Christy Bergland is an artist and art therapist from Baltimore, Maryland, who lived and worked at the Woman’s Industrial Exchange in the 1970s. Christy’s mother, Dorothy Mower Bergland, and paternal grandmother, Alice Lloyd Pitts Bergland, also worked at the Woman’s Industrial Exchange prior to the 1970s and served on the board of managers. Her grandmother was from a colonial Eastern Shore family and attended the Southern Home School in Baltimore. Christy notes that she was very interested in helping to provide for women post-Civil War. Her great-grandmother, Ellen Lloyd Goldsborough Pitts, might also have been involved with the Exchange based on its opening in the 1880s and Pitts’ active participation in Baltimore society. Christy grew up coming to the Exchange with her family where they bought her dresses from the consignment shop and candy from the dessert counter.
Around 1973, Christy received permission from Mrs. Walters, the director of the WIE, to rent a studio on the 4th floor for about $38 a month. The monthly rent had remained at this cost from the 1940s, during World War II, and included the costs of water, heat, and electricity. In 1975, Christy began waitressing at the WIE and moved into an apartment on the 3rd floor, where she also moved her art studio, for $50 a month. She created artworks of employees like Wilhelmina “Miss Willy” Godwin, Mrs. Orphan, Miss Lydia, and doorman Clifford Tongue, some of which are stored upstairs in the Exchange’s building.
Sources:
“Interview with Christy Bergland.” Eliza Davis, April 24, 2023.
“The Literary Achievements of Alice Lloyd Pitts: Assumptions of Power through Rhetorical Identity Constructions.” Dr. Jane Greer, 2013.