famine, ah, our museum tends to—

  Francesca: By that you mean the Irish Railroad Workers Museum?

  Conor: —Yeah, tends to focus more on the working-class Irish who came into the country. So our success stories always focus on people who worked on the railroad, and moved their way up. One of the examples of that is this immigrant called James Feeley who moves the United States, into Baltimore in 1847 which is the height of the famine. He gets on a ship, which at that time they’re known as coffin ships, because many of the immigrants who make the journey die. In fact, in that year alone, in 1847, you have 17,000 people die on coffin ships. And so, he moves to Baltimore, settles in the southwest side of the city and marries Sarah Liberty in 1854, works on the railroad and by 1880 he’s went from unskilled laborer on the railroad to skilled worker in the boiler shop. He came with basically no money and was illiterate, and by the end of the 1880s he owns two houses, one for his family and then one that he rents to make additional income. And so this is a working class person from rural Ireland who was illiterate, and didn’t have any money coming over, most likely had his fare paid for by one of the landlords who wanted him off of his property so he didn’t have to pay poor law taxes. And he makes his way to homeownership, all of his kids receive an education at St. Peter of the Apostol or one of the local schools, they all get skilled positions or become teachers. He is able to provide a house for them, a family, as a working-class story goes it doesn’t get much more successful than coming from literally nothing to being able to own your own house, and you’re having a very skilled job that people respect you for, and your children being able to then even surpass your own wealth.

  Francesca: That sounds like the definition of success to me. Ah, thank you for sharing these stories. How do you feel these stories of Irish immigrants and Irish Americans in Baltimore, how do they resonate today?

  Conor: Today we see a lot of similarities between what’s going with Irish immigrants and other immigrant groups or refugee groups coming into the United States in that, their circumstances are different of course, but you find a lot hostile reactions in some part of the media and in lots of the country who would portray the-their culture as different and alien and in some ways maybe even primitive and backwards, which is exactly what Irish immigrants faced in their own arrival to the United States. People who didn’t understand their culture and didn’t understand their religious background, and so like, you often see these hostile reactions, but what you really find with immigrant groups in-in general, like with the Irish as an example, but I think even throughout time, is that they’re usually just positive-minded people who are moving to a different country. Not necessarily because it’s what they want, but it’s because they see a better life there. Ah, a better potential life that they can make for their family or their future family. Jobs, ah, that they can work in and, ah, maybe a community that they can build. And so they often are looking forward in time and building this positive community, which I think immigrant groups have done throughout time and continue to do even despite hostile reactions. And so if the Irish are anything as a group, I think it’s a good example of what a group who have been despised or disliked can do when they move, when they are given the ability to move freely and work and just live their lives.

  Francesca: That sounds like hope.

  Conor: Yeah, and-and so, yeah, I think that what museums, ah, like the immigration museum and the Irish Railroad Workers Museum do is provide a great example of what immigrants have done to build this country and continue to do and will continue to do.

  Francesca: Thank you, thank you so much Conor.

  – Music Reprise –

  Francesca: Hello, this is Francesca, back again. I am now going to be speaking with Prof. Brewer at Morgan State University. He teaches history, specifically African American history and African diaspora within the United States, so Prof. Brewer, thank you for coming here to speak today.

  Prof. Brewer: Thank you, you’re welcome, and thank you. And so I’m a-a professor of history at Morgan State University, my area of specialization is African American history and the history of the African diaspora. Ah, I work mostly in the late 18th and 19th century, and so I will talk about the African Americans who, ah, for the most part and specifically the free African Americans who make a life for themselves, ah, in Baltimore. If we look at the history of African Americans in Baltimore city, Baltimore emerged, ah, as a trading point nexus after the American Revolution, this means at the end of the 18th century. This is around 1800, for-for a rough date. And it was a terminus point, not just for goods that were being produced on farms, but more and more wheat, a being brought from the west with the establishment of the canals and railroads. They were bringing wheat from Ohio and-and further out west into the port of Baltimore, and then exporting it, shipping it into the Atlantic world. Um, so Baltimore grew after the American Revolution. But several things happened simultaneously. Tobacco, which declined in influence, ah, after the American Revolution, well that meant that the sort of structures of the economy that supported tobacco also were now in crisis. And tobacco was a crop that was grown as ah, and produced by slave labor, and that slave labor was African American labor. So that meant that the people who owned the land, ah, and who controlled those tobacco plantations, you know had to figure out what are they now gonna do? You now have like a surplus of labor; several things happen. One of the solutions I guess you could say, that took place, again after the American Revolution and with the rise of wheat and this transition from a tobacco economy, is that cotton production emerged, but not here in Maryland, deeper, further down w-what we refer to as the deep south in the lower Mississippi Valley, where large acres of land, thousands and tens of thousands acres of land now went under cotton cultivation. But for that cotton crop to be grown, you needed labor. And so the-the new, expanding plantation owners of that part of the country turned to Maryland, what we now, what we would call the upper south, that’s Maryland and Virginia and parts of Carolina and Kentucky, for labor. And so a slave trade developed after the Louisiana Purchase, this is after 1803. Alright, a slave trade developed where Marylanders, because we’re talking about Baltimore, Marylanders are sold to south, black Marylanders are sold south. So part of that surplus labor that was now because of the decline in-in tobacco has shifted south now, for cotton production. And so a large part of that black labor force of Maryland goes south. That’s one. Another thing is happening after the American Revolution besides the decline of tobacco, is that the American Revolution produces a new sort of a idea about freedom. It-it really is an important thing. Sometimes it’s overlooked. And so the Maryland state assembly liberalized the manumission laws, they made it easier for plantation owners to free, agree to have their slaves free. It made it easier for slaves to negotiate or buy their freedom. Alright, even though it was a long process, but nonetheless, ah, they made those things available and made it more possible. And so we would saw those large numbers, again following the liberalization of the manumission laws in the 1790’s and 1780’s, right after independence. You-you saw hundreds, may-perhaps thousands of-of blacks who were formerly enslaved, gaining their freedom that way. Another way that blacks began to gain their freedom was ah, because of the war itself, the-the very war. And in the Revolutionary War, you know wars create crises, wars are a product of crises, but they also create crisis. And one crisis of war is ah, for labor, you need bodies to fight the war, to supply, to help, etcetera. And there’s a shortage, and so they make it easy, or try to make it easier given the incentive, you know, to get people. And so ah, th-those who are fighting on the side of the-the Patriots started to supply blacks. Now it was, it wasn’t so simple. Many, ah, slave owners, ah, they had mixed feelings about it, were against the idea you know of allowing blacks to have guns. Huh, they’re-they’re slaves after all. So they debated it over a while, but it became obvious that this was ah, to their advantage. And so, again they created a whole variety of opportunities, and one such, one such was they would grant people freedom on condition that, you know you fight in the war, you come back. So through war, African Americans fought in the war, alright, on the side of the Patriots. They gain their freedom, and there are specific people who we-we kind of know some—a bit about their histories. You know, ah, were veterans of this particular war. So we get hundreds of people gaining their freedom that way. And when that war settles, you know, things settle down, but people now move. They’re now in towns, they’re in new places, they’re-they reconstruct their identities. They take on these new identities. And-and so again, a-another means through which African Americans who were formerly enslaved becomes, ah, free. At the end of the war, at the end of this period by the-the first decade of the, of the, of the 19the century, are, there’s just this large body now, of-of-of-of blacks who are now free, who are now no longer living on farms in the rural areas on the eastern shore in southern Maryland, are now living in the towns, are now living in Alexandria, Virginia, are now living in Washington, the new town that’s being built, are now living in Baltimore, right. Ah, have moved up to Philadelphia, many of them ran up into the north because Pennsylvania had abolished slavery. But this general area itself, you have this large black population that’s been put into the urban areas. And-and so you have to put that story side-by-side with the development of Baltimore itself—

  Francesca: Hmm.

