Introduction

[Nick Redding] For historians, casual history nerds, and everyone in between, the Antietam Campaign has long been one of the most fascinating moments for the American Civil War. But few besides today’s guest, Kathleen Ernst, have approached the topic from the civilian perspective. Join us today as we discuss Kathleen’s book, Too Afraid to Cry, as well as her career as an author of historical fiction for all ages. This is PreserveCast.

From Preservation Maryland Studios in the historic podcast district in Baltimore, this is PreserveCast!

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[Nick Redding] This is Nick Redding and you are listening to PreserveCast. Today, we are joined by author and historian, Kathleen Ernst, who is going to be talking to us today about all things related to writing both fiction and non-fiction with regard to history, and also how you tell the stories of the battlefields here in Maryland, but perhaps, in a different way by focusing on the history of the civilians who lived in and around those fields. It is with distinct pleasure that we got to introduce Kathleen to PreserveCast. So thank you so much for joining us today.

[Kathleen Ernst] Oh, thank you for inviting me.

[NR] So Kathleen, I understand – we were talking a little bit before we got recording here – you’re joining us today from Wisconsin, but you grew up in Maryland?

[KE] Yes.

[NR] And so why don’t you give us some background? We love to get to know the people that we’re interviewing. How did you get into history? So what was the path that you followed?

[KE] I was quite lucky. As a young child, both of my parents valued books, and reading, and history; and so they made sure that we got lots of books in our hands, frequent trips to the library. And when they had time for a vacation, they almost always chose places with wonderful historic sites and museums to visit. My mom, who was a librarian, would look for historical fiction aimed at children. For example, if we were going to visit Colonial Williamsburg, she would look for historical fiction about Williamsburg or about children during that time and we’d read it together before the trip. So by the time we got to the actual landscape, it was already alive in my imagination, and obviously, that had a very profound effect on me.

[NR] Yeah. I guess that’s a pretty good argument for reading to your children.

[KE] Exactly, yes.

[NR] Because you created a career out of it. So how did that all happen? I mean, obviously, the love of history like we hear from a lot of people that we interview is sort of instilled at an early age. But how do you transition from loving history to becoming someone who spends her career writing about it?

[KE] It was not a real quick process for me. I knew when I was probably about nine or ten that, “Oh, this is something I want to do. If visiting these wonderful places and reading these wonderful books is so much fun, it would be even more fun if I could write my own stories and pick the places that I want to feature in the books.” So I was writing as a child and I practiced writing for many years before I got my first book contract. But I enjoyed the process so much that I just kept at it. I wrote my first novel twenty years before I got my first book contract.

[NR] Oh, wow. So now, did you… you got a degree in this? How did you study?

[KE] As an undergraduate, my major was actually in the forestry school at West Virginia University and I was learning about environmental education. But I took a lot of writing and a lot of history classes. And to me, that all worked together very well. Because if we’re thinking about people in the past, I think it’s very important to understand what kind of environment they were living in. So I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do as a career while I was practicing my writing, and then I happened to visit a historic site in Wisconsin that I thought did a really amazing job. It’s called Old World Wisconsin and there are over 50 buildings that have been moved from all over the state and restored on the site, which is within a state forest. So when you visit one of these old farmhouses, you can look out the window and a see kitchen garden, and then an old field, and then a prairie or woods, very evocative place. So I moved to Wisconsin to take a seasonal position at that museum, that outdoor museum, and here I am 30-some years later.

[NR] Wow, and so you’ve stayed in Wisconsin ever since?

[KE] I have. I have.

[NR] You wrote sort of the, I will call it, the seminal history of civilians in the Antietam Campaign while living in Wisconsin? Or did you come back to Maryland to do that?

[KE] It was primarily written here in Wisconsin. I worked on the research and writing for about twelve years. I came back to Maryland every year at least once for a couple of weeks, sometimes a little bit longer. So I did a lot of research here. Fortunately, there’s a fabulous library with a lot of good resources here in Wisconsin. And then on my trips East, I would do interviews and visit the local sites and things like that. So it was a very long process.

[NR] Yeah. Now I’ve already referenced it, obviously. And the book that we’re talking about, the first one that we want to talk about which is your non-fiction work, Too Afraid to Cry: Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign. That work takes a look at Antietam in a very fresh way when it was published. And how old is it now? It’s been –

[KE] Oh, maybe 12 years?

