Susan Cooke Soderberg is a public historian and free-lance writer living in Germantown, Maryland. After receiving a BA in Art History from the College of William and Mary, Susan worked as a docent at the National Gallery of Art, then took a fifteen year sabbatical to raise her three children before returning to school for a Masters degree in American Studies from George Washington University.
Susan's love of history began when she was a child growing up in historic "Colonial Williamsburg" in Virginia. Her pursuit of the underlying truth of America's past has led her to intensive research into the history of American traditions and the continuing evolution and assimilation of America's myriad cultures.
In 1999 Susan began working as a public historian with the Montgomery County Park and Planning Commission where she had trained guides, managed collections, created exhibits, and planned special events for Oakley Cabin, a historic slave cabin, and for a 1900 farmstead, and helped to create the Underground Railroad Experience trail in Sandy Spring. She retired from this position in 2008.
In the past thirty years Susan has been active in stimulating public interest in history by writing a weekly column on local history for a county-wide newspapers, lecturing at Montgomery College and for various groups and classes, serving on the Montgomery County Historic Preservation Commission, founding a local historical society, and creating historical signage. She has written several books on state and local history, as well as numerous scholarly articles. She was a researcher and consultant for the Emmy-award winning film, “Life in a War Zone: Montgomery County in the Civil War.”
Currently, she carries out free-lance historical research and writing, and is working on a biography of Josiah Henson, who was the model for Uncle Tom in the famous book. She is a speaker on the Germantown Historical Society “Speakers Bureau (germantownMDhistory.org),” an advisor for the King Farm Dairy Mooseum, is the President of the Germantown Historical Society (germantownMDhistory.org), and serves as a Commissioner on the Maryland Military Monuments Commission.
Books/articles:
A Guide to Civil War Sites in Maryland (White Mane Pub., Nov. 1998)
The Met: A History of the Metropolitan Branch of the B & O Railroad, 1998, updated & reprinted Jan. 2016.
Who Was Who of the Civil War Correspondents, 1996 (40 page pamphlet)
"The 19th Century General Store in Montgomery County, "The Montgomery County Story, Vol.39 #1
(Feb., 1996).
"Maryland's Civil War Monuments," The Historian, Vol. 58 #3 (Spr,1996)
Lest We Forget: A Guide to Civil War Monuments in Maryland, White Mane, 1995
"The Confederate Monument and its Symbolism,” The Montgomery County Story, Vol. 36 #3 (Aug., 1993).
A History of Germantown, Maryland, self-published, 1989 (more than 1,000 sold).
“George Atzerodt, The Reluctant Assassin,” The Montgomery County Story, Vol. 58, #1, Summer 2015.
“Maryland’s Civil War Monuments,” The Historian, Vol. 58 #3, Spring 1996.
“Interview with Dwight T. Pitcaithley,” The Historian, Vol. 62 #4, Summer 2000.
Read more
Read less