  Prof. Brewer: —As this emerging trading town. And what does a trading town need? A trading town needs folks on the docks, people who ah, you know longshore, ah stevedores, you know, loading and unloading stuff. People who are making wire and making thread, and-and making hull cane, their doing a whole bunch of things that are connected to the shipping business, to trading, and to-to those sorts of things that are emerging. And so, many of these, ah, African Americans who would have come to the city are attracted by that, that is the, that is the industry if you like that they gather around, alright, the port. And they’re doing sundry other types of labor in construction, you know. Just, and so it’s a booming place actually, and the folks who are the business people, who are speculators, and the folks who want to make money in this new environment, you know, they’re not really too interested in what their particular status is, and so these individuals, they-they will hire you. You know, you’re available, ah, you, I can pay you a kind of wage that allows you to work, but I can make my profits from paying you that wage, etcetera. So, so Baltimore itself from its very origin consists of a, of a bustling, growing little port town, that will become the city that has this large layer of free blacks around. Now, that’s-that’s the first wave if you like of-of free blacks, ah, in-in Baltimore at its very settlements. Veterans, people who have ah been manumitted, you know, who’ve won their freedom, who’ve bought their freedom. Ah, people who’ve run away. They’re all, they’re all there. At the same time that they’re there, they do live in Maryland. You know, Baltimore is part of Maryland. And-and Maryland is a state that has the second largest black population in the United States at this point, right? So in, if you look at the 1800’s census, the 1810’s census, for Virginia and Maryland, the two, those two states are comprised of most of black people in the United States, live in those states. Most of them are enslaved, but also which is a kind of, it looks strange in contrast, it also has the largest free black population. So it has both the largest slave population, but also the largest free black population. The result of those changes that had taken place. So, Baltimore has a base, it’s got this population. And as the city grows into the twen—into the 19th century, as the economy grows, ah, that black population reproduces itself, meaning that free black population reproduces itself. Meanwhile, the enslaved population of Maryland is declining, this large population is declining because of that boom in cotton that I spoke of. So enslaved blacks are being sold south, you know, when that free black population is growing. If we had a graph and you put the two things side by side you would see the decline in the slave population and the growth in the free black population, that’s what’s happening. And in Balti, in the whole state, and in Baltimore it is even more pronounced, that the free black population is growing at an even larger rate, and that the slave population keeps declining. By the 1860’s, by the time slavery is abolished by the Maryland state assembly in 1864, there area actually more free blacks in the city of Baltimore than there are enslaved blacks in the city of Baltimore. So throughout the 19th century the free black population of Baltimore surpassed the enslaved black population of Baltimore. This gave Baltimore a peculiar character actually, this-this, that little statistic there. Because it means that if you were a cop walking the beat, in Baltimore, you know by the, by the harbor there, or where-where immigrants from Germany had sort of crowded and come around, and those sorts of things in different parts of the town, and you came across a black person, odds are that that black person was free. Now that’s quite different than if you were in another kind of city, right, further into the interior, further south, where you saw a black person and you were going to assume that that black person was an, was an enslaved person. And this, this of course meant that for enslaved people who wanted to escape, leave the particular areas, especially the farms around Baltimore, the city is a good place to get to. You know, that people, you could lose yourself in the free black population of Baltimore. Alright. And that became more and more the case. It is very instructive to look at the runaway ads, the runaway slave ads, which had always, and my students have always enjoy. We do these analyses of these runaway slave ads in the Baltimore papers, in the Washington papers, every week virtually somebody is advertising, and paying to advertise that their slave has runaway, and they believe that that slave is in Baltimore. So again, that, it’s giving us a sense, you know, why would you go here. Why wouldn’t they run, you know, or try to get to an-another place? And oftentimes as well, you’ll see little pieces of, little comments in those slave ads, that they, it is believed they have family there, right ah, or that they might have a wife there, you know? So they’re telling us these details to which, are also interesting too, because A) those people think, well, but were they allowed to get married? Well, maybe the law may have said one thing, but in terms of their own lives and those communities that they lived in and they were. But-but then again, a larger point here is that they are families, you know, these are communities. And these are families that exist inter-regionally, and they exist beyond the farm. The most famous case of course is of Frederick Douglass, and everybody kind of, many people know that story, you know, him coming from the eastern shore, and coming from Talbot county, and the fact that, ah, the family he left behind knew he was in Baltimore. They know where family members are and these people reach out. But not only do the families have these connections, the plantation owners have these connections, that’s important to know, plantation owners might own property in Baltimore city, you know with the, with the plantation, you know, on the eastern shore, with the plantation in Southern Maryland or some other place. And therefore have family members at the different property locations. There’s a case of Charles Benedict Calvert, famous Calvert family, who owned several properties, several plantations, something like six or seven, throughout the state of Maryland. But family members lived in different plantations, some in Prince George’s county, some you know on the eastern shore, some in Howard county. Different, different places. And-and members of families moved around in these different areas. So the freed black population then that comes to Baltimore, it is part of Baltimore, it grows with Baltimore, indeed it stamps Baltimore with a particular character. One of the things that free blacks do, once they become free, is to attempt to consolidate their freedom, right. And how do you consolidate your freedom? You create institutions, alright, and-and so freed blacks create institutions in Baltimore. The basic institution is the church, alright, so the first African American institutions that you’ll see in Baltimore are churches. Alright, Sharp Street, Bethel, you know, the A&E church itself has its roots, not just in Philadelphia, but in Baltimore. Ah, Daniel Coker, one of the founders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, I said the A&E African Methodist Episcopal Church, you know was a Baltimorean. They’re, you know, that’s what they create, they create an institution. Ah, they buy property when they can, and if they can. They create a school here, you know, the African Institution, the institute they call it, they, with their own money. There’s not a lot of money, but they create that. Francis Ellen Watkins Harper is like the most famous example from Baltimore. You know, from that free black community, of that institution building, you know of school. As an educator that she was, a woman who wrote that novel, “Iola Leroy,” one of the first novels written by an African American. Ah, it’s, she’s a product of that free black community, you know. So, property ownership, school, churches, you know, those are all the different ways people can consolidate their power. So, the free population is growing, Baltimore is growing with that free population, and those things reinforce each other. They shape the city, the nature and characters of the city, and the city itself of course shapes them. It starts off with those large, if we might kind of look at that arc, it starts off with the dislocation of war, ah, people using that opportunity of war, to-to run to, and get to their freedom, into to a new, a-a new place, a place of opportunity, this new city and town that’s growing. You know where, where it doesn’t really have old habits, you know, it’s new. You know, it’s kind of like any new neighborhood. You know, people, people can really think about themselves today when they move into a new neighborhood. When I say new neighborhood, I mean like the neighborhood itself is new, these new sub developments, everybody is coming from somewhere else.

