The Maryland Historical Society was founded in 1844 by several gentlemen of Baltimore, and it seems to have continued as a gentleman's club to well into the twentieth century. Membership was rigid and the customary blackball box is still preserved in the museum; ladies were admitted in the 1890s. The members began collecting avidly as soon as the Society was formed, and through astute agreements inherited the Library Company of Baltimore's very fine book collection, but whether there were examples of sheet music in that collection is uncertain. An examination of the Society's records shows that gifts were almost always noted in the Council meetings, but there is no entry concerning sheet music acquisitions, and the first issue of The Star Spangled Banner by Carr of Baltimore has no provenance. Did a gentleman of Baltimore simply purchase it at Mr. Carr's store and then leave it with the Society soon after it was formed? There is no evidence that a sheet music collection of any proportion existed until the advent of Louis H. just before World War I. Mr. became Executive Secretary to the Peabody Institute in 1911 and Librarian in 1928, remaining there until his retirement in 1942. During this time he served as the chairman of Maryland Historical Society's Library Committee. Although no musician, he records how he found large sheet music collections in stores for a few cents, and for years he built up a collection of several thousand items, which he gave to the Society in the 1930s. It may occur to the reader that as librarian of a musical institution Mr. should have enlarged the Peabody's sheet music collection, but it is recorded that Mr. Dielman, although a fine and hardworking librarian for the Peabody, was to be found daily in the Society, supervising the clipping file (later named the Dielman Obituary File), and generally helping and encouraging the only member of the library staff. The Library Committee of the present day has a dozen bibliophiles and experts, and meetings are frequent with 90 percent attendance, as against the days of Mr. Dielman, when for over a decade in the 1930s the Library Committee minutes read, A meeting was held on-, with Mr.