Bringing the Past to Life

As you might know, if you’ve been a long-time reader of this blog, part of my job involves being the in-house historian at my office. We were founded in 1799, so we’ve got a huge archive and tons of amazing ephemera in our collections. We also have a ghost named Marcia, who lived and worked at our offices for 50 years – 1896-1946.

When we look at all of the old black and white photos, or old photographs of paintings in our collections, they seem so flat and lifeless, even if they include lots of people. In our minds, these aren't real people, because they don't look like the people we see every day.

But when you add color to the image, it instantly comes to life. I am the resident photoshop wizard, so have played around with colorizing some of our images here.

The first picture I did was our Marcia Crocker Noyes. We like to pose Marcia for the holidays, but when you've got a black and white Marcia on a bright sunny beach, it doesn't look right. So, she needed to be colorized. 

I went down to her old office, and tried to channel Marcia so I could figure out what colors her dress and cape were. I had to guess on some things, but overall, I am pretty happy with the result.

Next up was one of our early headquarters buildings. This was a lot more of a challenge, as it was on the second floor of the Emerald Hotel and Saloon. There were tons of advertisements, windows, brickwork and other details, so it was a perfect job for that odd not-quite-holiday day.

Finally, I played around with a group of physicians from the late 1800's. They're a dour bunch, clearly posing for the camera. I am not sure if that's a room at an early HQ building of ours, or a backdrop set. This is the original photo, which I desaturated to make it completely black and white.

Here’s a half-and-half version of it.

And here’s the fully colourized version.

I looked at old advertisements for men's clothing in the late 1800's to come up with the colors. I picked hair and eye colors based on closely looking at each of the men and making educated guesses. I have portraits of Drs. Chew and Donaldson, but Chew's hair is white, and Donaldson's hair is a close approximation to this. Here’s Dr. Chew in our portrait of him.

I realize that there are a lot of people who hate the idea of colorizing images, but it's not like the original people or places were in black and white. We are just giving them life again.

Elevenses

When I lived in the UK, at 11:00 every day, the whole place would take a break for tea, which was called “elevenses”. As an American who was used to working through lunch most days, this was a novelty! We also took an office-wide break at 3:00-ish for coffee.

This blog is your elevenses – a short break for light refreshment. Shockingly, this is my 11th year of blogging. I am as curious about things as I was 11 years ago when I sat down to write my first blog post.  In the early days, I wrote about John Derian, Scalamandre fabrics, tea, copper pots and pans and one of my favourite shops:V.V. Rouleaux, the amazing ribbon shop near Sloane Square in London.

So, you can see that the things I do and I write about are still as eclectic as ever! After spending several days down with a stomach bug, I did some exploring this weekend and discovered this gorgeous old pumping station in Baltimore. I should do a series of pictures about the pumping stations in Baltimore, as some are quite lovely!

January is already shaping up to be a busy month, with lots going on at work, including a quick refreshment of our largest room. We added trim and re-hung the painting collection, including a few gathered from other parts of the building. We still have a few things to do, but the improvement in this room is 100%!

While we were working on that, one of the workmen opened a display cabinet for me. I pondered how to open it for three years, and discovered that the panel of glass in front slides up and down, just like a guillotine! The cabinet holds what we call our “Napoleon Chest” and I will write about it later. But here’s just a sneak peek of what is inside!

Stay tuned!

Marcia, The Friendly Ghost

Have I told you that we have a ghost in our offices? Her name is Marcia Crocker Noyes and she worked for us for 50 years and lived in a penthouse apartment in our building!

She was quite extraordinary, starting as our librarian in her early 20’s, and working for us until she died in her 70’s. Marcia took our medical library from a sloppy and outdated collection of about 5,000 books to a top medical library of 65,000 volumes of medical books and journals, including some of the most valuable anatomy books in existance.

Her influence is still felt today in the legacy she left as one of the four founders of the Medical Library Association, where the highest award is given in her name.

On Wednesday, November 2, which is All Soul’s Day, we’re giving a lecture on Marcia’s life, featuring the Academic, the Ethereal and the Artistic. You can get more details here.

Dollhouses & Murder

About a year or so ago, I had the chance to visit the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore and see their fascinating collection of dollhouses… of a sort. Actually what I got to see were the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of 19 small dioramas handmade in the 1940’s in 1:12 inch scale.

The detail in these houses is extraordinary, and their creator, International Harvester heiress Francis Glessner Lee, handmade many of the pieces herself, having been taught the womanly arts of sewing, knitting and decoration as a young women. Pieces were knitted on straight pins, fabric was washed and dried dozens of times to creat the wear patterns, drawers open, cabinets are filled, and calendar pages are not only correct, but show the subsequent months.

All of this is a way of letting you know that my office is hosting a lecture on Wednesday, July 13 in Baltimore on the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Tickets are $5.00 per person and can be ordered here. Although the Nutshells won’t be there because they’re part of a permanent exhibition at the Medical Examiner’s office, there will be plenty of fascinating information and amazing images of them. For more information on the lecture, please check my MedChi Archives blog, here.

