Civil War Summer Lecture Series

Stephen Recker is a collector of rare Antietam photographs and relics. Items from his collection can be seen on battlefield waysides and in the newly renovated museum at Antietam National Battlefield, as well as in new book, Rare Images of Antietam, and the Photographers Who Took Them.  Recker is a member of Antietam Battlefield Guides, a service he founded at Antietam National Battlefield. He produced Virtual Gettysburg, a critically acclaimed interactive Civil War battlefield tour; Antietam Artifacts, a CD-ROM with images of rare postcards from the Maryland Campaign of 1862.

He began his professional career as a lead guitarist, recording and touring with Al Stewart, the Spencer Davis Group, Mary Wells, and Tommy Chong, and as technician for Ringo Starr, Kiss, Diana Ross, and Madonna. In multimedia, he produced for Apple Computer, Adobe, and the Smithsonian, and was named a “Top 100 Producer” by AV Multimedia Producer Magazine. He is currently a Senior Web Developer at High Rock in Hagerstown, MD and is a graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music.

Soon after Alexander Gardner’s photographic wagons left the blood-strewn Antietam Battlefield, local photographers began taking images on the field. While much has been written about Gardner’s ‘death studies,’ little is known about these other early images.  Stephen Recker, has found over 600 of them, many unknown and unseen, and will use them to show how the battle happened and how the battlefield has changed over the years.

On Wednesday, July 27th  Stephen Recker will present his  Summer Lecture Series talk “Rare Images of Antietam” where he will discuss his efforts to collect, catalog, and interpret photographs of the Maryland Campaign of 1862 sites in his book,  “Rare Images of Antietam and the Photographers Who Took Them.”

Come join leading historians, Antietam Battlefield Guides, NPS volunteer interpreters and living history presenters as they discuss intriguing topics of the Maryland Campaign of 1862 and the Civil War during our Civil War Summer Lecture Series.

These Wednesday evening programs are free and open to the public. They will be held outdoors on the grounds of the Jacob Rohrbach Inn at 7:oo p.m. Feel free to bring a chair or blanket to sit around the event tent. In case of inclement weather talks will be moved to the Sharpsburg Christ Reformed United Church of Christ. Parking is available on Main and Hall Streets.
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