  Francesca: An-and that’s what Baltimore was in the 19th century?

  Prof. Brewer: Baltimore was that type of place, everybody’s coming from somewhere else. So, so you don’t kind of fault, to a default you know to where this is your place and that’s your place, and know your place and stay in your place, no. Everybody now, is kind of like figuring out, hey, how do we relate to each other? That’s the kind of place Baltimore is. So therefore, it’s an opportunity for-for African Americans, in that sort of scenario. You know, even though they are from Maryland, they are from the countryside. You know, so this new town is a new completely sort of game that is going on there. And so they take advantage where they can take advantage, you know, they try to use it to their advantage. And do these things you know, building institutions and-and what have you. So that’s, that’s what’s happening in, you know, in that period.

  Francesca: Thank you for all of that overview, it’s a lot of history to cover. I guess, my question now is given the very specific challenges to African Americans whether they were enslaved or free, coming into Baltimore, do you feel in anyway that those challenges that people were facing in the 19th century, are there any, are there any ripples that we see resonating today?

  Prof. Brewer: The legacy of slavery is what—so slavery is everybody’s heritage. You know, that’s, that’s basically what I say. That it’s part of our heritage, and as Americans it’s apart of our heritage. It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, slavery is part of your heritage. It’s kind of like the flag, or it’s kind of like the Constitution, you know, the Constitution is our heritage. Alright, it’s what the people who were before left for us. So they left some good stuff, they left some bad stuff, you know, but they left it to us, we inherited that. Ah, and there are people, you know, who say this all the time, “Well my parents came here before, you know, after slavery was over so that’s got nothing to do with me.” Well the Constitution was written before your parents came here too, you wouldn’t say that it has nothing to do with you, right? It’s all got, everything’s got everything to do with you. So it’s like, we-we should all claim it, you know, and kind of try to understand it. But we cannot go back into the past and change it, sorry, it’s gone. You know, but we can hope to understand it, and that’s really the best we can do. And of course slavery’s shadow was cast over the period after slavery. Ah, we had to deal also, I think one of the difficult things for people is like the divide of Jim Crow, segregation, and slavery. They’re really not the same thing. And you know that’s a whole other kind of history, which is tied to slavery, but Jim Crow is something else, and in many ways we-we live under the shadow of Jim Crow. You know, it-it, it officially ended in ’68, you know, in ’66, and that whole period, ’64, the Civil Rights Act and all of those things like that. But then, we’re living you know in the shadow, this is the period after that. You don’t really, you know historians is like 50 years from now will give this a name, the period we’re in, we’re-we’re probably in, we’re mostly, we’re in a new period, and we can see certain, ah, aspects of it are coming to the forward. You know it’s not exactly clear, but you-you know, I think, an-and I’m generally a kind of optimist in a certain kind of way, even though you’re, you kind of know what the past is, so you’re not surprised at things when they happen. And you just see parallels all the time, so you hope that well, you know they’re good things that happens sometimes as well, so you kind of hope. But we’re, we’re free beings, right, we’re free, we’re free individuals, and we can make, we make decisions. Sometimes we make bad decisions and try to come and correct it, and it’s like ah, so bad. And in correcting the problems of the past we create new problems, you know, unintentionally, you know that happens as well. So I’m just saying that this is a kind of a complicated picture, it’s not always, it’s not so easy to say, okay you know, what are we gonna learn, and we can see parallels, but at the same time this is the elements, you know, in terms of what we do.

  Francesca: Thank you so much for speaking today, we really appreciate having you on, thank you so much.

  Prof. Brewer: Thank you.

  – Outro Music –

  Francesca: For today’s episode we owe a special thank you to Baltimore National Heritage Area’s Director of Programs and Partnerships, Shauntee Daniels, who organized this panel of speakers.

  – Outro Music –

  Francesca: This podcast series is produced by the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office. Today’s episode was edited by myself and Volunteer Audio Engineer, Suzie Calarco. The episode’s music was performed by Suzie and Sam Wolf. Thanks for tuning in and have an amazing day.

  – Outro Music –

• 8. Baltimore Immigration History Part 3

  
  

  In this episode, Francesca speaks with two more guest panelists. Historian Deborah Weiner discusses different waves of Jewish immigration from Germany and Eastern Europe in the 1800's and 1900's. Author Rafael Alvarez discusses Italian immigration into Baltimore in the 1800's, as well as present day Italian American experiences.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS Northeast Region

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  – Intro Music –

  Francesca: This is the third and final segment to our special three part Baltimore Immigration History series that we recorded with Baltimore National Heritage Area at the Baltimore Immigration Museum. In today’s episode we’re going to go over different waves of Jewish immigration during the 1800’s and the 1900’s into the city of Baltimore. As well as, Italian immigration history in the 1800’s and how those stories resonate with present day Italian American experiences.

  – Intro Music –

  Peter: Hello, Francesca.

  Francesca: Hello, Peter.

  Peter: Hey, I’m so excited to hear this next episode.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah. This is the conclusion, part three, of our special three part segment that we recorded with Baltimore National Heritage Area at the Baltimore Immigration Museum, on Baltimore’s immigration history.

  Peter: Yeah, and-and listening through this, ah, in the first go-around, I’m amazed at how much time you spent talking to folks down in Baltimore, it’s really great.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah. It was um, it was a full day of recording. I was really happy to go and listen to the different conversations, and, yeah, I’m really excited for folks to hear about all of these different—

  Peter: I think—

  Francesca: —Stories.

  Peter: I think, you know, there’s great insights into the whole, not only the history of immigration in Baltimore, but it, when we look at immigration today, um, the carryover of things that have happened back in the 1800’s, and some of those things that we’re still working out today, it’s pretty amazing.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah, I think people think of history as, you know, points and facts on some sort of timeline, when really it’s kind of a continuous story.

  Peter: Yeah, it just keeps going and going. So, um, we’re gonna hear from Deborah Weiner—

  Francesca: Mhmm.

  Peter: —And Rafael Alvarez.

  Francesca: Mhmm.

  Peter: So, I’m very excited to get into this, are you ready to go?

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah.

  Peter: Let’s proceed.

  Francesca: Sure thing.

  – Intro Music –

  Francesca: Hello, this is Francesca. I am recording from the Baltimore Immigration Museum, and we are continuing with our series, going through and learning about the different history of different immigrant groups that came to Baltimore and shaped the city into what it is today. Right now we are going to be diving into the history of Jewish immigrants coming into Baltimore, and I am here speaking with Historian, Deborah Weiner. Deborah: Hi, nice to meet you.

