Erin Spahr, Social Studies Teacher at Urbana Middle School and Stephanie Gomer, English Teacher at Poolesville High School, were named this year’s Maryland History Day Statewide Middle and High School Teacher of the Year, respectively. The teachers discuss the impact of Maryland History Day program on students. Erin Spahr, Social Studies Teacher at Urbana Middle School in Frederick, might not be teaching if not for a scheduling error. “I kind of landed in Mr. Holder’s class by accident,” the Maryland History Day Middle School Teacher of the Year said of meeting her own favorite social studies ..read more

We are delighted to announce the 2024 One Maryland One Book selection of What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy. The novel follows a cast of characters who are forced to endure the chaos of a strong earthquake. They realize that everything they thought was certain suddenly isn’t. Released by Tin House books in 2022, the novel was chosen by the Selection Committee under this year’s theme of Restorative Futures.   What Storm, What Thunder features a cast of loosely-connected characters in and around Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in the aftermath of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that s ..read more

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adeji-Brenyah What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy Behind You is The Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue How High We Go In the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu Noor by Nnedi Okorafor The World Doesn’t Require You: Stories by Rion Amilcar Scott The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara We’re thrilled to announce the Top Ten Titles for our 2024 One Maryland One Book program! Working from t ..read more

We spoke with Lia Atanat, our Maryland History Day Outreach & Professional Development Coordinator, about our new collaboration with tribal consultants and teachers in creating inquiry kits about the Indigenous history and culture of the land now known as Maryland. Q:  Could you quickly describe the inquiry kits for our readers? A: Sure! The inquiry kits are online sets of historical sources that all pertain to a certain, specific topic. We started creating them in 2016 with funding from a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources grant. The kits have proven to be useful for ..read more

Emily Ross joined Maryland Humanities as the Program Officer, Grants in June. She talks with us about what she’s looking forward to in her new position, what appeals to her about leading Maryland Humanities’ Hatza SHINE Grants Program, and more.   Join Emily at Virtual Q&A about the Hatza SHINE Grants today at 3 p.m.  Q: What made you decide to apply for the role of Program Officer, Grants? A: Sure. What originally drew me to the position was Maryland Humanities itself as an organization. I think it’s a fantastic organization and I’m a big believer in the value of humanities-base ..read more

The Maryland Center for the Book has selected two books as the “Great Reads from Great Places” for the 2023 National Book Festival of the Library of Congress. Each year, Maryland Humanities, as the Maryland Center for the Book Affiliate to the Library of Congress, selects two titles, one each for Adult Readers and Young Readers, to be featured and sold at the Festival’s bookstore as a representation of the state’s literary heritage or talent. The Adult Title is Kings of B’More by R. Eric Thomas. In Kings of B’more, Harrison and Linus’ adventurous weekend from Baltimore to DC and back, with it ..read more

Executive Director Lindsey Baker looks at how organizations can fight stagnancy and reflects on Vu Le’s latest Nonprofit AF blog post. I’m constantly holding policies and procedures up against the light to see how they could be better. Sometimes I feel like I’m back in the day of being a small museum Executive Director and creating exhibits each year by committee. Each year, we’d have volunteers who would write text, then edit their text once it was mocked-up and on the walls, putting post-it notes triumphantly over what they had already written. Trying to make it “just right”. This effort to ..read more

Image of Amaniyea Payne and the Mercy High School students, courtesy of Moving History Breai Mason-Campbell watched as the teen girls at Mercy High School took selfies wearing lapas—colorful West African skirts worn in dancing—and headdresses. Her colleague, Amaniyea Payne, choreographed the high school girls in a piece about Frederick Douglass, after Mason-Campbell and Payne joined them in watching a documentary created by a Mercy alumnus and looking at old photographs of him. (“This this man would have been a GQ model, I’m telling you,” she says as an aside.)  “They have such a sen ..read more

“What would it look like if we took steps daily to care for ourselves and our colleagues in the same way as we do for the objects in our care?” This winter, Executive Director Lindsey Baker gave the keynote at the Small Museum Association Conference. The conference theme: “Creating a Culture of Care.” She talks about her experience giving the address. Image courtesy of DLS Creative Many of my 20+ internships, fellowships, and part-time work gigs with small museums during my undergraduate and graduate school days were unpaid. I had to subsidize them working additional jobs. After receiving my M ..read more

Fourteen-year-old Saniya Pearson’s family wondered why they heard her yelling. “When we won nationals, I screamed so loud my family ran to my room concerned as to whether there was a fire!” Pearson explained to her family that her team received the Gold Medal in their category at the 2022 National History Day contest, and said family members “were proud, showering me with hugs and kisses.” Pearson, along with teammates Lillian Merrill and Aliyah Smith, earned second place in their category at the Maryland History Day State Contest before taking the Gold Medal at the National History Day Contes ..read more