Category: Education

Our education programs include technical assistance to property owners, heritage education around the Civil War Sequicentennial and the Bi-Centennial of the War of 1812, and our ongoing Race and Place in Baltimore Neighborhoods project.

What Are We Planning for 2024?

And why we need your support to make it happen!

There are only a few days left in 2023, which means you have only a few days left to donate or become a member this year! We are a small organization so a gift of any size – from $5 to $500 – will help immensely. Here are a few highlights for how your gift will help in the year ahead:

  • Heritage Tours: This past year we began hosting tours at Westminster Hall & Burying Ground in addition to our recurring tours at Clifton Mansion, Green Mount Cemetery and in historic neighborhoods around our city. This spring we will be able to return with more robust tours and events, including three new bus tours. Please stay tuned!
  • Five Minute Histories Videos: Our Five Minute Histories series offers a way to connect that in-person programs just can’t. So, don’t worry, these are here to stay, and we’re ramping up for a full year of them in 2024.
  • Critical Preservation Advocacy: This past year we helped fight to preserve architecturally significant rowhouses on Preston Street in Mt. Vernon and several buildings in the Five & Dime Local Historic District near Lexington Market. In 2024, we will continue this work throughout the city, which a special focus on disinvested historic neighborhoods.

 

We need your help today.

 

We at Baltimore Heritage are a little bit unusual. We rely heavily on kind volunteers to make our work possible, and nearly three quarters of our annual operating income comes from gifts from individuals. Most of these gifts are at our basic membership levels of $35 for an individual and $50 for a family. By donating at any level, be assured that your support goes a long way.

So once more for 2023, please accept an enormous thank you to everyone who volunteers with us, comes out for tours and programs (in-person and virtually!), and supports our work by generously donating. We look forward to working with you and connecting with you in the year ahead.

— Johns Hopkins, Baltimore Heritage

Spend Your Holidays with Baltimore Heritage: Upcoming December Tours

The holiday season is upon us and we want to spend it with you! Please check out our upcoming heritage tours to get to know even more about Baltimore’s history this winter season. We hope to see you this month!

Boughs of Holly: A Tour of Evergreen Museum & Library Decked Out for the Holidays

When a tremendous Gilded Age mansion gets fully-adorned with holiday decorations, there’s a lot to see. On Tuesday, December 5, please join us for a special winter tour of the Evergreen Museum and Library, which holds 48 rooms, a soaring portico, a Tiffany designed glass canopy, and loads holiday decorations. Register here!

 

The Baltimore Immigration Museum: A Behind-the-Scenes Tour

On Tuesday, December 19, join Baltimore Heritage at the Baltimore Immigration Museum to hear the stories of the various ethnic groups, including Germans, Irish, Jews, Poles, Lithuanians, Czechs, Italians, and Greeks, who started their American journey in Baltimore between 1830 and 1914. Register here! 

 

Up into the Clockworks at the Bromo Seltzer Tower

On Wednesday, December 27, join us for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Bromo Seltzer Tower! Completed in 1911, the tower’s four clocks each measure 24 feet across, a foot more London’s Big Ben, and the tower itself was the tallest building in Baltimore at the time. Our tour through the building will include a trip up into the clockworks at the top to look at the tick-tock operation in process and peer out the translucent windows. Register here! 

 

Our 2023 Preservation Celebration

Finally, with Thanksgiving just behind us, we at Baltimore Heritage have a lot to be thankful for, starting with the kind volunteers who lead our tours, research and write about historic places for Explore Baltimore Heritage, join us in fighting for threatened historic landmarks, and so much more. You make our work possible. Thank you all!

— Johns Hopkins, Executive Director

PS: It’s the time of year when we both give thanks and look forward to the year ahead. It is also the time of year when we ask you to join or renew your membership support for Baltimore Heritage. Your gift makes our work possible.

Johns Hopkins’ 20th Anniversary at Baltimore Heritage

Hi friends,

My name is Lesley Humphreys and I am the current President of the Board of Baltimore Heritage. 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of Johns Hopkins joining us as Executive Director. As a way of saying thanks for all he has done for our organization, for our members, and for Baltimore, we put together a short two-minute video.

We at Baltimore Heritage are also honoring Johns’ anniversary (and hopefully many years ahead!) by raising funds to support our current work and to secure our future. We hope you will consider making a contribution today. You can donate online, call us at 410-332-9992, or send a donation through the mail (100 N. Charles St, Suite P101, Baltimore, MD 21201).

We can’t thank Johns enough for his thoughtful and steadfast tenure as the Executive Director of Baltimore Heritage. And on behalf of Baltimore Heritage’s board of directors, I also can’t thank you enough for your commitment and support.

Sincerely,

Lesley Humphreys, Board President
Baltimore Heritage

Announcing the 2023 Doors Open Baltimore Kickoff Lecture: Jessica Henkin

The evening of October 5, join the Baltimore Architecture Foundation and Baltimore Heritage for the Doors Open Baltimore 10th Anniversary kick-off with guest Jessica Henkin, Co-Founder, Producer, and Host of “Stoop Story Telling.” The Stoop’s motto is “Everyone has a story. What’s yours?”

The Baltimore Architecture Foundation believes that, not only does everyone have a story, but every building has a story too and that, by opening doors and connecting people, we can inspire creativity, foster inclusivity, and contribute to the continued growth and success of Baltimore’s artistic and cultural landscape.

Doors Open Baltimore is an annual event that celebrates Baltimore’s diverse cultural tapestry by highlighting its vibrant neighborhoods, captivating architecture, and distinctive spaces, both grand and intimate, that contribute to the city’s exceptional charm. In this 10th anniversary year, Doors Open Baltimore invites you to be a tourist in your own backyard, exploring new areas, meeting different people, and finding out what goes on inside some of Baltimore’s most interesting buildings.

 

About the Speaker

Jessica Henkin co-created the Stoop Storytelling Series with her friend Laura Wexler in 2006. The Stoop is a Baltimore-based live show and podcast that has featured the tales of more than 3000 people onstage. It’s featured weekly on WYPR, 88.1.

She is a first-generation college student and has a Masters in Education from Johns Hopkins University, allowing for a robust career in special education that has ultimately allowed her to become the Coordinator for Baltimore City Public School’s Office of Early Learning Program.

Jessica moved to Baltimore in 2004 and became a founding member of the Baltimore Improv Group. She’s passionate about her family (husband Aaron Henkin and children Charlie and Abby), special education, Baltimore City, storytelling, keeping her house clean, rescuing strays (both animal and human), and finding most things funny.

 

Lecture Schedule:

Doors Open at 5:30pm, Wheeler Auditorium – Enoch Pratt Free Library – Central Library – 400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD, 21201

6:00, Guest speaker, Jessica Henkin

7:30pm, Reception at Pratt Hall, First Unitarian Church, 12 W. Franklin Street