  Francesca: Hello, nice to meet you as well. Could you tell me a little bit about your background and, um, what you’ll be discussing today?

  Deborah: I am a historian, an independent historian right now. My background is in immigration history and also in Baltimore history. I recently co-published a book called, “On Middle Ground: A History of the Jews of Baltimore.” And for many years I worked as the Research Historian at the Jewish Museum, where I worked on their exhibitions and publications.

  Francesca: Alright, well thank you. So, who are Jewish immigrants coming into Baltimore in the 1800’s? Where are they coming from?

  Deborah: Well, there are actually two major Jewish immigrations into Baltimore. One occurred in the mid-19th century, and, ah, those were Jews who came from the German states, uh, Central Europe. And then from the 1880’s to the 1920’s, Jews were coming from the Russian Empire and other parts of Eastern Europe. So there were two sort of distinct immigrations, the second one much bigger than the, than the first.

  Francesca: What were some factors that lead to these two groups leaving their home countries and coming to Baltimore?

  Deborah: Well, it was a mix of factors for both groups, a mix of say economic and social factors, I would say in both cases. Ah, for the German immigrants, they came partly due to the economic conditions in Germany at the time. And also because of political upheavals that were going on in Germany. 1820’s to 1870’s, with most of the Jewish immigrants coming before the Civil War. So, ah, many of them had been working in the countryside in Germany. They were many times, ah, traders and peddlers and people who played a commercial role in the economy. And what happened then was the economy was changing, and they were sort of losing their place in the economy of German states. So, it was a-a lot of young men who were the main people who emigrated, people who were looking for economic opportunity. Also, they were subject to sort of many discriminatory measures in Germany that also encouraged them to move. So it was a combination of both of those factors.

  Francesca: Okay, and that was for German Jewish immigrants coming in.

  Deborah: Right.

  Francesca: What about those coming from Eastern Europe?

  Deborah: Well, that, ah, too was a combination of factors. The economy of Russia, and Poland, and Austria and Hungarian Empire was also changing a little bit later so, this was starting in the 1880’s. And again, Jews who were living in the countryside were seeing their economic role sort of reduced and the economy was going through terrible upheavals. And Jews in many cases were being blamed for many of the economic problems that were occurring in the Russian Empire. So there was a big increase in sort of anti-Semitism, and um, riots against Jews and-and that kind of thing. So many Jews would’ve left anyway because of the economic realities, but they also were leaving because of many discriminatory measures and the persecution that they faced in the Russian Empire.

  Francesca: I think anybody who’s living in an unsafe situation has an incentive to move somewhere else.

  Deborah: Absolutely, and there was a whole lot of like whole areas which were basically poverty stricken in Eastern Europe too. So, I think people have a-an idea that Jews came here because of pogroms, ah, anti-Jewish riots, and that was really, that was a part of the immigration but it wasn’t the whole story. I would say for most people they came because of the economic conditions. They just couldn’t make a living anymore in-in that part of the world.

  Francesca: That makes a whole lot of sense. When coming to Baltimore, were there challenges unique to these different Jewish immigrant groups?

  Deborah: Well, they each came at a different time and so, the Baltimore that they were coming into was-was very different. Well, in both cases they were gonna find lots of opportunity in Baltimore. For the German Jews the opportunity was often as small retailers. Many of them started out as peddlers and got established as store owners. They were basically using the experience that they had in their home countries, they were sort of building on that experience to find a place in the economy of the city that they moved to. And this was true across the east coast and all the places that Jews came to. So, they did find opportunity in Baltimore, it, because Baltimore had a growing economy at that time. Ah, and the later when the, well another thing that the German Jews did was they established the garment industry in Baltimore. As, again starting as tailors and then building up into manufacturing. One thing that people don’t talk about very much or know about very much is the invention of the sewing machine in the 1840’s gave a big boost to the garment industry, and German Jews were the ones who established a lot of the small garment factories, which grew into larger factories. And then when the Russian Jews came in the 1880’s they had, ah, this was very helpful to them because they had a place that they could start in the economy. Ah, but when they came they were more likely to start out as workers, as tailors, and worked in the factories and the sweatshops. Um, the factories which were mostly owned by the German Jews. So, that was their start in the economy for many of the Russian and the Polish Jews who came.

  Francesca: I guess, there are less challenges if there’s an industry set up where you are able to more actively, ah, find work—

  Deborah: Right.

  Francesca: —And employment.

  Deborah: One reason that the Jews actually had a large immigration to Baltimore was because Baltimore did have this garment industry established. And in fact from the 1880’s to 1920’s, the most immigrants who came to Baltimore during that time were-were Jewish immigrants. But this was not to say that life was easy for them, at all, because the conditions were very bad. They came here with basically nothing, the pay was terrible, the working and living conditions were terrible, and of course they were disoriented by finding themselves in a new place and-and having to build their lives from scratch.

  Francesca: Certainly, that’s not an easy thing I think to move anywhere.

  Deborah: Right.

  Francesca: Yeah. Today even, I can’t imagine getting on ship.

  Deborah: Well, yeah, when you think of what they did, what immigrants did to come to this country, then an-and now it, it just takes a great amount of energy and courage, and desperation. All of it, all at once.

  Francesca: Yeah, I think that’s an accurate ah, depiction. But given all of those challenges, and perseverance in the face of challenges, what could you identify as some success stories for Jewish immigrants and Jewish Americans in Baltimore?

  Deborah: Well, for the German period, they were very successful pretty quickly and founded a lot of stores that grew into Baltimore’s major department stores. Families like the Hutzlers, the Houshles, the Kones, names that aren’t remembered now that much but to Baltimoreans in the early part of the 20th century or even mid-20th century would be well known, and again the garment factories that they established. Then Russian and Polish immigrants who came in later years, also a lot of them managed to become entrepreneurs and had success, well they had success in a lot of different ways. Some of the people who started as tailors went on to form factories of their own. For example, the brand London Fog was started by a Russian Jewish immigrant, Israel Myers. Some of them also succeeded through the labor movement too, because when they came here and were faced with these terrible conditions, they organized. There was a very strong garment workers union and, ah, succeeded in improving conditions. And some of them went on to other things starting from that point of view. So, for example, Jacob Edelman started out as a tailor, as an organizer for the garment workers union, ended up becoming a labor lawyer, and then became a politician and city council. So, there are different routes to, to success. Ah, also another thing that you’ll find with Jewish businesses, most of them were family businesses, so it wasn’t just the men who were starting in business, but the whole family, ah, women, w-wives and husbands together. So, ah, one example of a very successful family business was Silber’s Bakery. When the Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants came, the ones who didn’t go into the garment industry were often sort of establishing small businesses, sometimes to serve their fellow immigrants, and Dora and Ike Silber established a small bakery that ended up growing into a substantial bakery that had shops all over Baltimore. And the brains behind this bakery was actually Dora Silber, Ike did the baking but Dora did all the business. So ah, there are just lots of examples of-of things like that. I mean I could go on if, if you want more.