[KE] Okay. So it’s not really – in the grand scheme of Antietam historiography, not that old. But it takes a look at the impact of the Maryland campaign of 1862 in a different way. And looking at not the armies, although it certainly mentions them, but looking at how the lives of those there in Maryland were impacted by these two grand armies fighting it out in their farm fields. What drew you to writing that book? It’s a very specific way of looking at Antietam. What was the process of getting there?

[KE] I visited Western Maryland quite a bit as I was growing up. I attended a summer camp in the area, and then later on in high school and college, I worked there. So we would take campers every week over to the battlefield or we canoed through on Antietam Creek, and I really loved the battlefield and found it very interesting and took a lot of tours. And at that time, this would’ve been the 1970s and very early 1980s. There weren’t a lot of people who were paying much attention to social history as connected to military sites. So I’d be wandering over the battlefield and thinking about what the troops were doing, but then I’d see this beautiful farmhouse across the field and I think, “What happened to the people who were living there?” And Sharpsburg has a lot of old buildings too. Sharpsburg is a little village that the battlefield is right outside of. There are still buildings that have cannonball scars in them. And I’d wander the streets and think, “But what happened to the people living there when all these was going on?” So that’s really what started it.

[NR] And I guess like a lot of books, you try to answer the question by probably finding a book about it and there’s very little out there, right?

[KE] At that time, yeah, there really was almost nothing. There were a few published accounts of specific individuals or individual families that were sort of prominent in the area. But there wasn’t the kind of depth that I was looking for, so I decided to just kind of dig in to it and see what I could find and where the project would go.

[NR] So how does that process work and how long did it take from saying you were going to do this to actually… you’re holding it in your hand?

[KE] Probably 15 years total, I’d say. I went back to graduate school and did get a degree in history. Actually, history interpretation and education, looking at various ways to teach history besides classroom experiences. And I decided to do for my thesis just a smaller look at this topic, civilians in Maryland. And by this time, I was living in Wisconsin. And growing up in Maryland, the Civil War is all around you, the history is all around you. In Wisconsin, it’s a very different experience. There’s certainly many people that are interested in the war, but it’s not quite the same as having battlefields that you can visit frequently. So anyway, it started as my Master’s thesis and then by the time I finished that, I knew I really did have enough material to expand it into a book. And that was a question at the beginning of the project because so little work had been done in this area, and a number of the people that I talked to said, “Well, it’s a great idea but I don’t think you’re going to find very much.” And over time, obviously, I really was able to find quite a bit.

[NR] So how did you… I mean, just for someone who hasn’t read the book yet, and I would encourage them to go and get a copy of it, but how is it kind of divided up? How do you tell the story of those who witnessed this?

[KE] Well, the book itself does cover the whole war. Obviously, the main focus is on the 1862 campaign that culminated in the Battle of Antietam. It also included the battle of South Mountain. And Maryland’s role was so unique during the war. I had thought going into this project, what I’ve been taught in public schools in Maryland was that most of the Southern sentiment was on the East Coast and the southern part of the state and almost everyone in Western Maryland had Union sympathies, and that really was not the case. It was much more divided in Frederick and Washington County than I had realized when I started. So I really wanted to paint the full picture of what it was like for these people. Literally, Maryland, and especially that whole campaign, was really a micro cause of what was going on in the nation. But for these people, it was their neighbors that they sometimes couldn’t trust or were fearful of. I couldn’t just talk about the actual campaign without trying to paint the picture of what it was like to be living in Western Maryland during the war.

And I started at the Archives at Antietam, visiting local historical societies, the local history collection at the Washington County Library, and certainly started picking some little stories up here and there. I was able to talk with some elderly people in the Sharpsburg area who had stories that had come from their grandparents who lived through the war and so those stories came really just with one intermediary to the primary source, and that was very special. And then the bulk of my research, aside from that, and this is what I did a lot of in Wisconsin was I went through hundreds and hundreds of military accounts. Often, you can tell pretty quickly whether a soldier that participated in the Maryland Campaign, if they’re writing only about tactics in battles or if they’re actually a real storyteller. And some of the best anecdotes came from just little asides that the soldiers themselves recorded.

