The Museum opens to exhibit extensive works by Ruth Starr Rose (1887-1965) which chronicle a local African American Eastern Shore maritime community, Coppersville. Ruth Starr Rose focuses her art on its daily activities and the spiritual expressions.
Born in an abolitionist Wisconsin household, Rose moves with her family to Maryland’s Eastern Shore in 1906 where they become friends with local Black residents. After college, Rose spends summers among the Black watermen communities, becoming the first white painter to document African American lives in portraits and scenes of daily activities. She values spirituals as a source of her paintings, worships with her neighbors, and paints a mural for the church. In the 1930s when artistic depiction of Black folks is stereotypical and degrading, Starr’s remarkable paintings show a humane warmth and directness.
Coppersville boasts that it is the oldest extant free Black watermen’s community in the U.S.. The Hill Community, founded in 1788 in Easton, claims its status as the oldest free African American community still in existence. Another historic African American community, Unionville, is founded by Civil War veterans on land given by local Quakers.