  Francesca: That’s, I think that those are a couple of really good examples.

  Deborah: Though I should mention one more! Because it’s—

  Francesca: Sure!

  Deborah: —It’s ah, very well known, and I mentioned that there were these two major immigrations the-the German and the Russian and the Polish Jewish immigration, but then in the 1930’s there was a much smaller group of people who came, um, escaping Nazi Germany. It was a much smaller number of people, but they too had to start from scratch and establish themselves in Baltimore. And one was um, a spice maker named Gustav Brunn, and he came over here with nothing except his, basically his spice maker machine, and he ended up setting up shop across from the fish market in Baltimore, and ended up, ah, developing a-a spice for the ah, people who sold the seafood purveyors there, ah, which he called “old bay.” And old bay became, of course a major sort of icon of-of Baltimore. And he-he too again, that was a family business that Gus and Bianca Brunn establish in the 1940’s.

  Francesca: I did not know that about old bay, I just know it tastes really good on shrimp.

  Deborah: Yep! Shrimp, crabs, yeah, pretty much can’t eat steamed crabs in Baltimore without having old bay on them.

  Francesca: [laughter] Okay, that’s definitely good to know.

  Deborah: [laughter]

  Francesca: So, those are some, those are some fascinating success stories I’d say, ah, for the Jewish immigrants coming in, that smaller group during the time of Nazi Germany prior to World War II, were there any challenges that they faced in terms of immigration, given—

  Deborah: Yes, for them the situation was very different, because unlike the previous immigrants, they had not been sort of poverty stricken in Germany. They were, they were middle class people for the most part, and after Hitler’s rise to power, it became increasingly clear that they, there was no place for them in Germany. And particularly after Kristallnacht in 1938. Those who hadn’t already figured out a way to go, were desperate to get out at that point. But the problem for them was that the U.S. had passed immigration laws in the early 1920’s that greatly restricted immigration. So, whereas our ancestors from Germany in the 19th century, and Russia, and Poland, found it very easy to enter this country, because there were very few barriers, the people who were trying to escape the Nazis, ah, found it very difficult. They had to get sponsors, they had to get visas, that had to go through a huge bureaucratic, um, you know a lot of red tape, and also there were quotas that limited the amount of people who could come here. So, that’s the challenge that they faced, and the ones who did manage to come mostly had, many of them had relatives here already, ah, some who they hadn’t communicated with in generations. They even, they would call people up, they would look in phonebooks, American phonebooks and find people with their same last name, and call them up and say, “Um, can you help me get out of Germany? Can you sponsor me?” Things like that. So, and in all those cases they, the immigrants benefited from having a Jewish community already here that-that could help them out.

  Francesca: I think a support system is really important when you’re moving, anywhere.

  Deborah: Yes. O-one sort of interesting, um, sort of dynamic in the Jewish community is that, ah, the Russian and Polish Jews who came here, they did benefit from the fact that there were Jews here already who had come from Germany in the 19th century, but their relationship was very complicated, shall we say. Because on the one hand, while the German Jews wanted to help them Americanize, the German Jews were also the people who owned the garment factories, which had all the terrible conditions that they were suffering from. And, socially the two groups didn’t get along at all. Even their, ah, religious views were completely different. So there was actually quite a bit of tension between the two groups, in addition to cooperation. It was a dynamic that lasted really well into the 20th century.

  Francesca: That is, that is interesting. You ah, usually I think when people think of immigrant groups, if they have, even anything in common like religion, you tend to think of them being monolithic and unified, but that’s almost never the case I would say.

  Deborah: Right, and in this case they were different in almost every way. Or in many, many ways.

  Francesca: I’m sure even speaking different languages.

  Deborah: Right.

  Francesca: Yeah.

  Deborah: Right, because the ah, the Russian and Polish Jews spoke Yiddish when they got here, and of course the Germans had been here long enough they only spoke English by that point, and even earlier many of them had spoken German, um, when they arrived. Although more of them spoke Yiddish than is generally known, but they had basically had generations to Americanize. So, when the Russian and Polish Jews came, it was a population that seemed quite foreign to them in many ways.

  Francesca: When you say Americanize, I feel like that means different things to different people, so what would your definition of Americanize be?

  Deborah: Well, basically Americanization refers to acculturating to America. So a-adopting the language, sort of losing some of your traditional ways, or adapting your traditional ways, not necessarily losing them completely. It doesn’t necessarily mean mixing with Americans on a social basis, but it means sort of adopting American culture for your own. And, ah, for the Russian and Polish Jews who came, a lot of times immigrants don’t really, fully Americanize. It’s their children who Americanize. And that’s another thing that I think people tend to forget. Like today when we have, when immigrants come to this country, people say, “Well why don’t they speak English? You know they need to Americanize!” But in a lot of cases in the past, people, it wasn’t, you know, a lot of the immigrants came and never really did learn English. And I think there are plenty of Jewish people today, if they really thought about their great-grandparents, or asked their parents about it, they would find that they had relatives who came over as older people and never fully Americanized and spoke Yiddish till the day the died. But Americanization is usually a, a two generation process. So ah, in the case of the people who came in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the American education system had a lot to do with Americanization. Cause the children started going to public schools and really became American through that, through that means.

  Francesca: Well thank you for giving your, your overview. I think that it’s a very fluid, you know, dynamic process, that’s ever ongoing, Americanization, assimilation, things of this nature.

  Deborah: Right. And there are different terms, people talk about Americanization, they talk about assimilation, Americanization, acculturation, and they’re all slightly different and we all have slightly different ways of-of using the term.

  Francesca: I think so, yeah, so I think it’s always good to I think understand what we mean when we, when we say the things that we do. I think because it is different for everybody.

  Deborah: Right.

  Francesca: Yeah. Um, do you have anything else you want to say on any of these topics?

  Deborah: The Jews who came to Baltimore in many cases were like immigrants who, the Jewish immigrants who came and ended up in other places. But there were certain things about Baltimore that were different, because we talk about this in-in our book “On Middle Ground.” For one thing Baltimore was a border city, and that made it distinct in-in a lot of ways. So it had some of the characteristics of the North and had some of the characteristics of the South. It was I would say the, the further south city that had a large Jewish immigrant population. And that had an impact on the, ah, immigrants who came here. Ah, for one thing there was a much larger African American population in Baltimore than there were in northern cities. This is another thing that people tend to forget is that before say the 1920’s cities of the North did not have large African American populations. So, when Jews came to Baltimore there was a lot more interaction then with the black population. Baltimore also tended to be a more conservative city than a lot of the cities to the North. And that had an impact on the Jewish community. The Jews of Baltimore are known for being, sort of, more religious in some ways than in other communities outside of New York, other Jewish communities. So, Orthodox Judaism became, remained very strong in Baltimore. One reason might be that the-the city itself was sort of a more conservative city. And religion sort of kept a hold in other groups as well, and maybe to a greater degree. Those are just-just some of the things.

  Francesca: Specific to Baltimore.

  Deborah: Yeah.

  Francesca: Yeah.

