Maryland Historical Magazine • • ORlGrNAL BLOCK P Published Quarterly by the Museum and Library of Maryland History The Maryland Historical Society Summer 1989 /5-7-y THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY OFFICERS AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES, 1988-89 Samuel Hopkins, Chairman Brian B. Topping, President Bryson L. Cook, Secretary and Counsel Mrs. Charles W. Cole, Jr., Vice President E. Mason Hendrickson, Treasurer Mrs. David R. Owen, Vice President Leonard C. Crewe, Jr., Past President Walter D. Pinkard, Sr., Vice President J. Fife Symington, Jr., A. MacDonough Plant, Vice President Past Chairman of the Board Truman T. Semans, Vice President Together with those board members whose names are marked below with an asterisk, the persons above form the Society's Executive Committee H. Furlong Baldwin (1991) Jack Moseley (1989) Gary Black, Jr. (1992) John J. Neubauer, Jr. (1992) Clarence W. Blount (1990) James O. Olfeon, Anne Arundd Co. (1991) L. Patrick Deering (1991) Mrs. Price Phillips, Wonzster Co. (1991) Jerome Geckle (1991) J. Hurst Pumell, Jr., Kent Co. (1991) C. William GUchrist, Allegany Co. (1989) George M. Radcliffe (7989; Louis L. Goldstein, Calvert Co. (1991) Dennis F. Rasmussen (7990,) Kingdon Gould, Jr., Howard Co. (1989) Howard P. Rawlings (7992,) Benjamin H. Griswold, III (1991) Adrian P. Reed, Queen Anne's Co. (1991) Arthur J. Gutman(1991) G. Donald Riley, Jr., Carmll Co. (1991) Willard Hackerman (1991) John D. Schapiro* (1991) E. PhiUips Hathaway* (1991) Jacques T. Schlenger (1989) Louis G. Hecht (7989J Miss Dorothy Scott (1992) Michael Hoffberger ^989) Jess Joseph Smith, Jr., William S. James, Harford Co. (1991) Prince George's Co. (1991) Richard R. Kline,* Frederick Co. (1989) John T. Stinson (1989) Charles McC. Mathias (1990) Bernard C. Trueschler (1991) Robert G. Merrick, Jr. (1991) Thomas D. Washbume (1990) Milton H. Miller (1991) Dates note expiration of terms COUNCIL, 1988-89 George H. Callcott Charles E. McCarthy III Mrs. Charles W. Cole, Jr. James L. Nace P. McEvoy Cromwell Charles E. Scarlett III Alan N. Gamse Dorothy Mcllvain Scott Louis G. Hecht Mary Virginia Slaughter Mrs. Jay Katz W. Jackson Stenger Bayly Ellen Marks Mrs. J. Richard Thomas Barbara Wells Sarudy, Karen A. Stuart, Acting Director Library Director Jennifer F. Goldsborough, Judith Van Dyke, Chief Curator Education Director LAND xH /^V HISTORI SP VOLUME 84 SUMMER 1989 CONTENTS Dawn of the Daguerrean Era in Baltimore, 1839- 1849 101 by RossJ. Kelbaugh John Shaw Billings: Unsung Hero of Medicine at Johns Hopkins 119 by A. McGehee Harvey and Susan L. Ahrams Druid Hill Branch, Young Men's Christian Association: The First Hundred Years 135 by Dreck Spurlock Wilson Research Notes and Maryland Miscellany 147 Maryland History Bibliography, 1988: A Selected List, Peter H. Curtis and Anne S. K. Turkos, comps. Sources for Documenting Baltimore's Suburban Landscape, by Michael A. Grimes Book Reviews 169 Ekirch, Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718-1773, by Stephen Innes Bode, ed., The Editor, the Bluenose and the Prostitute: H. L. Mencken's History of the "Hatrack" Censorship Case, by Vincent Fitzpatrick Waesche, Crowning the Gravelly Hill: A History of the Roland Park-Guilford-Homeland District, by W. Edward Orser Kupperman, ed.. Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings, by W. Jeffrey Bolster Bailyn, The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction, and Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution, by Russell R. Menard Cunningham, The United States in 1800: Henry Adams Revisited, by Emory Evans Cunningham, In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson, and Mapp, Thomas Jefferson: A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity, by Constance B. Schulz Miller, et al., eds., The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family, vol. 2, Charles Willson Peale: The Artist as Museum Keeper, 1791-1810, by Milo M. Naeve McLanathan, Gilbert Stuart, by Lillian B. Miller Rosen, The Limits of Power: Great Fires and the Process of City Growth in America, by Joseph L. Arnold Brown, Migration and Politics: The Impact of Population Mobility on American Voting Behavior, by John W. Jef&ies ISSN-0025-4258 Copyright 1989 by the Maryland Historical Society. Published in March, June, September, and December. Second Class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland and at additional mailing offices; POSTMASTER please send address changes to the Maryland Historical Society, 201 West Monument Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201, which disclaims responsibility for statements, whether of fact or opinion, made by contributors. Composed and printed by The Sheridan Press, Hanover, Pennsylvania 17331. Books Received 188 News and Notices 190 Maryland Picture Puzzle 193 Editorial Board JOSEPH L. ARNOLD, University of Maryland, Baltimore County JEAN H. BAKER, Goucher College GEORGE H. CAIXCOTT, University of Maryland, College Park Lois GREEN CARR, St. Mary's City Commission CURTIS CARROLL DAVIS, Baltimore, Maryland RICHARD R. DUNCAN, Georgetown University