Category: History

Announcing our New WYPR Weekly Segment!

We are delighted to be partnering with WYPR 88.1 FM on a weekly radio segment called “Five Minutes of Baltimore History” hosted by our executive director, Johns Hopkins! Not all of Baltimore’s history is easy or straightforward, but all of it is important. Frederick Douglass escaped his enslavement from here; Holocaust survivor Gustav Brunn created Old Bay seasoning here; and William Walters gave the world Maryland rye whiskey (and gave us an art museum) from here. We hope you’ll join us each week to learn a little bit more about famous and not-so-famous people and events that continue to shape our city and our nation. To explore more of these stories, check out our Five Minute Histories videos.

The segment will begin airing on Tuesday, November 4, and can be heard on WYPR at 4:44 p.m. In addition to the radio broadcast, Five Minutes of Baltimore History will be available on demand at wypr.org and wherever you get your podcasts.

Happy Pride from Baltimore Heritage!

Happy Pride from Baltimore Heritage! This month we are celebrating and remembering the LGBTQ community that has always been here.

Monumental Elks Lodge #3’s Pansy Balls (click the photo for more information)

 

The Friday Evening Group (click the photo for more information)

 

Baltimore Gay Alliance (click the photo for more information)

 

Rev. Delores Berry/Baltimore Coalition of Black Gay Women & Men (click the photo for more information)

 

Bmore Historic: September 19, 2025

We hope to see you this September at the Baltimore Museum of Industry for Bmore Historic 2025! Students are free this year.

Questions? Please email us at info@baltimoreheritage.org.

Thanks,

The Bmore Historic Organizing Committee

What is Bmore Historic?

Bmore Historic is a participant-led unconference for people who care about public history and historic preservation in and around Baltimore. Learn more about Bmore Historic or read our introduction to unconferences.

What do we do at Bmore Historic?

Past, in-person unconferences have been structured around four session blocks: two in the morning and two in the afternoon. We usually have between four to six sessions in each of the time blocks for a total of twenty sessions throughout the day.

Standing Up For Baltimore City Public Schools

Question 1: Function f is defined as f(x) = x2-6x+14. What is the minimum value of f(x)?

This complicated query above was Question 1 on the Maryland math exam that Donald Trump referenced yesterday in making disparaging remarks about Baltimore City Public School students and our school system generally. Among other things, Mr. Trump said that students who failed the exam could “not [do] even the very simplest of mathematics.” (Can you solve the above math problem? We can’t.) We thought we’d highlight a few Baltimore City Public School graduates who could have solved this question. The list is of course nowhere near complete but we hope it gives a little historical perspective of one of the first public school systems founded in the United States (1829).

 

Nancy Roman

Nancy Roman – Astronomer and NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy (Western High School)

 

 

 

 

Valerie Thomas

Valerie Thomas – NASA mathematician and inventor (Western High School)

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Archibald Wheeler

John Archibald Wheeler – Theoretical physicist who Stephen Hawking called “the hero of the Black Hole story” (Baltimore City College)

 

 

 

 

Martin Rodbell

Martin Rodbell – Biochemist and 1994 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology (Baltimore City College)

 

 

 

 

 

John Clauser

John Clauser – Physicist and winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics (Baltimore Polytechnic Institute)

 

 

 

 

 

–Johns Hopkins, Executive Director

What Are We Planning for 2025? And why we need your support to make it happen.

There are only a few days left in 2024, 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 three new bus tours and even a new Inner Harbor history boat tour! This spring we will be able to return with more robust tours and events, including more boat 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 2025.

Critical Preservation Work: 

This past year we helped restore the Perkins Square Gazebo in the Heritage Crossing neighborhood. In the coming year, we are planning to work with our partners in Herring Run and Leakin Parks on projects that will celebrate the parks’ histories and help improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

 

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 2024, 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