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.

Join Baltimore Heritage on a Tour This Summer!

As we move into our warmer months, we are creating even more unique walking and behind-the-scenes tours. We hope to see you on some soon. Please check our calendar to see new additions!

–Johns Hopkins, Executive Director

Ridgley’s Delight: For a tiny neighborhood squeezed between the University of Maryland and Camden Yards, Ridgely’s Delight contains an oversized history. George Washington slept here and Babe Ruth was born here! Join us to walk the preserved, picturesque streets of one of the earliest neighborhoods in Baltimore while we look back at the stories of both its famous visitors and the ordinary Baltimoreans who worked and raised their families here. June 9, 9:30 am – 10:30 am. $10-$15

 

A Factory Tour of Mount Royal Soaps: Mount Royal Soap Company was founded in Baltimore, MD in the Spring of 2014 by three soap-obsessed friends: Matt, Pat & Sam. With the explosion of soap and sanitizer demand during the pandemic they opened their first manufacturing space in the Woodberry neighborhood just 2 miles from the Remington store. Join us for a fascinating tour of sustainably sourced bath and body products made through a small batch production process right here in Baltimore! June 18, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm. $10-$15

 

Mount Vernon Place: Mount Vernon began as a country estate for Revolutionary War hero John Eager Howard and grew to be the place to live for Baltimore’s rich and famous in the mid-nineteenth century. Join us on a tour to hear the stories behind the landmarks of Baltimore’s grandest historic neighborhood. June 23, 9:30 am – 10:30 am. $10-$15

 

Feisty Females of Fells Point: Everyone knows that Fell’s Point has a rich history, but do you know about the Caribbean immigrant, Mary Lange, who dared to teach children of color out of her home and rose to be the first Black mother-superior in American history? How about the single mom who helped stop the development of an interstate highway through these historic streets? We hope you’ll join us and tour guide Robin Minor to hear about these fierce women who helped forge Fells Point into the vibrant, distinctive neighborhood it is today. June 23, 11:– am – 12:30 pm. $10-$15

 

Celebrate Pride! LGBTQ Heritage in Charles Village: Charles Village was home to many activists and institutions at the heart of the city’s LGBTQ community in the 1970s and 1980s. Our wonderful guides will take us on a walk past local landmarks from the original home of the Gay Community Center of Baltimore, now the GLCCB, to the St. Paul Street church that supported the growth of the Metropolitan Community Church, Baltimore’s oldest LGBT religious organization, and the radical feminist writers and publishers that gave a voice to lesbian authors who might not otherwise have been read. June 30, 10:00 am – 11:30 am, $10-$15

 

The Lillie Carroll Jackson Civil Rights Museum: From 1935 until her retirement in 1970, Lillie Carroll Jackson was president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP and for much of this time her home on Eutaw Place was a hub of Civil Rights organizing for Jackson and her daughter, Juanita Jackson Mitchell. Executive Director Johns Hopkins for a short walk around Lillie Carroll Jackson’s neighborhood. Then we will go inside the museum to tour where Jackson, called the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement,” lived and worked. July 27, 9:30 am – 11:00 am. $10-$15

300 Five Minute Histories Videos!

We can hardly believe it, but today marks a milestone in our Five Minute Histories series! We just published our 300th video. Thank you to everyone who has watched, subscribed, sent the videos to their families and sent us corrections! For today’s milestone, we thought we needed a big topic. And what bigger topic than our city’s iconic Lexington Market? Thanks for watching and see you next week with our 301st video. 

Want to explore our past videos? Find them all on YouTube or this map!

 

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.