Magic Wand: Aaron Sopher

In looking through some 1960’s and 1970’s Maryland Medical Journals, I recognized some of the sketches as having been done by local artist, Aaron Sopher. He was born in East Baltimore in 1905 and attended the Maryland Institute College of Art. He started his career as an illustrator for the Baltimore Sun and later went on to have his illustrations and cartoons featured in periodicals including The New Yorker.

He tended towards leftist politics and I read that Sopher “tended to infuse his drawings with moral undertones and often tried to depict influential movements of the time from the beatniks in the 1950s to the Vietnam protests a decade later…” Reading that, I understand this sketch, which appeared on the 1968 cover of the Maryland Medical Journal. The issue featured several stories on the Flower Power movement happening at that time, and included a now-hilarious article on “Hippie Talk: From Acid to Zap”.

A few years later, Sopher began illustrating the advertisements for Taylor Manor Hospital in Ellicott City, which was a rather swish mental hospital at the time.

In the summer of 1971, Sopher illustrated an article about being safe at the beach.

Then in 1973, there was this small illustration.

It’s certainly interesting to see an illustrator like Sopher in our Journal. I am now curious as to how it all came about.

Magic Wand: The Great Baltimore Fire

Surprisingly, there’s not much information about MedChi’s role after the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. At that point, our HQ was on Eutaw Street, well north of the where the fire raged. The northernmost point of the fire was Fayette Street.

When I was working on the Osler book, I found this passage:

In 1904, the Baltimore Fire wiped out a large part of the business part of the city, and with it, a lot of the rent-producing property belonging to the John Hopkins Hospital. Rockefeller was appealed to in the hope that he might tide over the period of curtailed income, and he finally decided to do so, but before one word came of his donation, Osler had written to the President of the Hospital Trustees, that he would be willing to turn over his salary of $5,000 a year for ten years to take care of the institution’s publications.

As I was looking through some Maryland Medical Journals from the early 1900’s, I found this.

And then a few issues later, this advertisement for the recently-opened Belvedere Hotel.

I wonder how many physicians were affected by this and whether MedChi played any significant role during the fire with medical care.

Magic Wand: Old Ads

Looking through the old journals, and I am talking 1800’s and early 1900’s, you find a range of amazing advertisements. Some of them seen completely insane in light of what we know now, and others are just peculiar. Here are a few I found recently.

I had to enlarge this image below because it’s completely crazy! There’s a man hovering above everything, someone who looks like they’re fishing, and someone who looks like they’re getting ready to walk on water.

Swimming – the beautiful art!

From the Magic Wand: Our Buildings

One thing that my magic wand makes so simple is scanning articles from old issues of the Maryland Medical Journals. Instead of lugging a year or two’s worth of magazines up to my office, I can just sit and leaf through them and scan them on the spot. So, I am launching a new series: From the Magic Wand!

In the 1990’s, there was a series of articles, mainly written by Joseph M. Miller, M.D., a retired surgeon. He covered myriad topics ranging from our building to our presidents. I have scanned a number of these pieces and will be presenting some of the more interesting ones.

This article is about all of the buildings where MedChi’s been housed. Funnily enough, while I was scanning this, a group came through and we talked about the buildings a bit.

I am trying to figure out what to do with everything I scan. Any ideas?

The Young Marcia

As I was looking through some of the Maryland Medical Journals from the late 1980’s, I stumbled across this lovely image of the young Marcia Noyes. I have another early image of her, maybe taken around the same time, since the dress is very similar in both.

If this was taken around the beginning of her career, it would have been just when she came to work for us. I’d love to find the original of this picture, so that the type on the reverse doesn’t bleed through.

My New Toy… uh, Tool!

On a fairly frequent basis I am asked to find a journal or book and scan a few pages of it for someone. While this at first read, sounds like a simple task, it’s fairly time consuming. Here’s the process:

1. Leave my office.
2. Go downstairs either to the Krause room, or to the Stacks.
3. For the Stacks, up four flights of stairs to find the book.
4. Back down four flights of stairs, across to “our side” of the building and then up a flight of stairs to my office.
5. Scan the book.
6. Repeat steps one, two, three and four.

I heard about a literal magic wand, and after some research, purchased one for the office. It’s actually a portable wand scanner! I just got it and it’s amazing. It can scan a page at either 300, 600 or 1200 dpi, and it’s portable, and has WiFi. When I have to go to the Stacks, I just take it along with me, scan the pages of the book that I need and voila! I am finished. I come back to the office, download the files and send them off.

One of the first things I scanned was a page from the Chronicles of Baltimore mentioning my multiple greats-grandmother, Ellen North Moale.

And then I got to work scanning in a series of articles from an old issue of the Maryland Medical Journal for a member. I can scan the pages either as a JPG or a PDF.

Just for fun, we tried scanning one of our paintings and were amazed at the detail which came out at just 300 dpi resolution! You can see every brush stroke.

I am thrilled at how much easier my magic wand is going to make my searches!