Photoshopping a Lecture

As I may have mentioned, I gave a lecture on Social Media for the Design/Decorating Profession last week. However, this week’s lecture could not be more polar opposite. Luckily, I am not the one actually giving the lecture, just producing it. But that’s taking loads of time. After next week, things get much better!

The lecture is at my office, which is the state’s medical society. We were founded in 1799, and have an extensive archive from which I draw much inspiration, as you’ve seen. This year’s history of medicine in Maryland lecture is Tales from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Sort of our own personal version of CSI.

As soon as we decided on the topic, I knew what image I’d use for the invitation. I had found it in our archives about a year ago, and scanned it for future use. Of course, I had to work some PhotoShop magic on it. Here’s the original-ish image.

It is from a 1903 anatomy class at the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine. If you look, you can see the year, as well as a small skull and crossbones.

The top line on the table is taken from a poem by William Knox: Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

The second line is from Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1, as Hamlet holds Yorick’s skull: To what base uses may we return, Horatio?

The third line has no attribution, but it is also seen on a 1901 photograph of an anatomy class, remarkably similar to our archival photograph, but with no identifying information.

I got rid of some of the writing so that I could include the event details. I did have to keep the bottom line because it fit so perfectly. I found a great font on DaFont that worked well with the period of the photograph.

In another iteration, I played with Photoshop and curled the corner, but I thought it was too cheezy. It actually looks better on a white background.

For the first image, which I am using on the program, I added a deckle-edge frame and did a drop shadow. I found some fun images from our archives to add to the inside of the program.

This lecture ought to be fascinating. I’ve already written about one of the things the speaker will talk about – the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Click here. Just as a tiny detail, Maryland is one of the only states that doesn’t have county coroners. We just have the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for Maryland, who handles deaths across the state.

Doors Open Baltimore 2015

When I lived in the UK, I attended the Doors Open London where a number of private buildings are open for a day or a weekend each year. When I became President of the Baltimore Architecture Foundation, we tried to do it here, but logistically it was too overwhelming for the few of us. Now that the BAF has re-affiliated with the AIA Baltimore Chapter, there are many more volunteers and much greater resources. So, a committee was formed, and for the second year, during Arch-tober, we’re presenting Doors Open Baltimore. This year’s theme is Undiscovered Baltimore.

Several dozen buildings in Baltimore will be open on Saturday, October 24th for tours and lectures. I am personally leading two tours of the 1909 purpose-built building where I work, the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Baltimore. Chirurgical is derived from the Latin work for surgical, and is pronounced with a hard CH sound.

Other buildings on the tour are Church & Company, an old church converted to an event space, which is just a few blocks from my house;

one of my personal favourite buildings, the McKim Free School;

the Duchess of Windsor Museum, housed in the home where Wallis Warfield Simpson lived as a child; and

the Lithuanian Hall, where the “Night of 100 Elvises” is held each December, and where I attended the AIA Design Awards party last week.

For a complete list of locations that are open, please click here. The event is free, but registration for specific tours is requested.

My New Toy… Er, Tool!

One of the parts of my job is managing our extensive archives, which date back to the late 1700’s when we were founded. As the in-house historian and archivist, as well as the curator of our art collection, I am frequently called upon to search through our medical journals, most of which are not digitized.

As simple as it sounds, it’s actually quite time-consuming. Our offices are actually two buildings which were both built in the early 1900’s, and then combined in the 1980’s. My office is the 4th and 5th windows from the right on the top floor of the building on the right.

Both of the buildings have 16-18 foot ceilings, resulting in double-height staircases. So when I need to hunt up a journal, I leave my office, walk down a double flight of stairs, across to the other building and then I either stop in the reading room (the Palladian windows in the building on the left), or head up four flights (single) to the Stacks.

Then once I find the item I need to scan, I head back down the stairs, across to my side of the building and back up the stairs to my office. Finally, I scan what I need and then repeat the process. Gawd forbid if I haven’t gotten the right volume, or the box I thought had the information I needed actually didn’t have it.

I recently heard about something called a wand-scanner, and started to investigate. After some research, I found exactly what I needed.

This wand is about 12 inches long, about an inch and a half wide and tall. It’s got built-in Wifi, a micro-card and can scan at 300, 600 or 1200 DPI. It is nothing short of amazing. Now when I go look for something, I can just take it along with me, find the pages I need, slide it along the page on its tiny rollers, and save the scan as either a JPG or a PDF in colour or black and white!

Here’s an old medical advert I scanned in – these old advertisements are so hilarious! And a bit scary at times.

The wand can scan up to about nine inches wide and 25 inches long. We decided to try it out and rolled it down one of our paintings! The detail is pretty good, and this is just at 300 DPI.

The model I bought is an Avision MiWand Mobile Handheld Scanner. It was about $70, which I think is a huge bargain, considering how much time it will save me. I call it my Magic Wand!

Work Project

In addition to being the Director of Development at my job, I am also the jack of all trades, mistress of none! I was assigned the job of refurbishing one of our meeting rooms a few months ago, and then researching some physicians in our archives. I never know what the next assignment will be. So when our CEO decided that we needed to perk up the 10 women’s and men’s rooms in our offices, I knew it would be a challenge.

