Join Us for Baltimore Heritage Night at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

The Meyerhoff Symphony Hall is turning 40 this year and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is shaking things up with a new conductor and a season of innovative music from around the world. To help the BSO usher in this new era, we hope you can join us for a Baltimore Heritage night on Saturday, June 3 to see Latin Fire.

Plan to arrive early on Saturday June 3 to celebrate Latinx heritage in the lobby with food for purchase from local food vendors, live music, and cultural performances! Also, BSO oboist and historian Michael Lisicky will chat with us before the show. 

Stay late on June 3rd for the final BSO Late Night Trivia of the season! BSO violist Helen Hess returns as your host to test your knowledge of Latinx influence on classical music and the history of our city, with an appearance from Baltimore Heritage’s Executive Director, John W. Hopkins. You’ll want to study up, because the first-place prize is a doozy – two tickets to the Season 23-24 Gala Celebration on Saturday September 22, 2023, featuring Music Director, Jonathon Heyward, and Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Use this link to the BSO’s website for tickets or enter the code BALTHERIT at checkout for the Baltimore Heritage 20% discount.

Here’s what the BSO says about the show:

The scintillating young conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez, already Principal Pops Conductor with the Nashville Symphony, makes his Baltimore Symphony Orchestra debut. Drawing on his Mexican-American heritage, in collaboration with the Costa Rican trumpeter Josè Sibaja and the Mexican soprano Mónica Abrego, Lopez-Yañez presents his own sparkling arrangements of Latin hits like “Tico-Tico no Fubá” along with classical gems rooted in the Spanish-speaking world, including a sultry suite from Bizet’s Carmen.

A Wonderful Evening at the Maryland Women’s Heritage Center

At Baltimore Heritage’s 2022 Preservation Celebration, the Maryland Women’s Heritage Center won a $500 microgrant to buy this tv screen! (Image courtesy of Kalin Thomas)

Last Thursday, the Maryland Women’s Heritage Center (formerly the Women’s Industrial Exchange) hosted Baltimore Heritage and friends for a fabulous behind-the-scenes evening. We got to see an array of artifacts (many of which were found on the second floor of the building, untouched for decades) and exhibits that show how the building continues to honor Maryland women. We saw the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame, which includes people like Margaret Brent, Pauli Murray, and Major General Linda Singh.

Pauli Murray, Civil Rights activist, advocate, legal scholar and theorist, author and – later in life – an Episcopal priest

We also viewed the Valiant Maryland Women: The Fight for Suffrage exhibit, which featured Baltimoreans Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Etta Maddox, and Augusta Chissell, among other Maryland women. Dr. Amy Rosenkrans then gave us a fabulous historical overview of the Women’s Industrial Exchange, the third oldest women’s exchange in the country! This was a place for down-on-their-luck women to sell crafts and goods to support themselves. It also had an affordable and delicious lunchroom.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, abolitionist, suffragist, poet, temperance activist, teacher, public speaker, and writer

She also highlighted where she wants her research to go in the future. If you have memories or stories about the Women’s Industrial Exchange, or know anything about Baltimore’s Colored Women’s Industrial Exchange, please contact her at amyrosenkransphd@gmail.com.

Image courtesy of Kalin Thomas

Be sure to check out the Maryland Women’s Heritage Center to hear about the courageous, pioneering and often forgotten women that have made Maryland the great state is it today.

 

Funding to Restore the Mitchell Law Office in Upton

The Mitchell Law Office in Upton is set to receive $1.75 million from Congressman Kweisi Mfume. This money will be used to transform the building, which was once the office of Maryland’s first Black woman lawyer, Juanita Jackson Mitchell, into a legal hub in West Baltimore. Rev. Al Hathaway of Beloved Community Services Corporation is spearheading this alongside his other project, the PS 103/Thurgood Marshall School restoration. Here is a link to a Baltimore Banner article that ran yesterday.

The Mitchell Law Office on the end, c. 2015
About 7 years ago, Baltimore Heritage secured $10,000 from the National Trust of Historic Preservation to stabilize the roof of the Mitchell Law Office. This was the project’s first funding and helped get the restoration going. We’ve been involved in several ways since then and will continue to help wherever we can.

 

The Mitchell Law Office restoration joins several other ongoing West Baltimore restoration projects including PS 103 and Upton Mansion (for the Afro American offices), along with the already-completed Lillie Carroll Jackson Civil Rights Museum. We are very near to having a critical mass of nationally important Civil Rights sites that have been restored, all within a few blocks of each other. For several years Baltimore Heritage, Rev. Hathaway and others have been talking about how to put Baltimore on the national map as a Civil Rights heritage destination. We’re making progress!

 

–Johns Hopkins, Executive Director

New Centennial Home Added: The Shivers, Steltz, & VanDyke Home in Riverside

On June 19, 1919, Sharon VanDyke’s grandparents, Harry and Edna Shivers, bought 406 E Randall St. in Riverside. Their daughter, Devera Steltz, was born in the front room and then occupied the home through the 1960’s. Devera’s daughter, Sharon VanDyke, currently lives here. This quintessential Baltimore rowhouse (marble steps, formstone and a Camark cat are all Bmore hallmarks!) has been owned by the family for over 100 years. On April 14, 2023 Baltimore Heritage presented Sharon VanDyke with a Centennial Homes plaque and certificate.

 

Sarah Ann Street Local Historic District Created!

On April 3, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott signed the legislation to create the Sarah Ann Street Local Historic District. This action will protect a critical core block of alley houses on Sarah Ann Street that have been owned by Black Baltimore families since they were built in the 1870s. Now Black Women Build will redevelop these historic homes. A big thank you and congratulations to the Eaddy family and Organize Poppleton for their sustained campaign to save these historic homes!