  Deborah: Well, one more thing I would say about Baltimore as a, as a border city, and when I was talking about Orthodoxy before, another reason that Baltimore has a large Orthodox community is simply its proximity to New York and as a affordable alternative. So in-in recent years, with the growth of Orthodoxy just generally and in New York, many, many people have moved to Baltimore for that reason. Baltimore has developed, had developed very strong Orthodox institutions through the years, and this helped sort of attract other Orthodox Jews from elsewhere. So today, Baltimore’s Orthodox Jewish community is a larger percentage of the Jewish population than in any other city accept New York.

  Francesca: Well thank you so much for your time, and thank you for sharing all of these stories, and all of this important background information. I really appreciate it.

  Deborah: You’re welcome, thanks.

  – Music Reprise –

  Francesca: Before beginning this second conversation with Rafael Alvarez, he was unable to attend the event in person, but he was able to record a phone conversation to provide his perspectives on Italian immigration history and Italian American identity. So, ah, this is a phone call, just disclaimer in terms of audio quality, that this is a phone call conversation.

  – Music Reprise –

  Francesca: Hello, welcome back, I am here on the phone with Rafael Alvarez. He is going to be talking a little bit about Italian Immigration history in Baltimore and the Italian American experience. So, Rafael, welcome.

  Rafael: That you, thank you very much. My name is Rafael Alvarez and I am a writer, reporter, screen writer in the city of Baltimore where I’ve lived my entire life. I grew up in a very multi-cultural ethnic family. My father’s father was from Spain and came to Baltimore in the 1920’s and married an Italian woman named Francesca Preto, born in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania because there was a lot of Italians in Pennsylvania, western Pennsylvania in the coal mining industry. And in what was known in the early 1950’s as a mixed marriage, a Spanish-Italian Catholic married my mother a Polish Catholic from the ethnic village just down the street. I, so I grew up with wonderful smells and tastes of a kitchen that represented all sides of-of my family. I grew up concentrating on stories that I heard around the kitchen table, stories that I heard as my grandmother rolled out pasta dough and they canned tomatoes every year. There was none of this store bought stuff. The Italians would call things from the store, “a la box,” it came from the box and that was no good. And then I used all those stories as the foundation for my journalism career. I began as, almost as a teenager in the newsroom of the Baltimore Sun in the late 1970’s. I was there for about 25 years. I wrote about Italian Americans very often and often those stories featured my family members. Ah, and then I wrote for Hollywood and an HBO show called “The Wire.” And now I’m back to writing books as I said in the, this morning I was writing at the table where my Italian grandmother would make that little volcano of flour and crack the eggs in the middle, and I was not much taller than the table itself and would watch her and help her.

  Francesca: It’s really amazing listening to all of that. I myself am half-Peruvian, half-Italian American, and I have the same name as your grandmother. [laughter]

  Rafael: [laughter]

  Francesca: Um, named after my grandfather, which I guess is a very Italian thing to do, to name your children after your parents.

  Rafael: Yeah, I’m named after my Spanish grandfather, my son is named after my father and it’s been that way for about six generations.

  Francesca: Yeah, it’s the tradition. It’s definitely the tradition. Thank you so much for taking the time out to talk about Italian Americans and Italian immigration. Could you tell me a little bit about the immigraiton history of Italians coming into Baltimore?

  Rafael: Well, a lot of people don’t know this, but Baltimore was the second largest point of immigration on the east coast, only to Elis Island. And the Italians arrived in large numbers often from the southern part of Italy in the late 19th century, and they were preceded, the greatest number of immigrants were German, and they preceded the Italians in the mid-19th century. And then the Italians, and the Eastern Europeans, the Poles, of which my mother’s family are, was in the late-19th century, maybe beginning around the 1880’s. And like many immigrants, they didn’t go far from where the ship landed. So the original Little Italy in Baltimore is just to the east of what most folks know as Baltimore Inner Harbor, our tourist area which in the old days it wasn’t tourist at all, it was hardcore shipping industry, warehouses, docks, watermelon barges, things of that sort. And Baltimore’s Little Italy was actually a very small Jewish neighborhood just prior to the Italians landing. And most of the ethnic groups would hopscotch around. When they would arrive, they would, ah, typically move in with a relative who was already here. You know squeeze into the house, and then as things improved naturally they would want something a little better, a little larger, more space. The Jewish folks didn’t stay in what we know now as Little Italy all that long, and it was quickly established as, ah, it’s still there as our Little Italy. Sadly no one, Francesca, is-is really raising kids there anymore. It sort of died out as a place where families raised children and sent their kids to the parish school in the mid-1970’s. Now it’s become an expansion of the Inner Harbor, as a tourist destination for restaurants and boutiques. What-what fascinates me about a lot of the Italians here is when they were building the Inner Harbor, back, late 70’s early 80’s, the very suspicious and skeptical Italian mindset was that it was going to destroy the restaurant trade in Little Italy. And-and it’s done exactly the opposite, it’s been a boom. What has suffers is not the, not the businesses and the restaurants, what has suffered is, ah, the neighborhood as a real neighborhood. It’s almost like an Italian Little Disneyworld now, and because, you know, we’re now from the late 19th century, ah hundred years forward, the Italians have spread throughout the city and mostly in the suburbs, they jumped out of the city of Baltimore altogether. And many of those ethnic groups that I’m speaking of, ah, have done the same. We tend to lose population by the year. Lately we’ve seen some of these descendants of the Italians come back as certain old neighborhoods are being gentrified.

  Francesca: That sounds very similar to what had happened to Little Italy in Manhattan in New York. So it’s interesting to hear similarities in-in Baltimore.

  Rafael: There are still families in Little Italy, but I bet the median age Francesca, is between 70 and 85.

  Francesca: Okay.

  Rafael: And sometimes the children stay and move in, but often the houses are, are bought by potential businesses.

  Francesca: So it’s becoming more of a business center than a residential—

  Rafael: It’s been that way, it, that’s been the trend for at least 40 years.

  Francesca: Okay, alright. Historically can you identify any other challenges that Italian immigrants faced coming to Baltimore?

  Rafael: Well, you know, I-I don’t have to tell you that, just look at what the Hispanic population is up against now in 2018 in terms of quote-unquote the Americans and how they feel about others coming into their country. Italians faced all of those challenges, they had to prove themselves. Ah, it was also, not only was Baltimore predominantly white back in the mid-19th century, it was predominantly Protestant. So the double whammy was quote unquote foreigners and-and Papists. You know they, part of the prejudice against them was that they are, their fealty would be to Rome, and by Rome I mean the Vatican, before it would be to the United States. And those immigrants worked very hard to quote unquote become American. I can give you an example, this is of my Spanish grandfather but this happened in the Italian families all the time. So, my name is Rafael, and my grandfather is Rafael with an “f,” Spanish spelling. And when he came here and got that job at the ship yards and fell in love with the Italian girl who became my grandmother, he decided it would be best to best known as Ralph. That made it easier for him to get along, and I swear to you Francesca, just about nine out of ten Ralphs that I meet in the United States are Italians named for their grandfather who was Rafael. And, I don’t know if that occurs anymore, it’s-it’s okay now to be ethnic, the Italians are accepted now. I mean look, people think spaghetti is American food. That’s how long they’ve been here, how well they’ve done, how entrenched they’ve become. I have dear friends of Italian ancestry who are very supportive of our current immigration policies, and I try to remind them, you know, how short is your memory? And then they’ll come back, “Well my,” you know they’ll always say the same thing, “My family did it the right way.” Well if you dig a little deep, there was a lot of deportations in Baltimore of Italians who quote unquote did not do it the right way. So I celebrate my Italian heritage, and I celebrate Italian Baltimore, but it pains me that so many of these folks seem to be playing the same game against current immigrants that was played against their ancestors when they first landed here.