[NR] Yeah. I think because of your focus on using sort of these great stories, it ends up becoming the book itself. It also becomes sort of a grand story in itself, it almost reads like fiction –

[KE] Oh, yes, thank you!

[NR] – which I think is sort of the highest calling for non-fiction. But you read it and you’re like, “This can’t possibly be true.” And then you realize, “Wow, this is all true.”

[KE] Yeah.

[NR] So for someone who hasn’t read this, I mean there’s literally probably thousands of anecdotes in this book about what life was like then for these people who endured this. But do you have anything special or a memorable story that you’d want to share, one that really stands out?Something that’s worth mentioning as far as what’s encountered in the book?

[KE] Well, I do. I have a favorite. It actually contributed the title to the book. And I’m just going to read a very, very short quote, if I may. This is –

[NR] Absolutely.

[KE] This is a story of a woman who was alone with her children on the day of the battle. She was pregnant and they were down in their cellar in Sharpsburg, and they spent some time packing up what bandages and provision she could scare up in the cellar. And when the firing stopped about dusk, she led her kids out on the battlefield to try to provide some aid. And one of the little girls told the story late at night and this is what she wrote:

“There was a red haze from the sunset. The brick of the church was red. And as far as I could see, we’re suffering, crying, or dead men. Red, red, red. It was a red stew. I can remember my mother laboring with three big baskets and I holding her skirt, pulling a large bundle along the ground, and all of us, my brothers and sisters, too afraid to cry.”

I think it’s very difficult for us to even imagine, no matter how hard we try, what it was like. People went down in their cellars that day leaving the world that they knew. And when they opened their cellar doors, everything was just devastation. And for the children, it doesn’t surprise me that children who are very small, late in life, could remember very detailed events because it must have just been an incredible shock.

[NR] Yeah. It reminds me I did a – nothing compared to the work that you put together – but I did write a book on the Civil War experience in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, which is the other side of the river. And there’s a similar quote where she said it was like an awful dream. And they talk about this idea that, like you say, they left this one world and then, it was sort of the surreal world where they were too afraid to cry. It was an awful dream.

[KE] Yeah.

[NR] Well, anyway, you really have done tremendous service to this whole story. And I think it would be a good time for us now to take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to talk with you more about beyond this one book, why is it you think that people are drawn to these stories? And then, also talk a little bit about your pretty fabulous career in historical fiction and how you got involved in that, and how all that works. And so we’ll do that when we come right back here on PreserveCast.

Maryland: Mini-America

[Stephen Israel] Kathleen is one of the long list of great authors with ties to Maryland. Of those authors, few have stood the test of time nor captured the imagination of readers quite like Edgar Allan Poe. Poe remains known for his spooky Gothic tales like the “Tell-Tale Heart” or his poem, “The Raven,” as well as practically inventing the genre of the detective story with his fiction novels about C. Auguste Dupin.

Although born in Boston and raised in Richmond, Virginia, Poe spent a considerable period of his working life in Baltimore. Unfortunately for Poe, the popularity of his writing did not translate to financial success and he passed away after being found delirious, wandering the streets of Baltimore in 1849 at the age of 40. There are many traditions, mysteries, and myths surrounding Poe’s death. If ghosts are real, then Poe’s ghost has got to be one of the busiest of all time as there have been claimed of sightings everywhere from New York City to his old dorm room at the University of Virginia. But here in Baltimore, there’s one mystery that is a little more tangible and that is the mystery of the Poe Toaster.

For decades, an unknown man dressed in a black coat, black wide-brimmed hat, and a white scarf would visit the site of Poe’s original grave at the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore. This shadowy figure would enter the grounds late at night near midnight every January 19th, Poe’s birthday, and drink a toast to Poe’s memory leaving behind three red roses and an unfinished bottle of cognac. Occasionally, the toaster would leave a note along with the roses and the bottle. Through these notes and the fact that it has lasted at least 70 years, we can surmise that the toaster tradition has been passed through at least one generation. But apart from that, the identity of the toaster remains entirely unknown. Once, a 92-year-old man named Sam Porpora claimed to have started the tradition in the 1960s, but newspaper articles and other sources claim the tradition goes back at least to 1950. Regardless, the original line of Toasters seems to have come to a close as the last sighting was in 2009 on the bicentennial of Poe’s birth. For the last two years, a publicly anonymous individual working with the Maryland Historical Society, has continued the tradition, laying roses and cognac in the light of day in front of a crowd.

