2021 Maryland Preservation Awards Congratulations to the eleven recipients of the 2021 Maryland Preservation awards! Our virtual awards ceremony began on March 22, with a video featuring one awardee each day on MHT's Facebook page. The event runs through April 1.

AAHPP Webinars Open The FY2022 African American Heritage Preservation Program grant round begins April 1! The Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture and MHT will host three free, online webinars for prospective applicants. To learn more, please visit the program web page and sign up here.

Frieda's Cottage

By Peter Kurtze, Evaluation and Registration Administrator

Just in time for Women’s History Month, the National Park Service designated Frieda’s Cottage in Rockville as a National Historic Landmark, recognizing the national significance of Dr. Frieda Fromm-Reichmann (1889-1957), a psychiatrist who pioneered the psychoanalytic treatment of schizophrenia. In a field whose theoretical constructs had been developed by men, she was a transformative influence and a major figure in the emergence of a new approach to severe mental illness.

Dr. Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, image courtesy of Peerless Rockville

Dr. Frieda Fromm-Reichmann’s studies and practice in her native Germany brought her international recognition by 1935. That year, she fled the Nazi regime and emigrated to America, where she joined the staff of Chestnut Lodge in Rockville, which had become the premier center for the psychoanalytically-oriented treatment of schizophrenia.  Rather than viewing major mental illness as a disorder of the brain, this emerging American school of psychoanalysis traced the cause to a disorder of interpersonal relationships.  This profound reworking of basic psychoanalytic ideas radically redefined treatment protocols, transforming the roles of patient and therapist. Today interpersonal psychotherapy is not the primary approach in psychiatry practice -- rather, it is part of a broad variety of treatments, including pharmacotherapy.

Frieda's Cottage, image courtesy of Peerless Rockville

Frieda’s background and ideology meshed well with the approaches at Chestnut Lodge, and hospital leadership quickly recognized her value to the institution, making her the director of psychotherapy in 1936. The Lodge built the cottage as her residence and office, where she lived and received patients for two decades, developing and refining her technique for treating people suffering severe mental disorder. Her seminal work, Principles of Intensive Psychotherapy (1950), became essential reading for psychiatrists in training and remained in print for over sixty years.

The cottage’s high degree of integrity is a credit to Peerless Rockville. Supported in part by a Historic Preservation Capital Loan from MHT, they carried out a painstaking restoration in 2009 and continue to care for the property. To learn more about Frieda’s Cottage, you can read the full National Historic Landmark nomination here.

ICYMI: MHT and MHAA Annual Reports MHT and the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority have published annual reports for fiscal year 2020, highlighting wonderful projects related to archaeology, historic preservation, cultural heritage, and heritage tourism around the state. Find the MHT annual report here and the MHAA annual report here.

OUR HISTORY, OUR HERITAGE: BLOG ROUND-UP