  Francesca: One of the themes that’s been coming up having conversations with different folks about different immigrant groups and their history in the city of Baltimore, is that there’s a great deal of similarities that you can draw from those past experiences to experiences of modern day immigrant groups coming into America. So yeah, that makes sense that you would see the similarities as well.

  Rafael: It seems, and-and maybe three generations from now the current wave of Hispanics might feel the same way if the next wave comes from some other part of the world. But the American experience seems to be, you get in, you establish yourself, you get yours, you climb a little bit, and then you want to close the door on the next wave, and I find that very distressing.

  Francesca: I think that seems to be the historical pattern, not just for Baltimore, but for the United States in general. And so I do feel that compassion is really important, not just in this day and age, but always. So thank you for sharing, ah, what you, what you are reporting on and seeing. Before we close do you have any final thoughts or anecdotes on the Italian American experience in Baltimore?

  Rafael: I wish more descendants of the early immigrants would move back into the city and embrace what their forbearers worked so hard to establish. And I wish that anyone who within the last, within memory can trace their heritage back to a country other than the United States would be a little bit more open-minded about folks who are desperate for a better way of life in the 21st century.

  Francesca: Thank you so much.

  – Music Reprise –

  Peter: Wow that was a, some really great interviews you did, Francesca.

  Francesca: Thank you Peter, it was, it was really great to be able to talk to all of these people and learn all of these different stories of diaspora and immigration into Baltimore.

  Peter: Yeah, and I have to say I learned a lot, you know, just listening to the, to the interviews you did, you know, starting with Nick Fessenden—

  Francesca: Back in Episode 1.

  Peter: Yes, back in Episode 1, and I really was, you know, pretty-pretty amazed with Conor Donnan and the whole Irish history, and then you connected that with the African American history with Prof. Brewer, and you know just, he has an amazing handle on the history and it almost made me want to like go down there and take a class from him. Cause he’s, ah, really interesting. And then the, you know your final episode with Deborah Weiner and Rafael—

  Francesca: Mhmm.

  Peter: —Alvarez. I just felt like I learned so much and I-I really hope that the folks at the Baltimore Heritage Area are able to promote some of this that you’ve, ah, recorded, because I think it will really help tell their story, ah, in the heritage area.

  Francesca: Yeah, they, they approached us to create this resource, this podcast series of panelists sharing the city of Baltimore and Baltimore National Heritage Area’s history.

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: And it was, it was really amazing to just sit and listen and hear their stories and learn about even the similarities of each of the groups. Like, Germans, Irish, in both of those conversations there is mentions of the Know Nothing Party.

  Peter: Right, right.

  Francesca: And those types of negative sentiments against immigrants coming in. I think that each group coming into Baltimore faced challenges that were perhaps unique to their situation, but similar in that there was something that they had to, you know, kind of live through and work through to make a better life for their families.

  Peter: Yeah, yeah. I mean some of the things that really stick out, ah, when I was listening, ah, were the information about the Irish and how they were looked down upon and the Irish women, um, were always drawn as apes or something and you know, one of the things that Prof. Brewer was talking about was, I didn’t realize that Maryland was the second largest slave state in the nation. Um, but then, you know the whole information on how there were more freed blacks than enslaved blacks in Baltimore, and, you know, how that effected the city.

  Francesca: Yeah, it was unique, and in addition to Baltimore being this massive immigration hub, second to New York for the east coast, ah you then like, because it has this unique situation of having this massive freed black population, you know, Conor speaks to how the Irish working class was kind of pitted against freed blacks—

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: —When competing for jobs, and then Deborah in this episode kind of mentions how Jewish immigrants have the unique experience in Baltimore of interacting with this free black population; that was unique and specific to Baltimore compared to other immigration hubs on the East Coast.

  Peter: Yeah, yeah. I mean I think overall just the notion that, you know, lots of different people from lots of different places come in, you know, not just to our country but specifically Baltimore and created, you know a civilization here that we’re richer for because of, there was so much diversity of people coming in. Something that we really have to keep in our minds when we look at our country today and say hey we wouldn’t be the way we are now if it weren’t for this heritage. And I think, you know, that’s certainly something that reflects well on Baltimore Heritage Area as they promote this and tell-tell the stories that you’ve been able to record in these podcasts.

  Francesca: Yeah, I-I would also hope that people who have this heritage, um, immigration history going back to Baltimore, that they can feel pride in knowing, you know, what their ancestors and generations past were able to accomplish and achieve.

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: Not just for the city, but for the country.

  Peter: Yeah, yeah. It’s a really important, an important message. So thanks so much for doing this and I look forward to working through our next episodes in the future.

  Francesca: Yeah! Yeah, I look forward to it.

  Peter: Okay.

  – Outro Music –

  Francesca: For today’s episode we owe a special thank you to Baltimore National Heritage Area’s Director of Programs and Partnerships, Shauntee Daniels, who organized this panel of speakers.

  – Outro Music –

  Francesca: This podcast series is produced by the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office. Today’s episode was edited by myself and Volunteer Audio Engineer, Suzie Calarco. The episode’s music was performed by Suzie and Sam Wolf. Thanks for tuning in and have an amazing day.

  – Outro Music –

• 9. Conclusions & Thank You's

  
  

  In this episode, Peter and Francesca reflect on this season's podcast series, and try to thank as many people as possible.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS Northeast Region

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  – Intro Music –

  Francesca: In today’s episode, Peter and Francesca reflect on this last season of the podcast series, and also try to thank as many people as possible.

  – Intro Music –

  Peter: Francesca, we’re finishing up this season of podcasts. It’s been great. Just wanted to thank you so much for all you’re hard work. Um, we can do sort of a little recap of what we’ve been involved in this year, this last few months. Perhaps you can just reflect on some of the things you’ve learned?

  Francesca: Sure, sure. Thank you Peter! It’s been really fun working with the different heritage areas to kind of showcase their different best practices, or different elements that they feature, in terms of programming, ah, within their own heritage area. I think one thing that became really clear to me working with this program is that, because each heritage area grows from a grassroots effort within its own local community, each heritage area focuses on something kind of specific and unique. And I was really excited to learn about what was interesting and unique to the heritage areas we did work with in this, ah, year’s podcast series.

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: Ah, cause they’re, they’re quite, they’re quite different.