Luckily, I remembered a stash of about 300 bookplates, dating from the 1700’s to the early 1900’s. I wrote about them here. I had scanned them a few months ago, so I had a head start on the project. These bookplates are about 3 x 4 inches, and they’re super detailed. It’s amazing when you think of the work that goes into engraving them!

The bookmarks hold lots of clues to their owners. Dr. Clark was obviously an outdoorsman, judging by the oar at the bottom of the engraving, and then on the left side a shotgun, and a fishing rod, which, if you follow it up, over and down, leads to a fish! There’s the obligatory skull, as well as a snake, and the year is 1906.

In Dr. Cullen’s plate, you see at the top, the outline of the dome at Johns Hopkins Hospital where he was a physician. Then you see him in his laboratory with his books, and you see the seals of the schools he was affiliated with. At the bottom is his camp in on a lake in Canada. This plate was engraved by the first professional medical illustrator and Dr. Cullen’s close friend, Max Brödel.

This bookplate is from Dr. Harvey W. Cushing, the father of style icon, Babe Paley. It was used by several members of Cushing’s family, as you can see in the initials on the sides. Each person wrote their own name in, along with the city and year. Dr. Cushing spent several years at Hopkins in Baltimore.

Of course, I do feel rather obligated to include this bookplate!

I want these plates to be very graphic in their look, so I am converting them all to black and white line drawings to bring them back to their most elemental look. Luckily, Photoshop has an action that does that in one or two clicks. A lot of the bookplates had discoloured over the years, so I thought having them a uniform black and white would be good. I am also cleaning up specks, and darkening the lines to make them a little more legible. Ikea has some very simple black frames, called Nyttja, and they come in an 11.75 x 15.75 inch size. I am having all of the bookplates printed at Staples using their Engineering prints service. I had a prototype run done last week and they came out perfectly. I just upload three at a time and they print them out for me to pick up. And for a 24x36 sheet, it’s about $4.00. Since I am having to do 40 of these, it’s a good way to go.

Wellcome Images

When I was in London last year, I frequently went by the Wellcome Collection’s building on Euston Road, and saw this massive sign hanging in front of their building advertising a year-long exhibition.

The Wellcome Trust, the London-based global charitable organization which owns the Wellcome Collection, has just made more than 100,000 images from their collections available on-line in high resolution. Wellcome Images is a medical picture library and the world's leading source of images on medicine and its history.Most of the images have been licensed under the Creative Commons act and are free to download and use.

The images range from manuscripts, paintings and etchings, to early photography and advertisements, the oldest being a 2000 year old Egyptian prescription on papyrus! Because the funds from the Wellcome Trust came from the pharmaceutical industry, their collection has a high concentration of medical images.

Each image has full reference information included.

It’s just fun to wander through the collection and see what’s available for your amusement! Click here to look! You’re welcome.

Bits & Pieces

I thought I’d do a wrap up of a couple of smaller stories today, instead of one longer one. Enjoy!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

My friends at Halcyon House Antiques are having a major sale this week. Sure they’ve done sales on this or that before, but they’ve never done a sale of everything in the store! They’ve cleaned out the closets, peeked under the stairs, searched the attic and brought everything they’d tucked away out in the open and now it’s on sale! Everything is 30-40% off – or make a reasonable offer and they might play along! Click on the link above for hours and location.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In a case of six degrees of Baltimore, one of my friends sent me the link to a gorgeous chair, and asked if I knew the person who designed the fabric, because she’s from Baltimore, and then a little later, someone asked me to write an article about the very same person – Liza Hathaway Matthews. Some of the top blogs have written about her and here she is, in my own back garden, and I didn’t know about her. Shame on me! Liza is an artist whose work is now being made into fabric and wallpaper. Two of her paintings are in a piece by Celerie Kemble in February’s House Beautiful. I am looking forward to meeting her and writing a piece about her, too!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A few months ago, I wrote about a project I was working on at my office. I showed you some of the before pictures of the room I was refreshing, but since that was one part of a six-part project, I never showed you the finished results!

Just to remind you what the room looked like before:

I have filled the bookcases with antique leather-bound books and other ephemera from our vast collections, so the room finally looks like what it was designed to be – a reading room.

The silver in the case above was found when we finally found the combination to an old safe and opened it one Friday afternoon. I have to tell you, my hands were shaking as I turned the dial for the final time and opened the massive door! I was pretty sure I’d find a skeleton in there!

The paint is Turtleback from C2 Paint, and it’s the most gorgeous paint! The painters told me a number of times how wonderful it was to work with and how beautifully it covered. Although these aren’t the best pictures, you can really see how the dark green paint really accentuates the beautiful millwork in the room. Before, it just disappeared.

The Reading Room again has the gravitas that it had lost for so many years while it was swathed in pink.

The final part of the project is matching up all of the museum labels with the 110 paintings we have scattered around our offices. Some bright spark pulled all of the plaques and plates off a few years ago, and I’ve spent the past year and a half trying to match up who’s who! You can follow along with my adventures matching paintings here.

What projects are you working on in the New Year?