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Friday, May 17, 2013

Turning Blindness to Good Advantage

Robert W. Coleman,
circa 1912
  Robert W. Coleman - A Baltimore City elementary school memorialized his name, and rightly so. The youngest of four children, he was born November 1876 in Washington, D.C. and raised by his mother when his father died.  At age 19, Robert made Baltimore his home.  He was blind not by birth but due to a gradual reduction to near full lack of vision by age 36 as a result of a baseball accident.  He saw his first three daughters, but not the last three.

  His personality would not allow him to feel sorry for himself, nor be stifled by a physical impediment.  A booklet by his oldest daughter stated, "Robert Coleman and the Association for the Handicapped," he imbibed a philosophy and determination to overcome any obstacle, believed in action, had faith in God, himself, and his fellow man.

  Shortly after losing his sight, around 1912, this spirit would carry him to learn the new trade and graduated in piano tuning from the Maryland Workshop for the Blind after 3 years of study.  Within a year, he begin taking on causes as an activist to a new community to which he had become a part of - the handicapped individuals of Baltimore.  According to the Afro-American newspaper obituary, "his sympathy was aroused for all of those persons who were physically or mentally handicapped."

The MD Association for
the Colored Blind
  In October 1913, he organized and then founded the Maryland Association for Colored Blind which, according to the organization's literature was "for the purpose of advancing the moral, religious, social and industrial development of Colored Adult Blind and to extend to them sympathy and brotherhood".  Further literature stated it was reorganized on May 3, 1925 as the Association of the Handicapped, Inc. which then also included "the blind, mute, feeble-minded, and crippled," although he preferred the termed "handicapped."

  For the Association's 25th anniversary, he elegantly communicated with the staff of then Maryland Governor Harry W. Nice toward a successful Proclamation of Negro Handicapped Week for the second week of May in 1936.

First Colored Directory of
Baltimore City
4th Edition, 1916
   During that same year, according to the book Baltimore, by Philip J. Merrill, he, his wife (originally Mary Ann Mason) and their six daughters worked by writing and proofreading in order to publish the First Colored Directory of Baltimore City for a period of 33 years.  The Referred to as "the blue book," according to the Archives of  Maryland, the directory was the first of its kind in the United States to highlight the biographies, trades, and companies of African-Americans - its main audience was the African-American community.

  Initially, the directories sold for 15 cents and Coleman published about 500 to 1,000 copies yearly.  There were listings of drug stores, doctors, dentists, and many other professions.  Of course, his Association of the Handicapped, Inc. was one of the many listings.  Merrill wrote that the directories became an annual Who's Who of black Baltimore professionals, complete with photographs and biographical write-ups as well as statistics and historical facts.

Robert W. Coleman
Photo Courtesy: Afro-American
Newspaper
  His wife (originally Mary Ann Mason) became the director of the Association for the Handicapped, Inc. when her husband died in 1946.  After his death, it became known as "The Robert W. Coleman Association for the Handicapped," which became primarily a scientific organization for the treatment of human beings and the conditions under which they live.  He is credited with beginning "sight-saving" classes in the schools, providing car transportation so handicapped children could attend school, and purchasing eyeglasses for the less fortunate.

  An Afro-American article which interviewed fellow citizens about notable citizens summed it up quite nicely, "Baltimore needs more men like Mr. Coleman, men who believe in unselfishly working together for the common good of our community."

(Sources: Afro-American newspaper; "Baltimore," by Philip J. Merrill)

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Baltimore’s Flower Mart – Roots from Civic Minds (1911)


This weekend, May 3 and 4, Baltimore will host what has been said to be America’s oldest garden show and it, the FlowerMart, will be 102 years old this go around.   While currently sponsored by the “Flower Mart at Mount Vernon, Ltd.”, a non-profit organization, the roots of this locally famous event can be traced to the ideas of some pretty impressive, civic-minded, early 20th Century women.

FlowerMart ad from
VisitMountVernon
  Baltimore at the time was well on the path of resurgence since the Great Fire of 1904, however there was no city plan with zoning protections, smoke permeated the air, and rebuilding took precedence over sanitization improvements that would have typified those of a modern city such as this.

  This was a city where by 1911, individual liberty trumped community welfare. The school system consisted of schools, many of which were built before the Civil War, needing upgrade and expansion to meet the expanding school-age population.   Overcrowding was leading to higher death rates, epidemics, and unhealthy supplies of food and staples, like milk. At this time, the population was composed of 20 percent African-American Baltimoreans who lived in some of the most deplorable of conditions.

Women's Civic League Seal
(ties to the Flower Mart location)
  To the rescue was the Women’s Civic League of Baltimore!!!  The Civic League was first organized in January 1911, the result of a meeting of six women who met in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Francis M. Jencks.  The By-Laws captured their noble purpose:
“To suggest, obtain, improve and promote desirable and proper living conditions in the City of Baltimore and its environs, or elsewhere in the State of Maryland, in respect to hygienic and sanitary matters, cleanliness, recreation, ornamentation, cultivation, the abatement of nuisances of every kind, and … whatsoever which may in any way effect the safety, health, or welfare of the people.”

  That first meeting determined that the League (and its Board of Directors, numbering 50) would be composed only of women, and Advisory Council of 55 men.  By 1916, they numbered 2,172 in membership.  They elected their first president; Mrs. Henry Barton Jacobs, and women on the first Board of Directors represented some of Baltimore’s most notable families. [The Frick family arrived around 1770 to Baltimore, had a family member on the first Baltimore City Council; the Gutmans and Hutzlers were two of Baltimore’s most well-known retailing families; and the Abell family were longtime owners of the Baltimore Sun]

  With thousands of members, they had a Committee to address just about everything, here is just a sampling:  Juniors Division, Milk, Health, Art, History, Citizenship, City Planning and Zoning, Civil Service, Education, and Home Garden Committee (to which we owe the idea of a Flower Market to be held around the Washington Monument as a means of raising funds for the work of the Committee, which originally as an idea in the mind of Miss Maria Manly).

Page from the Women's Civic
League membership brochure
  The women of the League, having much more time to spare on civic matters than the women of today, were able to claim an imposing list of achievements in Baltimore since its inception.  In 1911, the Home Garden Committee began the first flower mart, believed to be the first one in this country. In 1912, they asked the health department to abolish the sale of unbottled milk, publish milk scores, and set standards of bacteria for raw and pasteurized milk.

  As early as 1911, they called for inspections of smoke stack plants of the city that led to the Mayor appointing a Smoke Abatement Commission and inspector – a Smoke Abatement Ordinance was passed and signed in 1931. By 1945, an ordinance to prohibit the sale of wild rabbits, a source of tularemia, was supported. By 1955, the league drew up an ordinance that was passed by the City Council controlling the use of electric signs.
At the 1955 Flower Mart, the Red Rose was chosen by popular vote as the official flower of the City of Baltimore.  The helped bring about an Enoch Pratt branch library, cross-town service between North and East Baltimore, and many more successes.

  Within ten years just shy of a century of the Women’s Civic League, the Flower Mart was about to be cancelled for good due to the League’s dwindling membership, but you can read about how it survived even this challenge in a May 5, 2011 Baltimore Sun article.  So, as you experience the tradition this weekend,…remember and be thankful for the convictions and enthusiasm of some very special women from an earlier generation.

(Source: “History of the Women’s Civic League of Baltimore, 1911-1961", King Brothers Inc., and the Baltimore Sun)