BARBARA JEANNE FIELDS, Columbia Universiry ROBERT i. HALL, University of Maryland, Baltimore County JOHN HICHAM, Johns Hopkins University RONALD HOFFMAN, University of Maryland, College Park EDWARD C. PAPENFUSE, Maryland State Archives ROSALYN M. TERBORG-PENN, Morgan State University ROBERT J. BRUGGER, Editor ROBIN D. STRAHAN, Managing Editor Jo ANN E. ARGERSINGER, Book Review Editor MARY MANNK, Art Editor MELINDA K. FRIEND, Assistant Editor and Advertising Manager Editorial Assistants CHARLES BARKER, PATRICIA A. CRAMER, JANE GUSHING LANGE, AND NANCY D. WEST ZANOVA MICKENS, Cmulatim Manager Associate Editors JOHN B. WISEMAN JANE C. SWEEN Lou ROSE JOHN R. WENNERSTEN Frostburg Montgomery County Calvert County University of Maryland, State University Historical Society Historical Society Eastern Shore Editor's Comer Although every year marks the something-anniversary of some event, 1989 happens to bring with it several especially noteworthy celebrations. Our summer and fell numbers will focus attention on them. This issue, besides harking back four years to the centennial of the Druid Hill YMCA, will commemorate the sesquicentennial of the arrival of pho- tography in Baltimore and—with special pride—the centennial of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In these pages we also supply our regular bibliography of Maryland history, again the work of friends at the University of Maryland who have our thanks for the volunteered help. Cover design: Original block plan of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, by Frederick Gutekunst. From John Shaw Billings, Description of the Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1890). Dawn of the Daguerrean Em in Baltimore, 1839-1849 ROSS J. KELBAUGH Secure the shadow ere the substance fade, Let nature copy that which nature made.1 Advertisement for Jacob Skew's Daguerrean Gallery, 1847 On 23 March 1839 word of an "astonishing and marvellous" French discovery first appeared in a Baltimore newspaper. Few people in the city could have envi- sioned its impact. Louis Daguerre reportedly had developed a process by which "an exact pictorial image in light and shadow of any object" could be made on a silver plate by "means of a sort of camera obscura."2 Miraculously, even when reduced to an inch, a picture of a house showed roof tiles and window panes in microscopic perfection. Daguerre's discovery promised to record the moon and all of the world under it in such exacting detail. News of the daguerreotype, the first widely prac- ticed photographic medium, finally had reached Baltimore. The year 1989 thus marks the 150th anniversary of an advancement that forever changed how we see the world—photography. Several cities were major centers for early American photography, yet the role played by Baltimoreans, either permanent or transient, has not been explored in any great depth. Ironically an industry that recorded or illustrated the growth and development of others has itself not received the same study. It is fitting, then, to acknowledge some of the people and com- memorate the events that helped make the medium an integral part of the lives of Marylanders today. Artists had tried since earliest time to capture reality in all of its infinite detail, and after the sixteenth century the camera obscura, a device that reflected a scene onto paper for tracing, served as a limited tool in efforts to copy nature. Daguerre's invention humbled these attempts. Samuel F. B. Morse, the American artist and inventor, was in France at the time of Daguerre's revelation. He requested an audience both to demonstrate his own telegraph and to view the "Daguerrotipes." Daguerre agreed reluctantly, insisting that the images would not be seen again until the French government had decided whether to purchase the secrets of his discovery. The first American to view these marvels, Morse discussed them in a letter published in the New York Observer and reprinted in Baltimore's American and Commercial Daily Advertiser on 23 April 1839- He described the image as "produced on a metallic surface," the principal pieces about seven by five inches. "They re- sembled aquatint engravings," he reported, "for they are simple chiaroscuro and not in colors. But the exquisite minuteness of the delineation cannot be conceived. No Mr. Kelbaugh teaches American history at Catonsville High School and is author of the recently published Dmctory of Maryland Photographers. 1839-1900. 101 MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE VOL. 84, No. 2, SUMMER 1989 102 MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE painting or engraving can approach it." Morse, who arrived in New York on the same ship that bore his letter, said he had additional but confidential information about the discovery; he predicted that "it may not be long before we shall witness in this city the exhibition of such panoramas and portraits."3 On 19 August 1839, a day the world's scientific community anxiously awaited, a spokesman for the shy Daguerre revealed the secrets of making daguerreotypes to a combined meeting of the French Academies of Sciences and Fine Arts.