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Typical Greenbelt homes c 1936, by FSA photographer Arthur Rothstein. Courtesy Library of Congress.
As you may have heard recently on WAMU 88.5′s program, Metro Connection, Greenbelt, Maryland, established in 1937 and built by the federal government as an experiment in modern town planning , turns 75 in 2012! A year-long series of events and activities are already underway. A kick-off event was held January 8, a lecture about the new Arcadia Images of America book on Greenbelt, 
was held on Tuesday, January 17, and next up are a screening of Three Brave Men, and a program co-sponsored by the Greenbelt Astronomy Club entitled, “75 Years of Stars.” A walk around Greenbelt’s three lakes is planned for April, as well as a symposium, “Sustaining Greenbelt’s Legacy.” Other signature events include cutting edge dance performances inside the Museum’s historic house at 10B Crescent by Alight Dance Theater in June, an address by James Roosevelt, Jr. in September and a gala dinner dance in October. 
For more information about these and other events, please visit the 75th Anniversary website.
To plan your visit to the Greenbelt Museum, which turns 25 years old in 2012, visit here. The Museum’s historic house is open by appointment only in January but will resume its regular Sunday hours beginning February 5, 2012. To support the preservation of this unique New Deal Community, join the Friends of the Greenbelt Museum, a non-profit dedicated to celebrating and sharing the history of Greenbelt, Maryland.
Join FOGM Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 7:30pm for our next lecture, a book talk by co-author Megan Searing Young about how she and co-author Jill Parsons St. John wrote and chose images for the new Arcadia book, Images of America: Greenbelt. The new book, released in November 2011, covers the early history of Greenbelt, Maryland right up to the present day. Produced as a project of the 75th Anniversary of Greenbelt, Maryland, the book is comprised of over 200 captioned photographs, many of which have never before beeen published.
Choosing the maps, photographs, and advertising images that comprise the book and distilling seventy-five years of historical information into captions was not an easy process for the authors. See some of the images from each of the seven chapters that the authors chose notto include and hear why or why not certain images made the cut.
Co-authors Jill Parsons St. John and Megan Searing Young pored over hundreds of Greenbelt photographs in writing Images of America: Greenbelt.
Chapters include: Planning a Greenbelt Town, Building Greenbelt, Greenbelt “Pioneers” Settle In, World War II and the 1940s, A Cooperative Buys the Town, Greenbelt Expands in the 1960s and 1970s, and the 1980s and Beyond. Books will be for sale at the event. For more information, contact Megan Searing Young, Greenbelt Museum Director at 301-507-6582 or greenbeltmuseum@gmail.com. Save the date for our next lecture scheduled for April 17, 2012, Greenbelt Maryland: Beyond the Iconic Legacy when we welcome Greenbelt scholars Isabelle Gournay and Mary Corbin Sies.
FOGM lectures are free and open to the public and take place in Room 201 of the Greenbelt Community Center, 15 Crescent Road, Greenbelt, MD 20770.
New Greenbelt book to be released November 21, 2011
Arcadia Images of America: Greenbelt, co-authored by former Greenbelt Museum curator, Jill Parsons St. John, and current curator, Megan Searing Young is scheduled to be released the week of November 21. Produced as a project of the 75th Anniversary of Greenbelt, Maryland, the book is comprised of over 200 captioned photographs, many of which have never before beeen published. The project provided an excellent opportunity to showcase the Greenbelt Museum’s extensive photo archive. Seven chapters cover Greenbelt’s history from its planning in the late 1930s right up to the present day. Chapters include: Planning a Greenbelt Town, Building Greenbelt, Greenbelt “Pioneers” Settle In, World War II and the 1940s, A Cooperative Buys the Town, Greenbelt Expands in the 1960s and 1970s, and the 1980s and Beyond. All proceeds benefit the Friends of the Greenbelt Museum.
The book can be pre-ordered from the Arcadia Publishing website, from Amazon.com or from the Greenbelt Museum shop in the visitor center at 10B Crescent Road, which is open Sundays from 1pm to 5pm. For holiday schedule click here http://greenbeltmuseum.org/tours/ Pick up your copy at the Greenbelt Museum’s Holiday Open House, 10B Crescent Road, Friday evening, December 2, from 6pm to 8pm following the City’s tree lighting.
