History research unearths gold mine of material in McDaniel archives

Associate Professor Qin Fang P’18, Ph.D. and her students are transcribing letters and diaries from McDaniel’s first two presidents. As they step into the past, they uncover previously overlooked ties between the college and Asia, and they find connections that transcend both time and distance.

The diary of McDaniel's first president, J.T. Ward, from the 1890s. — The diary of J. T. Ward, McDaniel College's first president.

Inside Hoover Library, history lies sleeping in the archives, waiting to be studied. As part of this year’s annual donor-funded Student-Faculty Collaborative Summer Research Program, some of that history is finally waking up. Associate Professor Qin Fang P’18, Ph.D. and her students — junior Savannah Marzullo and seniors Emerson Alberti-Ramirez and Casper Speno — are uncovering a gold mine of previously understudied material relating the college to Japan. They are bringing new life to letters and diaries handwritten by the first two presidents of McDaniel College (formerly Western Maryland College), James Thomas “J. T.” Ward and Thomas Hamilton “T. H.” Lewis.

“Students don’t have to go off campus to have these deep and meaningful experiences,” says Gwen Coddington, the McDaniel archivist providing access to the documents and artifacts for this project. “A lot of students think they have to go to the Smithsonian or the National Archives to do historical research, but these stories from Ward and Lewis are only a tiny portion of what we have in our archives here on campus.”

While Fang and her students don’t physically travel far to experience these archival materials, their research still takes them across the world. They transcribe diaries of Ward’s days in Westminster as he monitors the college for his son-in-law, Lewis, who writes letters from his time in Japan. While comparing the two simultaneous accounts — along with newspapers and other artifacts — the students find commonality between Asian history and McDaniel history, and the 1890s and 2026.

Keeping watch over the college here in Westminster, Ward — McDaniel’s first president from 1867-86 — filled his diaries with stories of completing seminary duties and caring for his family, including his daughter and Lewis’ wife, Mary, and her children. Meanwhile, Lewis — McDaniel’s president during this time in the 1890s — wrote letters from his travels in Hong Kong, China, India, and Japan. He was going global with recruitment by networking in Methodist communities overseas, using the college’s strong ties to the Methodist seminary.

A group of people gather around a table with historical artifacts on it. — (L-R) Professor Qin Fang and Archivist Gwen Coddington study T. H. Lewis' letters with Emerson Alberti-Ramirez and Savannah Marzullo.

“I am always trying to further my knowledge in Asian history,” says Marzullo. “It’s a topic that doesn’t get taught as much as American and European history, but I want to dive in to understand how our histories are all so intertwined, which was evident in this project.”

One of the most impressive pieces that the students have transcribed is a letter written by Lewis to another important figure in the college’s history, William Roberts McDaniel — Class of 1880, professor, administrator, trustee, parent, grandparent, and the college’s namesake. Dated Nov. 27, 1891, the letter unfurls on a massive, single sheet of rice paper. Floral watermarks smudge the page beneath Lewis’ tight, barely legible cursive. He describes “the most wonderful month of his life” in Japan and says he used this unique paper so that McDaniel could receive the letter “in true Japanese style.”

“This rice paper is made out of paddy rice stalk and is easy to preserve,” explains Fang, holding up the translucent sheet in the archives room. “Sometimes it can last thousands of years if you protect it very, very carefully.”

The delicate nature of this historic letter is not lost on Alberti-Ramirez. “I feel like I have to go out of my way to explain to my friends why this is so cool,” he says. “This is the actual paper, and you can see the authenticity of it. I’m getting to see it in person instead of just learning about it in a textbook or on a computer.”

Casper Speno studies the long letter written by T.H. Lewis. — Casper Speno studies the long letter written by T. H. Lewis to William Roberts McDaniel in 1891.

Before surviving over a century to live on in the McDaniel archives, the letter first survived the journey to Westminster from Nagoya, Japan, where Lewis worked with the local church and met potential students. But the college’s connections to Japan didn’t start there.

“A lot of the faculty and administration had boots in both camps and were involved both in the college and in Methodist foreign missions outreach,” says Coddington.

A McDaniel alum, Frederick “F. C.” Klein, Class of 1880, also traveled to Nagoya where he established Nagoya Gakuin University, which is still in operation today. He also recruited McDaniel’s first international student from Yokohoma, Japan, in 1890 — just one year before Lewis wrote the rice paper letter.

An illustration from a Japanese translation of the story of Samuel from the Bible, kept in the McDaniel archives. — One of the artifacts in the McDaniel archives: a 19th century Japanese publication of the story of Samuel from the Bible.

“Usually, when students think about Asia, it seems isolated and far away,” says Fang. “But more recently, I’ve had my students think about how Asia is related to them here in the United States. How can we think about Asia locally? I want them to know they can find these connections in local documents.”

For Marzullo — who has been working with the Carroll County Historical Society since her first year at McDaniel — and Speno, local history is at the forefront as they transcribe the diaries of J. T. Ward while he monitored the college and cared for his daughter and grandchildren in his son-in-law’s absence.

“It’s like an escape room,” says Speno. “It’s all a big puzzle, trying to figure out and put together this person’s life and understanding that this was an actual person. This was a life that he lived, this is what he desired, and this is what he dreamed about.”

A group of people discuss historical letters in the McDaniel archives. — (L-R) Qin Fang, Gwen Coddington, Emerson Alberti-Ramirez, and Savannah Marzullo discuss materials in the McDaniel archives.

One of the biggest challenges in transcribing both Ward’s diaries and Lewis’ letters was interpreting the cursive handwriting and 1890s grammar. “It felt like relearning English,” says Marzullo.

Through a blend of using modern transcription tools and copying entries by hand, the team gets an inside look into the daily thoughts and musings of McDaniel’s first president. They experience the days of caring for his “dear wife and daughter,” his home remedies for illness, his missionary work, and more. Word by word, a figure of the past becomes real in the present.

“For whatever reason, we have this idea that people from the past were completely different from us,” says Alberti-Ramirez. “But then you look at these documents and realize that there’s a human connection between the present and the past. We’re all the same at the end of the day. No matter the timeline, we care a lot about our immediate families and we crave connection with others.”

Historic diaries, letters, and newspaper clippings from the 19th century spread on a table. — Diaries, letters, and newspaper clippings preserved in the McDaniel archives.

The transcriptions created by Fang and her students will be combined into a digital collection to support further research into the transpacific flow of information in this era. Their hope is for more students to explore the archives and make new discoveries about McDaniel’s history.

“This kind of project strengthens McDaniel pride,” says Alberti-Ramirez. “Our school really emphasizes interpersonal connections. These diaries enforce the idea of creating community and show McDaniel’s foundation of creating interpersonal relationships. It helps students in the present be proud of that heritage.”