Secret in the Walls: Hidden Letters Reveal Love, Lust, Scandal in 1920s Baltimore Society
May 15, 2024 at 11:16PMJoanna Meade moved into an old house in Baltimore’s Roland Park neighborhood. When they removed a wall during a bathroom renovation, they discovered a black tin box hidden among the plumbing. Inside, she found 67 “juicy turn-of-the-century love letters,” all except one postmarked 1920 or 1921. Tim Prudente and Stokely Baksh recount what Meade, her neighbors, and Baltimore Banner staff pieced together from the correspondence.
A woman in Waverly sent a newspaper article on Dr. Reynold Albrecht Spaeth. The zoologist and Johns Hopkins public health professor was ahead of his time, giving lectures on the merits of birth control and education for women factory workers. By 1920, he was 34 and already renowned in the field of immunology.
The love letters were to his wife, Edith.
What a sweet romance: an esteemed Hopkins scientist, whose research took him away from home, writing love letters back to his wife in Baltimore. Or so it seemed.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/05/15/secret-in-the-walls-hidden-letters-reveal-love-lust-scandal-in-1920s-baltimore-society/
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