The book will also be for sale at the Greenbelt Festival of Lights juried art and craft fair to be held December 3 and 4 in the Greenbelt Community Center, 15 Crescent Road, Greenbelt, MD. For more information about the book, please call 301-507-6582 or send an email to greenbeltmuseum@gmail.com
Greenbelt pioneer Bob Sommers (fifth from the right) and others celebrate at Waldrup's at the end of World War II. Greenbelt Museum Collection.
Do you love history? The New Deal? FDR & Eleanor? Modernist architecture? Wednesday, October 12, from 5pm to 7pm come by the New Deal Cafe in historic Greenbelt to mix and mingle with the Friends of the Greenbelt Museum. Come have some food, listen to some great music and enjoy specially priced beverages. Get to know a little bit more about what we do and see if you’d like to help us share our unique New Deal history! For more information, call 240-542-2064, or email greenbeltmuseumedu@gmail.com. The New Deal Café is located in Roosevelt Center, in historic Greenbelt, MD.
On October 18, 7:30pm, plan to attend the next Greenbelt Museum lecture when we give the floor to members of the 75th Anniversary Committee who’ll share what’s being planned for 2012—Greenbelt’s 75th anniversary year. 
Hear about the exciting events and activities which include the release of a new souvenir photograph book about Greenbelt, a symposium entitled Sustaining Greenbelt’s Legacy, a new exhibition on Greenbelt history, art exhibitions, a cutting edge dance performance, a three-lake walk, an address by James Roosevelt, a glamorous dinner dance gala in October, & more! 75th merchandise will also be for sale. For more information about the 75th Committee, visit www.greenbeltmd.gov/75. This event is free and will take place at the Greenbelt Community Center, Room 201, 15 Crescent Road, Greenbelt Maryland 20770.
Greenbelt's Labor Day Festival is a decades-long tradition. Festival-goers in the late 1950s gather around a booth in this photograph from the Museum's archives. Photograph by Paul Kasko.
Labor Day is a big deal in Greenbelt! Crowds start arriving Friday evening for carnival rides, booths selling hot dogs and funnel cakes, music and activities, and, of course, the parade on Labor Day itself. The town first began having a town festival over the Labor Day weekend in 1939, and although the Labor Day Festival as we know it today did not really begin (following WWII) until 1955, it has been going strong ever since. The Museum has been preparing for the big weekend for months now and is pleased to offer something new this year – free walking tours of the historic area of Greenbelt!
Join the Greenbelt Museum’s, Stephen Oetken, for a walking tour of historic Greenbelt. Visit and learn about all of the iconic sites including the Greenbelt Community Center and Roosevelt Center.
Greenbelt is best viewed from its interior walkways, join the Museum for free walking tours Labor Day weekend. Photograph by Megan Searing Young.
Travel the winding interior walkways to view our significant brick, block and frame homes. These tours are part of a pilot program and may be offered on some upcoming Sundays in the fall and spring (for a fee). Labor Day weekend tours are free, but require a ticket as space is limited. Tickets are available on a first come, first served basis at the Greenbelt Museum’s table on Information Day, Saturday September 3 in the RooseveltCenter, from 9:30 to 4pm. Walking tours will be given on Sunday, September 4 at 10 am and Monday, September 5 at 3pm.
Green from the Start t-shirts are for sale at the Museum house, come by to pick one up!
Also at the Greenbelt Museum’s table at Information Day in Roosevelt Center, on Saturday, September 3, we will be screening our new orientation film, come by and take a look. We will also offer a watercolor activity for kids. The Museum’s historic house will be open for free walk-throughs on Sunday, September 4, from 1-5pm and from 12-3pm on Monday immediately following the parade and the Museum exhibition, Green from the Start: A History of Gardening Greenbelt, is also on display in the Community Center.
We have also just completed the latest edition of the Museum newsletter, the Utopian. To access it, please click here Summer 2011 Greenbelt Museum Utopian
We hope to see you this weekend!
10B Crescent, the Greenbelt Museum's historic house will be closed on Sunday, August 28 as Hurricane Irene approaches.
Please note: the Greenbelt Museum’s historic house at 10B Crescent Road will be closed this Sunday, August 28. Normally, the house is open for tours on Sundays from 1pm to 5pm, but based on current predictions of Hurricane Irene’s path, we feel it is safer to keep the Museum closed. Today we are also in the process of removing some of the most valuable and fragile artifacts to keep them safe.
