Crabtown, USA
Rafael Alvarez (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing)

It’s obvious from the start of Crabtown, USA that Alvarez lost his heart to Baltimore years ago—in fact, the title of his first chapter is “My Beloved,” and he’s not talking about a woman. Encased in these 441 pages is a love letter to his home city, though it’s far from a typical one. Alvarez—who has authored several books about his native neighborhood of Highlandtown, and made a national name for himself as a writer for The Wire—doesn’t just wax nostalgic in these essays about Charm City’s majesty, but finds poetry in her flaws and shortcomings. He writes about street drunks and the outcome of Bethlehem Steel’s departure with the same pen that he uses to offer odes to Joseph Conrad and Edgar Allan Poe. He transforms the seemingly ordinary into historical relics to be relished—the Baltimore hon, narrow alleys, even the humble deviled egg. And throughout, he sprinkles his experiences with characters who embody the true spirit of the city, from former rewrite colleagues at The Sun to a woman who played piano at neighborhood watering holes for most of her 86 years. Alvarez’s enthusiasm is contagious, and by the end, you’ll want to walk the harbor, or stroll the streets of Fells, just to soak up the essence of Charm City.

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Wild Women of Maryland
Lauren R. Silberman (The History Press)

One was known as the “limping lady,” a spy who stole secrets, despite having lost her lower left leg. Another led the movement for civil rights in Cambridge, enduring arrests and rioting in her quest for equality. And still another was among the first women to visit Antarctica, where she lived for a year in the 1940s during a research expedition. These are some of Silberman’s wild women of Maryland, dames who bucked the status quo to live lives of adventure, danger, and trailblazing. You’ve heard of some—Harriet Tubman, for instance, or Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor—but Silberman also shares stories of women who are missing from the often-male-dominated history books. These are women tried as witches during the 17th century, for example, as well as suffragettes and World War II-era female aviators. (Divine even makes an appearance.) Silberman, an author who is also deputy director for Historic London Town and Gardens in Edgewater, showcases their stories in well-researched detail. During Women’s History Month, this book is a good reminder for all of us, regardless of gender, that anything is possible when you stand out from the pack and live life on your own terms.

See our interview with writer Lauren B. Silberman.

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Knocking the Hustle
Lester K. Spence (Punctum Books)

You don’t have to look far in hip hop culture to find references to the “hustle”—the constant grind that is necessary to find success on the street, and in the music industry. But in Spence’s eyes, that mentality demonstrates an unfortunate turn in pop culture and politics. Instead of highlighting power and control, it shows “black men who are forced to work incessantly with no way out,” he writes. In his well-researched and enlightening book, Spence, an associate professor of political science and Africana studies at The Johns Hopkins University, argues that’s a consequence of a shift toward the neoliberal, which favors free-market capitalism. He says the move away from the structure and protection of unions and other workers rights groups, for example, is responsible for vast wage inequality, and has contributed to widening gaps in education and opportunities for blacks. Spence turns his microscope on Baltimore, as well as other urban areas, and his thought-provoking opinion is a welcome change in a debate where the arguments are tried and true.

Lauren Silberman’s book Wild Women of Maryland, which showcases fearless females who bucked the status quo, arrived just in time for Women’s History Month. Silberman, who in addition to being an author is deputy director for Historic London Town and Gardens in Edgewater, talked about the inspiration for the book and a few of her daunting dames.

What made you decide to write the book?
I have written a couple of other books, among them Wicked Baltimore: Charm City Sin and Scandal, and it was a really enjoyable experience. I really got a kick out of digging into those lesser-known stories and tales, and we have so many in this state. But it took some time to try and figure out what I wanted to do next . . . I was at Kensington’s book festival that’s in April each year and I met [another author] who had done a book called Wild Women of Washington, D.C. and I stopped in my tracks . . . I said [to the author], ‘Are you planning on doing one on Maryland? I can think of just off the top of my head some amazing, cool stories of women, and I’m sure there are so many I don’t even know exist yet’ . . . That very afternoon, I contacted my editor, and said ‘We have to do one. And it can’t just be a Baltimore book, there’s so many more women in this state.”