But, what’s that? [door knock] A gentle rap, rap, rapping upon my podcast door? [door creaking] I’ll get the door. You guys get back to PreserveCast.

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Do you have questions? We may have answers. If at any point during this podcast you’ve thought of a question that you have for us or maybe one of our guests, we’d love to hear about it. You can send an email to podcast@presmd.org, and we’ll try and answer it right here on the air on the next episode of PreserveCast.

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[NR] This is Nick Redding. You’re listening to PreserveCast. I’m joined by historian and author Kathleen Ernst, and before the break, we heard a really stirring passage from Kathleen’s book Too Afraid to Cry: Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign. And Kathleen shared with us that those who lived through this harrowing campaign, even if they were young children, left one world and entered another after this battle, which is a story that’s detailed excellently in her book. But beyond this one book that you’ve written, you’ve written a number of books. I mean, 26 different novels for young readers as well so you’ve done both fiction and non-fiction. I guess the one question I’d have for you first – and I have a lot about this – is are there a lot of differences between writing historical fiction and historical non-fiction? Is there more similarities than, perhaps, we would know?

[KE] From my perspective, I think there are more similarities than some people might suspect. My goal when I sit down to write a book, whether it’s non-fiction or fiction or for kids or adults, because history is my great passion, I hope to intrigue them in the story, and I hope to get them excited about the topic and possibly to even provoke them to want to go learn more or visit whatever historic site or places that I’m talking about. And it all comes down to storytelling, I think.

There are different kinds of non-fiction, which the world needs. My preference is to tell a good story, whether it’s non-fiction or fiction. So the only real detail that’s different is with non-fiction, obviously, I’m constrained by actual accounts that I find and things like that. And sometimes I find just little hints of stories documented in an archive or something, and if there’s not enough there that I can flesh it out, then that becomes good fodder for a novel. I could fill in the gaps.

[NR] Right. And so, I mean, obviously what you’re suggesting is that most of your historical fiction does sort of begin with a research process.

[KE] Absolutely. Yeah.

[NR] I mean, because when I was sort of reading your bio here, I mean, it’s pretty impressive. Give us a sense of the scale of the amount of historical fiction that you’ve written.

[KE] Oh, yes. It’s quite a bit. I have written 20 titles for American Girl and all of those are historical fiction. And I had the great privilege of writing for Tomorrow’s Historians, and seeing the kids excited about history and excited about the places in the books and writing is incredibly rewarding. I’ve written two non-fiction books, one other besides Too Afraid to Cry. The other is actually nonfiction about the immigrant experience here in Wisconsin, which is another topic that’s very dear to my heart. My other big project is that I write a mystery series for adults called The Chloe Ellefson Mysteries, and my main character is a curator at a historic site, and so I get her to different museums and historic sites in the Midwest. In each case, her knowledge of the past helps inform a present day murder. And in many of the books I also write a thread of historical fiction that is sort of braided with the first plot and that’s very satisfying for me, again, because I did work for the historical society here for twelve years, and there are going to be times where you don’t find all the information you’re looking for. And so, in fiction, I can flesh it out and tell stories so that the readers are a little bit more informed, perhaps, even than my sleuth is in that case.

[NR] Yeah. And I think, you mentioned the American Girl books, and for a generation that has been the gateway literature for people to enter the history field. I’m 30, and so I think I kind of fit that same generation, and I know many people who have said that that was the way in which they got involved in history. And then they went on to more serious pursuits and read the non-fiction, but it was that that captured their imagination, which I have to imagine feels pretty good knowing that you’ve brought hundreds, if not thousands, of people into the field of history. That’s pretty cool.

[KE] I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to touch so many children’s lives in that way. My most current book for American Girl, that came out a couple months ago, is a story about Felicity who is their Colonial Williamsburg character. And right before it came out there was a blog post written by someone who worked there, at Colonial Williamsburg, and the title was “We are the Felicity Generation.” And she talked about just what you were referencing, that there’s this whole era of girls that grew up reading these books and it really did trigger their interest in history and now many of them are working in the field. That’s fabulous.