The Maryland Department of Planning’s Maryland Historical Trust sent out an email reminder yesterday urging cultural institutions to start assessing and preparing their sites, and we are heeding their advice. Their website features a hurricane preparedness and disaster recovery page with many useful links. http://mht.maryland.gov/hurricane.html
The Maryland Historical Trust site also has been collecting reports of damage to older and historic buildings in Maryland as a result of Tuesday’s earthquake, click http://mht.maryland.gov/earthquake.html for more information. Thankfully, here, neither the museum house nor the collections storage area in the Community Center were harmed in the earthquake.
The Museum house will be open for tours next Sunday, September 4, from 1pm to 5pm and immediately following the parade on Monday, September 5, from 12pm to 3pm. On both days, tours are free! The Friends of the Greenbelt Museum will also have a table at Information Day, stop by and say hello!
Friends of the Greenbelt Museum Preservation Evening
FOGM’s Preservation Evening, held July 19, both educated and entertained an audience of approximately 40 people who braved record-breaking heat to hear award-winning historic preservationist, Michael Leventhal, speak about the importance of Greenbelt’s historic homes. Leventhal spoke about the unique responsibilities of stewardship of historic properties and the importance of community discussion when major changes are being contemplated. Following his talk, attendees enjoyed cookies and lemonade by lantern light and walked through the Museum’s historic house. Thanks to everyone who attended and who helped to make the event a success!
Join FOGM for a Preservation Evening! In conjunction with the exhibition, Green from the Start: A History of Gardening in Greenbelt, the Museum has held a series lectures which featured topics related to gardening. The final event in our series, A Preservation Evening, will combine an old-fashioned garden party with an informative talk by historic preservationist Michael Leventhal about the architectural significance of the Museum’s historic cinderblock house. Join us at 7pm for this informal and educational evening. Parking is available across the street behind the public library.
Tuesday, July 19, 7pm Sip lemonade by lantern light while learning about the historic fabric of our community!
Our special guest will be historic preservationist Michael Leventhal, a winner of the 2011 Secretary of the Interior Historic Preservation Awards, recognizing outstanding contributions to the preservation of historic places.
"Provide for the Common Defense" bas relief by Lenore Thomas, 1937, Greenbelt, MD
…but long before it was established as such by the City of Greenbelt and the Prince George’s County Peace & Justice Coalition , Lenore Thomas, the sculptor whose work adorns the Greenbelt Community Center (formerly Center School) and Roosevelt Center, was making a statement about peace through her art. Thomas, who was employed by the Resettlement Administration, the Pubilc Works Administration and later by the Farm Security Administration, was allowed to choose her subject matter. 
For Center School, she chose to create bas reliefs which illustrate the preamble to the United States constitution, and one relief in particular bears a closer look.
“Provide for the Common Defense,” is panel comprised of a farming family to the left and soldiers to the right. The family includes a child, a mother holding a babe in arms, and a father whose shoulder abuts a line of stark, streamlined soldiers who stand in formation with faces barely visible, their mouths unseen, obscured and silenced by the guns they carry. The farm family significantly occupies more space within the frame, and, according to Thomas, the family group is “stalwart in their resistance to the robot-like group of marching soldiers. The crosses to the right of the soldiers symbolize the death left behind them.” This panel was supposed to symbolize “the resistance of the people to war.”
Though much more research needs to be done to determine Thomas’ political leanings, and the nature of her pacifism, the fact that she sculpted this panel on the eve of World War II, before anyone could imagine the devestation and loss of life that would result is remarkable.
Stay tuned for more information on Lenore Thomas, as the Museum is planning an exhibition about her work to open in 2014. Also, be sure to look for products featuring her work which are being developed by Greenbelt’s 75th Anniversary Committee and which will be sold to raise funds for the celebration.
Kitchen at 10B Crescent
Come to the Greenbelt Museum’s historic house at 10B Crescent Road on June 5th to celebrate Greenbelt Day weekend! Take a free tour of the Museum house which will have special hands-on items on display in each room, sip lemonade, and reflect on everything that makes Greenbelt great! Sunday, June 6, 2011 from 1-5pm. Free admission.
