The Hometown Teams Exhibit & Upcoming Events

Field of Dreams: Home Grown History

The Maryland Humanities Council's Museum on Main Street program, in coordination with the Smithsonian has  selected Galesville to host an exhibition in the summer of 2015 titled: Hometown Teams: How Sports Shaped America.

In anticipation of this exhibit, and to expand upon the local story of Galesville heritage, the community is forming partnerships with various community groups, schools, non-profit organizations, and local government to celebrate and promote rich history and unique characters found throughout the village of Galesville.

The Field of Dreams: Home Grown History project will increase awareness of the history of Galesville, promote heritage tourism to the town, garner local interest and support, and ultimately help to preserve the community and enhance the appreciation and stewardship of the town's cultural, historic and natural resources.

Following are just a few of the projects planned over the next 2 years! Keep in touch and join us for these exciting programs!

Visit our Events Page or our acebook page to learn more!

 

FALL 2014:Hometown Heroes History Community Quilt

The Galesville Community Center will work with the South River High School and the community of Galesville to create a documentary story quilt about the Hot Sox Negro League Baseball Field in Galesville, Maryland. The documentary story quilt project will utilize research and oral histories of Hot Sox ballplayers being conducted by South River high school students in the Winter/Spring of 2014 and resources from the Galesville Heritage Museum as the basis of this quilt.  Quilt workshop sessions will be open to the public at no charge.

This historic ball field was home to the Hot Sox from 1928 until the team disbanded in 1977; baseball games are still played on the field today. Games drew crowds numbering in the hundreds to watch.  Hot Sox ballgames were a major community recreational activity for the hardworking Galesville African-American community, with the majority of the players being employed as watermen by the Woodfield Fish & Oyster Company. Games were accompanied by food, including hotdogs, fried fish, fried chicken, potato salad, prepared by the spouses of the ballplayers.  The park was included on the "barnstorming" circuit and visited by numbers of Negro League players, some of whom eventually played for the major leagues once they were integrated after 1947, such as Joe Black, Jim Gilliam, Leon Day, and Larry Doby . 

Some of the local boys also tired out for major league teams, including Chester Turner, who tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1958, and John Makell Jr., who signed with the Orioles in 1955. The baseball field is located on land recently acquired by the Anne Arundel County from descendants of Henry Wilson.  Henry Wilson, a former slave who was manumitted in 1828, was the first African-American landowner in the town of Galesville and set the precedence for other African Americans to acquire land and settle in the community.  Wilson's wife, Catharine 'Kitty' Neale, was manumitted by James Cheston Jr. of "Ivy Neck" in 1844. Wilson acquired his first two acres of the property in 1865, just after the Maryland Emancipation Proclamation, and about five years later an additional track of 25.5 acres in 1871. He built a house on the property about 1871, which remains today. 

 

 

Anne Arundel County Public School's STEM Community Challenge program

With the support of Anne Arundel County Public Schools, 11^th graders at South River High School will be working 3 hours every other day through the Winter/Spring 2014 researching Galesville Hot Sox ballplayers, contacting former players, conducting oral histories with former players, and creating a final presentation incorporating their research and oral histories.  This project will provide information about Galesville, names of ball players, and most importantly will capture for the future first-hand information about the Hot Sox baseball team, games, community support, and the ball field.

� Anne Arundel County Planning and Zoning Cultural Resources Division

Anne Arundel County is now the steward of the Hot Sox Ballfield and is very supportive of this project and the larger community partnership project underway to connect the heritage resources within Galesville into a cohesive narrative, while engaging the local community and students with their local heritage. Anne Arundel County Planning and Zoning Cultural Resources Division will serve as the liaison with Anne Arundel County Government for this project, as well as provide assistance with gathering and interpreting the historical documentation, guidance, and professional oversight and technical assistance.

� The Galesville Heritage Museum will provide assistance with and access to their collections in order to acquire primary resources and information about Galesville, the Hot Sox Ballfield, and the Wilson House and property.

� Galesville Community Center will be the venue in which the quilt workshops will be held and be 'home base' in the summer of 2015 for the Smithsonian Institute's traveling exhibition, Hometown Teams: How Sports Shaped America. The South River high school students' research and oral histories and the Hot Sox quilt will be part of the required accompanying exhibit.

KEY PLAYERS

Dr. Joan M.E. Gaither, Documentary Story Quilter
 
Dr. Gaither is a native Baltimorean with a history of helping to integrate local schools and businesses during the Civil Rights Movement, receiving a B.S. degree from Morgan University (an historic Black College) in 1965 and her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1998. She is an active member in national, state, and local professional arts organizations, as well as familial, social, and spiritual communities. She joined the faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1996 where she models and mentors a holistic and child centered approach to art education. As an artist, her voice is informed by an interest in mixed media, fibers, and photographic images that allow close scrutiny of surfaces and metaphors for personal meaning. She has completed several documentary story quilts over the years that present deeply buried memories "unlayered" in fiber and mixed media to address issues of celebration, identity, protection, racism, and survival. Her process is reflective and requires interaction with the selections of fiber type, texture, color and objects of embellishment that then put gold threads of hope and celebration into her personal narrative art works.

 

Gertrude Makell, President, Galesville Community Center

Ms. Makell is the visionary leader and driving force behind the restoration of the GalesvilleRosenwald School on West Benning Road in Galesville. Thanks to her energy, commitment, and creativity, the Galesville Rosenwald School has been restored and converted into a vibrant space that will serve as a permanent home for the activities of the Galesville Community Center Organization. Her tenacity and vision for a new purpose for the old school, and the raising of more than $500,000 from community, county, and state funding sources made the renovation possible. Ms. Makell was awarded the 2010 Heritage Leadership Award from the Four Rivers Heritage Area.  Ms. Makell is now spearheading efforts to utilize the Galesville Community Center to provide education and services to the community.