Projects
The purpose of this archival site is to make further research possible. By transcribing manuscript documents to make them searchable, organizing geographical and biographical data, and making everything publicly accessible, the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore Archive is just a starting point for research on women in Baltimore, female authorship, and turn of the century American literary history. This page collects research projects completed by project team members.
Where They Lived
Based on dues records and membership notebooks, this map created by Clara Love shows the flourishing of Baltimore literary culture in the area northwest of the city center at the turn of the century, as well as growing networks of female authorship developed over the course of the Club’s first three decades in existence.
Katharine Pearson Woods, Metzerott, Shoemaker, and the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore
Katharine Pearson Woods was a notable member of the Club whose works touched on areas such as: socialism, labor, immigration, religion, and more. This project includes an annotated edition of Woods’s first novel, Metzerott, Shoemaker (1889), an online exhibit about Woods, additional resources for understanding Woods’ work, and resources documenting the reception of Metzerott.
Reading a Program
The WLCB printed programs for every one of their weekly meetings, which provide a succinct key to the planned events–if you know how to read them. This exhibit created by Clara Love takes you through a program from one of their most notable annual traditions–the WLCB’s Twelfth Night Celebration, held each year to celebrate the Epiphany– to provide a snapshot of what a meeting may have looked and sounded like.
Pedagogical Resources
The Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore Archive strives to make scholarship recovering the works and lives of Club members and the historical resources they created accessible to a wider audience. To meet that goal, the project team has created two lesson plans that can be used to explore areas critical to understanding the project: data visualizations and the research that underpins them as well as the often difficult process of finding information about Club members.