75th Anniversary of the Battle of Antietam.
In September 1937 Washington County, Maryland hosted the 75th anniversary
commemoration of the Battle of Antietam, also known as the Battle of
Sharpsburg. The celebration in the county resulted from a plan suggested by
Mark Mellor of the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company to celebrate the
settling of Washington County and establishment of Hagerstown. But with the
economic situation in the nation in 1935 the plans were postponed. They were
later combined with the anniversary of the Battle of Antietam to be a
celebration of the 75th anniversary of Antietam, the 200th anniversary of the
settling of Washington County and the 175th anniversary of the founding of
Hagerstown.
Archival collection, Town of Sharpsburg
The Hagerstown Chamber of Commerce, now the Hagerstown-Washington County
Chamber of Commerce, was most supportive of the endeavor. They hired a press
clipping firm to find coverage across the country. The Chamber recently gave
the scrapbook of clippings to the Western Maryland Room at the Washington
County Free Library, and the Friends of the Library there paid for the pages to
be digitized. The scrapbook is 72 pages of stories from 23 states and more than
320 newspapers. There are also cuttings from some company publications, for
example the B & O News and the C & P Transmitter.
The collection is a cross section of the coverage found in the newspapers of
that period. Writers from various states retold the battle, adding their own
particular emphasis, highlighting in some cases their own brave troops. Other
papers covered the veterans of the Civil War who were still alive seventy five
years after this battle and more than seventy years after the end of the war.
Twenty of the former combatants were reported to have attended the reenactment
of the battle. Still other papers covered the events in Hagerstown and
throughout the county; the pageant that told the history of Washington County;
the events at Fort Frederick, the Battlefield and the Antietam National
Cemetery; the guests, balls and fine dinners; and the festivities attended by
Miss Antietam and her court.
Many of the small town newspapers have been taken over by other companies or
have ceased publication. Only those with a clear copyright holder willing and
able to give permission have been included on this website. None of the stories
or photographs clearly marked as being produced by a press bureau has been
knowingly included.
Western Maryland Regional Library is grateful to the Hagerstown-Washington County
Chamber of Commerce for the use of the scrapbook of newspaper cuttings;
the Friends of the Washington County Free Library for their contribution
towards digitizing it; and the Washington County Historical Society and
the Town of Sharpsburg for use of photographs and other materials. Our
thanks too to all of the newspapers and companies who gave permission to use
the stories they printed. The images from the entire scrapbook are available at
the Western Maryland Room, and a list of all the newspapers included in the
scrapbook is included on this webpage.
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