[NR] Yeah. And I think it also – there’s a lot of conversations that, obviously, you’ve worked in history and then written about it. There’s a lot of conversations in this field about, “How are we going to engage the next generation?” And people… love to say, “Young people and millennials don’t care about history.” And I think you’ve proven that if you can give them a good story and you can wrap it in a certain way and capture their imagination, that that’s how you can do it. And every generation is going to need a different way of doing that, but in your case, it was just a darn good story that was able to do it. So I think that the answer to a lot of those questions and the cynics is found, I guess, in some of your work.

[KE] I hope so. And what makes stories so powerful is that they contain human emotions, and that way readers can connect with people who lived during the Civil War. You may not have any experience at anything like what the people are going through, but you know what fear feels like or joy or heartbreak. And most of us have been reading or hearing stories since we were very young. It’s a structure, the structure of the story is something that we take for granted, we’re very comfortable with. And it’s not the only way to reach readers or reach people, but I think it’s a very powerful one.

[NR] Yeah, and I think that’s what one of the things we were going to talk about is that both your fiction and your non-fiction, it’s all based on storytelling.

[KE] It is.

[NR] And so, do you think that people… what they find most interesting about it – maybe it’s not what they find most interesting, but is there sort of a comforting sense in being told a story? I mean it’s sort of a very base human experience, almost a cultural universal, that we tell stories.

[KE] I think so.

[NR] And I guess if you can do that in the written word, it’s a comforting thing, to be told a story and to be connected to your past. I mean, is that sort of in the experience that you found?

[KE] I think that you nailed it. It’s a structure that people are very comfortable with. It’s reassuring. It’s how they started making sense of the world as a child through books and through stories that they observed and that people told them. And with the material in Too Afraid to Cry, so much of it is sad and frightening. I think we can all imagine these were not people that chose to join an army and march off to war. These were people who were living their lives and the war came to them and exploded on their doorsteps. So with this story, we could all try to imagine ourselves what choices would we have made?

And because of the structure, I did to try to end the book on a hopeful and positive note. And even if readers didn’t think about that as they were reading, I think sort of instinctively you hope that this very difficult story, the big story of living in Maryland during the Civil War, that it will end on a hopeful note. And that’s what I tried to do to satisfy that expectation.

[NR] Yeah. And I think, though sadly kind of in a broader sense, this idea of civilians having to live through war, it may have been entered on a more positive note in Maryland, but it’s things that we see splashed across the headlines still to this day.

[KE] Yes. Absolutely.

[NR] Sort of taking the jump from history to the present day, you see it all across the world. Just in the past few weeks. We hear about refugees and people caught up in this. And so, I think in this sense it kind of brings it full circle, right? I mean, and it gives it a sense that this happened here. This happened to our people.

[KE] I think that’s an excellent point. I think it’s a safe way to investigate these horrible things, crimes against civilians in war. If you start by reading a book like Too Afraid to Cry and it’s done and over with, it’s in the past, it’s tragic, but there’s nothing that can be done about that now. And hopefully after reading a book like that, perhaps you might have a little different perspective or you might think a little more seriously about some of these ghastly stories that we’re seeing on the news.

[NR] I think it would be very difficult to read Too Afraid to Cry and not come out with a little bit more empathy, which is a good thing. So let me ask you kind of moving forward. You’ve written non-fiction about immigrant stories, about the Civil War. You’ve written a tremendous amount of fiction for both adults and then for young readers. And then, you just dropped on us that you’ve just released yet another American Girl book which is great, in the Felicity vein. So maybe you can influence the next generation. But what else can we expect? What are you working on now?

[KE] At this moment, I am working very hard on the next addition of my adult mystery series, The Chloe Ellefson books. I feel like all the work I’ve done up till now sort of has been pointing me at this mystery series because I get to explore themes and topics that I feel passionately about. And I have the great joy of introducing readers to some wonderful historic sites and museums. Places that I really would love it if they chose to visit and that’s often what happens. I hear from readers and book groups or families, “Oh, we read this book and then we decided to go see the museum.” I’m a full-time writer now, so I’m not actively supporting the historical society as an employee. So this is my way that I can do that.

[NR] Yeah. And are historic groups and organizations and sites fighting to get in your book? Do you get a lot of calls like, “Kathleen, please put me in your next book?”

[KE] I do, actually.