  Peter: That’s true. Um, we’ve always, always had a saying in the heritage area program that each one is-is entirely different. If you’ve gone to one, you haven’t gone to more than one.

  Francesca: [laughter]

  Peter: Ah, so, and I think, you know, just ah, some of the experiences you’ve had, you went up to, ah, Connecticut and Massachusetts to talk to the folks, ah, the Mastheads project in the Upper Housatonic Valley, and one thing I just want to, you know really, ah, praise you on is your ability to not only do the podcast but also put a, you know, a story up on the blog on tumblr, and then more recently when we started the Instagram account. Um, really put up a-a huge variety of photos, a lot of those have been associated with what you’d learned when you went on your trips for the podcasting, um.

  Francesca: Yeah.

  Peter: Yeah, so the, you know the Mastheads and then the, you know your adventures going up and talking to the folks at Erie Canalway with the Cycle the Canal, you know was really, really great reporting I think with your conversations with Andy Kitzman and the fellow from the—

  Francesca: Parks and Trails New York, Jaimie Merdink.

  Peter: Yeah, yeah. He was um, that’s-that’s a great project.

  Francesca: Yeah, I-I think I recorded the content for Upper Housatonic and the Mastheads, and then Cycle the Erie Canal in the same week, it was a lot of, it was a lot of fun just driving throughout New York State and then up into Massachusetts. There, Upper Housatonic, ah, Valley and the Erie Canalway are both beautiful, beautiful heritage areas, and I was really happy to drive there in summer time when everything was really lush and green.

  Peter: Yes, yeah. That was, that was a great opportunity. And then along the Schuylkill you got to ah go out in a kayak for the Pedal and Paddle event.

  Francesca: Yeah, it was my first time kayaking, ever.

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: It was, that was a lot of fun. And they’re the heritage area closest to our office so it was really great being able to work with them.

  Peter: Well and Tim Fenchel, ah, came to our office that one day. And we had our conversation with him that day.

  Francesca: Yeah, that was, that was exciting.

  Peter: Yeah, it was terrific. Um, and then the whole thing with the-the Underground Railroad museum at Niagara Falls, um, you know really great insights on the work that they’re doing.

  Francesca: Yeah, yeah. Ally and Saladin spoke very well. I’m glad that we were able to have like a phone conversation with them.

  Peter: You created three different podcasts with the—

  Francesca: Baltimore.

  Peter: —The work that you did in Baltimore.

  Francesca: Yeah, that was, that was a really exciting project, um, that we did with Baltimore National Heritage Area. That was really an idea from Shauntee Daniels there who approached us, she was so excited about it and then I was really excited to record the content and they just got a really great group of panelists to speak on behalf of these different immigrant groups and I’m really glad that, you know these other episodes we recorded the types of projects and programming that the heritage areas do either themselves or in partnership with other nonprofits, but those last three episodes were a resource that we created with a heritage area to provide educational content.

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: So, that was, that was also really exciting and a unique opportunity.

  Peter: Yeah. And I have to say that, you know I learned a lot listening to those ah, some of the experts that you interviewed had some amazing insights into immigration and different aspects of it. So really, ah, praise you for your hard work for that, um, and also the heritage area. Cause I know that, I believe you sat down with Shauntee when we had our Organizational Sustainability Training—

  Francesca: Yes.

  Peter: —In Baltimore which was, I don’t even remember when that was, I guess the beginning of the summer, when we first went down there we had a great, great group for that. Um.

  Francesca: Yeah.

  Peter: So, um, tell me are there things that, ah, you wished we had been able to cover? I know you ran out time here at the end of the summer here, were there other things you were thinking of doing?

  Francesca: In terms of podcast episodes, since the goal of mine was to create an educational resource with the podcast, but then also really shine a light on how heritage areas can work to help and benefit their communities, but in a way that is true to their own mission and to their unique focus. And so, we were able to work with I believe five heritage areas to create these episodes. Them being the Upper Housatonic Valley, Erie Canalway, ah, Niagara Falls, Schuylkill, and the Baltimore National Heritage Area.

  Peter: Right.

  Francesca: And so, if I would’ve wanted anything more it would’ve been to go into other heritage areas.

  Peter: We only have 15 left so.

  Francesca: In the Northeast Region. There are many more, I suppose throughout the United States.

  Peter: That’s right, that’s right.

  Francesca: So, I would hope that future episodes could maybe shine a light on the good work that those other heritage areas we didn’t get to record with this year, do. Because we—

  Peter: Some of those we did cover last year.

  Francesca: Yeah.

  Peter: So.

  Francesca: Yeah.

  Peter: But we still have a deficit, we need to reach out to a number of the heritage areas and, you know um, to the person who comes after you hopefully will be able to do some traveling and do some interviews as well. Or we’ll have people come in, maybe we can meet with them here in Philadelphia.

  Francesca: Yeah.

  Peter: So, you know I’m, I’m looking forward to, ah, next season after this. I know everyone will miss you and all the good work that you’ve been doing, um, over the past eight months or whatever it’s been. So, I really appreciate it.

  Francesca: That’s okay. If I was able to do good work, it’s because I was working with good people. And that includes every single person who sat down and spoke with me. Ah, if you sat down and spoke with me thank you so much for giving me your time and being generous in sharing your stories, I really appreciated that, the heritage areas. And then, I also need to thank our Volunteer Audio Engineer, Suzie.

  Peter: Right.

  Francesca: Ah, I edited, I guess the um, the spoken content, but it was her work, she’s an, ah, an Audio Engineer by trade, and has many years of experience, and she really was able to make everybody sound as best as they could possibly sound. So, I really owe her a huge thanks.

  Peter: Right, right, yeah. I’m, I ah, I’m glad that you were able to bring her along, um, to help, and as well as the music part.

  Francesca: Yeah, her and Sam Wolf, ah, recorded the music. She mixed it and finished all of the production and editing for it, and then she also was then able to intermix it into the podcast series.

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: And ah, they, they did a really good job.

  Peter: Right, yeah so ah, I’m hoping they’re still signed up for the next coming year here. Um, we’ll have to talk about that later offline. But um, yeah, really appreciate all your hard work and everybody else who’s been involved. So, thanks a lot.

  Francesca: Yeah, thank you for giving me this opportunity to, go out and learn things and, ah, that’s-that’s my favorite thing to do, learn things and—

  Peter: Yeah.

  Francesca: —Meet new people.

  Peter: Great, okay, you’re welcome.

  Francesca: [laughter]

  Peter: Okay, bye now.

  Francesca: Take care.

  – Outro Music –

  Francesca: This podcast series is produced by the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office. Today’s episode was edited by myself and Volunteer Audio Engineer, Suzie Calarco. The episode’s music was performed by Suzie and Sam Wolf. Thanks for tuning in and have an amazing day.

  – Outro Music –

• 10. Bonus - NHA Podcast Theme Music

  
  

  Produced by Suzie Calarco (Volunteer Audio Engineer) Performed by Suzie Calarco and Sam Wolf.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS Northeast Region

  Date created:

  10/14/2020