Join us for upcoming History Conversations!
This week!

When the Stars Came to Gaithersburg: Remembering the Shady Grove Music Fair
With Ralph Buglass
Thursday, April 6 at 2:00 p.m.
For most of the 1960s and ’70s Gaithersburg was an entertainment mecca for the greater DC area. Shady Grove Music Fair—first under a big-top tent and then in a theater-in-the-round venue complete with a revolving stage—hosted Broadway hits and a wide variety of pop, rock and soul singers. Stars included Simon and Garfunkel, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Bette Midler, Duke Ellington and even the Jackson 5 for a full week with tickets starting at $4.75. After only 16 years, the curtain came down in 1978—but what a run!
Next week! - REWIND

Two Montgomery County Cooks: Recipes and Communities
With Claudia Kousoulas and Ellen Letourneau
Culinary history—recipes, cookbooks, what we ate, and how we ate—can reveal new understandings of community and culture. This talk and slide presentation explores cookbooks written a generation apart by Elizabeth Ellicott Lea and Maria Brooke Watkins, and how each collection of recipes reflects life in Montgomery County in their time. The talk is drawn from the speakers’ new book, A Culinary History of Montgomery County.
Last week!

Creating the Legacy: Women in Cryptology
with Jennifer Wilcox, National Cryptology Museum Director of Education
Women played a large, but rarely told, role in WWII cryptology. College women were recruited from math departments at universities around the country to learn cryptanalysis. Thousands of other women joining the Army and Navy were assigned to code work, operating machines that broke enemy codes or transmitted coded messages to Washington. This is their story.
If you have questions about accessing any of our programs, please contact Matt Gagle, Director of Programs.
History Happy Hour
Join us on Tuesday, April 11
Swing into spring with Montgomery History and join us for another History Happy Hour! Celebrate the start of another season with our staff, volunteers, and fellow history lovers for some seasonal socializing. Come see old friends and meet new ones.

We look forward to raising a glass to the past!

No R.S.V.P. necessary. Food and drink will be available for purchase.

Where: World of Beer, 196 E. Montgomery Ave #B, Rockville, MD 20850

When: Tuesday, April 11 at 5:00 p.m.
Preserved in our collection, this brown velvet hat dating from c. 1900 and featuring ostrich feathers on the brim is a modest example of the feathered hat craze of the late 1800s. Only a few decades after it was created, not only was hat use on the wane but so was ornamentation with feathers. The owner, Mary Pearson Hoff Dawson (1874-1944), was said by her granddaughter to be very fond of hats and always had a stylish one coordinated to each outfit. Mrs. Dawson, known as Polly, was a Pennsylvania heiress who married Harry A. Dawson in 1901. The couple built the home still standing at 301 West Montgomery Avenue in Rockville in 1913 and lived there until their deaths a few weeks apart in 1944.
What led to the decline of the ornamentation of hats with bird feathers?
The Lacey Act of 1900
Wildlife preservationists raising awareness of overhunting of birds
The rise of automobiles
All of the above
Answer from last week
Professional baseball began when the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first all-professional team in 1869. However, eight percent of you knew that the correct answer was not the Reds but the Braves. The board of directors for the Cincinnati Reds decided not to field a team in 1871 due to the high cost of salaries and the players moved on to teams in other cities. Members of that Cincinnati team went that year to Boston, where the team remained until 1952 when it moved to Milwaukee and continued playing as the Braves. In 1966 it moved one last time to Atlanta where the team name continues today. 
Have You Visited Our Newest Online Exhibit?
Share Your Family's Immigration Story
In 1850 less than 2% of Montgomery County’s population was foreign born and by 1960 it was almost 5%. Today, more than 35% of the county’s residents are foreign born and even more speak at least one language besides English.
 
How has Montgomery County become one of the most diverse counties in the United States? The answer lies in more than 200 years of immigration history and dozens of immigrant stories, featured in our online exhibit, developed in partnership with Montgomery College’s Department of Anthropology.
 
The common themes behind these experiences include stories of love, war, political upheaval, and the pursuit of higher education and career opportunities, as told by immigrants from Ukraine, Latvia, El Salvador, India, Palestine, China, Congo, Mexico, and many more. 
 
Explore—and share with the people in your life—the exhibit to learn more about the history of Montgomery County’s immigrant experience.

Acknowledging our rich history of immigration is central to understanding who we are today.
We want to include your immigration story!
Please contact us if you would like to share your own or your family's immigrant experience in Montgomery County.
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Help Bring History into the Digital Age
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We could not create the programs or events for our community without your generous support! Please consider making a gift to Montgomery History so that we may continue to share our local stories with all of Montgomery County.
 
We cannot do our work without your generous support, and we are so grateful for it.
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