[NR] I bet, yeah.

[KE] I hear from historical societies or people that work at specific sites. And how cool is that, that they think it’s a wonderful thing? I always talk with the staff, of course, before I start a project. And people are, so far, have always been very excited.

[NR] Right. Because you are placing a murder in or about their historic site, right?

[KE] I am. Although, I do take some precautions. The series is actually set in the 1980s, which is when I started my museum career. And I did that, partly, because that’s the era that I know best as far as museum work. But also because people do have very personal connections to these museums and historic sites today, and I wanted to put a little space between my fictional murder and the place that they know and love today.

[NR] No. I like that, and I also love the idea that people are vying to get in this [laughter]. Maybe in the future, you could run a contest. Like submit your best reasons why –

[KE] Your favorite –

[NR] Yeah. Why your historic site should be the next location for one of these books.

[KE] That would be great fun.

[NR] Let me ask you this, as sort of we draw to the conclusion here. Normally we ask folks either their favorite building or their favorite place. And since you’re in Wisconsin, normally we say Maryland, but it can be broadly defined or it can be here in Maryland. If you have one, we’d love to know a place that you really love.

[KE] Well, I think probably my favorite place is Washington County and also Fredrick County, that’s where I spent the most time. It’s beautiful country. There are many old buildings that have been beautifully preserved and it’s just a very evocative region. Driving the back roads, or walking over the battlefield or meandering down Sharpsburg’s main street or Shepherdstown, it’s certainly true, too. It’s just really difficult not to think about all of the events that happened there and to wonder how we would have reacted, had we been living there at the time.

[NR] Yeah. I think when people talk about the power of place, you can go to that place and you can really feel it. It’s sort of similar to what you were describing with Old World Wisconsin and sort of the power of that place.

[KE] It’s very much the same. Yes. Yeah. And that’s very, very important, I think, for all of us. I chose to start my studies in environmental [education] because I really wanted to understand people’s relationship with the place and that’s really the foundation of everything else.

[NR] Yeah. Well, whatever you’ve done, it was a winning combination because it’s come together to produce some really tremendous literature. And we appreciate that and appreciate all you’ve done, and maybe, hopefully, someday in the future you’ll pick another Maryland topic to write on. Maybe Too Afraid to Cry wasn’t the last Maryland has heard from you –

[KE] I like that thought.

[NR] – in terms of literature.

[KE] I like that thought. [laughter]

[NR] Yeah. We like it, too. So if people wanted to get to know more about you, or they want to find out more about your books, or they want to order something, where would you direct them to?

[KE] Probably the first place to start is my website which is very easy to remember. It’s KathleenErnst.com. And that’s Kathleen with a K, K-A-T-H-L-E-E-N and my last name is E-R-N-S-T.

[NR] Awesome. And so they can find out information there and they can find all of you books and –

[KE] Yeah.

[NR] – find ways to order them?

[KE] I have a lot of information on my website. My husband and I have worked very hard on that to provide a lot of resources for readers that are either interested in trying one of the books or who have read one and would like some behind-the-scenes glimpses and stories. So that’s a great place to start.

[NR] Well, this has been wonderful. I’ve really had a great time talking with you, and I appreciate all that you’ve done to memorialize and remember a pretty important time in Maryland history and all the other work that you’ve done, particularly, that has inspired a generation of historians. We have you to thank for it so we really appreciate it.

[KE] Well, thank you for your kind words and for this lovely opportunity. I’m very honored.

Credits

You don’t need to open a history book to find us and available online from iTunes and the Google Play Store as well as our website: PresMD.org. This is PreserveCast.

This podcast was developed under a grant from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, a unit of the National Park Service. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Preservation Maryland and the Maryland Milestones Heritage Area and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the National Park Service or the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training.

This week’s episode was produced and engineered by Stephen Israel. Our executive producer is Aaron Marcavitch. Our theme music is performed by the band Pretty Gritty. You can learn more about them at their website: PrettyGrittyMusic.com, on Facebook, or on Twitter @PG_PrettyGritty.

To learn about Preservation Maryland or this week’s guests, visit: PreservationMaryland.org. While there, you can check out our blog and learn about what’s current in historic preservation. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, and Twitter @PreservationMD. And of course, a very special thank you to our listeners. Keep preserving!