How did you pick whom to include?
I really was struck by the idea that it had to be someone who was not just trailblazing, and she certainly didn’t have to be someone whom we would revere today. The most important thing was that she had to be willing to go against societal expectations, and she had to have a really good story. There are some really fantastic women in our state’s history who are so many other superlatives, and there have been books about them . . . But to be a wild woman of Maryland, you had to be a bit of a daredevil. You had to have this quality that you were willing to risk something important. You couldn’t just be the first person to have done a new surgical procedure, for example, which is still notable, courageous, and important. But it’s not necessarily wild.

You broke down the characters, by categories—“So-Called Witches,” for example, and “Postmasters and Pencil Pushers.” How did you decide to take that approach?
I wasn’t sure who all would make it into the book. Wicked Baltimore had been chronological, and it didn’t take long to learn that chronological wasn’t going to work here. As I started to find women . . . themes began to emerge—women who were doing crazy things for their work, or being a part of war time, which brings out some of the most dangerous and daring stories. As I started to figure out who would be in the book, and make connections between the women, that’s when the categories really started to emerge. The hardest one was the very last chapter [Defying Expectation: Ladies Beyond Categorization]. These are women who aren’t bad women, or evil women, but they’re not exactly women we look up to as traditional role models, perhaps, like Wallis Simpson.

One of the women in that category was Divine. Was she someone you knew you wanted to include from the beginning?
I debated. The thought had occurred to me from the beginning. In the story, I mention the sculpture of Divine at the American Visionary Art Museum, which was my entry in learning about Divine. My very first trip to Baltimore 15 years ago was to AVAM, and there she stood. You couldn’t escape her, and she was amazing and fantastic. Ever since then, I was quite entranced. But I went back and forth, because she is a character because actor didn’t personally identify as a woman, though he was exploring sexuality and gender identity through the role.

You mentioned that you had some ideas of who would be included in the book. But what was your research process like for finding other women?
I am very fortunate that I have spent my entire career in museums because it’s given me a lot of great people to talk to. And we have a number of fantastic libraries in this state—the Maryland Room at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, they also have a great African-American history room there, the Maryland Historical Society. They also have librarians that specialize in these areas, so they are wonderful resources. Even occasionally I’d just Google some words, like ‘I wonder if there were any Maryland women who were involved with World War I?’ Once you start reading about some of them, there are breadcrumb trails you can follow.

It also seemed like you had a good range of stories. While some showcase significant trials and tribulations, others are about adventure, like Edith “Jackie” Ronne, who explored the Arctic in the 1940s.
I had some pretty strict criteria, like I wanted to make sure I had women from across the state and that I had women from a variety of time periods, so it wasn’t too heavy on any particular era. I wanted diversity, so it wasn’t just a story of one particular privilege. I would have liked to have some more, and I think if I would have focused more on the modern period I would have had more diversity.

It seems like this book is showcasing characters that aren’t always included in the history books, but perhaps should be.
Growing up in Tennessee, we spent a year on state history. And looking back, all the people I remember hearing about were male. I don’t remember hearing any female stories. One of the reasons I did want to do this book was to bring women’s stories to light, especially a lot of lesser-known women. Finding out about women like Virginia Hall, the fact that she became a spy during World War II is in itself cool enough, but the fact that she did it as a woman, and with only one leg is extraordinary, and you would never believe it unless you can see that it’s true. There’s so many stories like that I really wanted to make sure got told. The only one of these woman I would have known of growing up would have been Harriet Tubman. But I didn’t know the rest of her story. The fact that she rescued so many people would have been enough, but then, during the Civil War, she served as a spy, she served as a nurse, she launches a military campaign. Her story becomes more and more extraordinary as you come along and we don’t necessarily know about the rest of it.

Did you find any one particular story that surprised you, that had one of the most amazing stories you’d ever heard?
I’d have to go back to Virginia Hall again . . . but also Sarah Wilson, who was one of the colonial women who came here as a servant, and then ran away and pretended to be the sister of a queen and got away with it for a while. It’s so remarkable, and it makes you think about that as people, we often hear what we want to hear some times, and that someone could get away with that.