Category: Tours

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

Bmore By Bus: Introducing Our New Bus Tour Series

Baltimore Heritage is happy to announce that we are launching  three new bus tours this spring: Baltimore’s Civil Rights, Baltimore’s Public Markets, and Baltimore’s Parks. Join us to explore the city and cover tons of history along the way. Spread the word–students are free!

All tours are from 10 am-12 pm and include at least one stop where the group will disembark from the bus. There will be an option to stay on the bus and receive the same information as the walking portion of these tours. If you are a wheelchair user, please contact Molly Ricks (ricks@baltimoreheritage.org) to make a reservation. 

We hope you can join us on one of the following tours and please check back for more bus tour announcements!

–Johns Hopkins, Executive Director

 

March 23, 2024: Baltimore’s Civil Rights Movement

Baltimore has an incredible history of Civil Rights activism. Join us on this bus tour to explore neighborhoods like Marble Hill, which gave rise to some of the fundamental pillars of the Civil Rights Movement. We will discover how luminaries like Juanita Jackson Mitchell, Thurgood Marshall, and our late congressman, Elijah Cummings, were at the forefront of the fight for equality for Black citizens. We’ll see sites of demonstrations against Jim Crow laws in Druid Hill Park and department stores near Lexington Market, as well as the homes of activists who waged legal battles against racist housing laws in West Baltimore. We’ll discuss the efforts to end segregation in schools and the work of Black suffragists to gain the right to vote. On March 23, we hope you’ll join us to see how the incredible organizing of people like Lillie Carroll Jackson and Rev. Harvey Johnson promoted Civil Rights not just for Baltimoreans, but for Americans across the nation.

 

April 20, 2024: Baltimore’s Public Markets

Lexington Market, Broadway Market, Hollins Market and the rest of Baltimore’s public markets have been a part of our daily life for more than 250 years. They’ve survived and thrived by adapting to change without losing their purpose: to feed people! On April 20, we will drive between four of Baltimore’s six remaining markets, including the oldest survivor, Broadway, and the newest to be renovated, Hollins. We’ll stop inside our youngest market, Northeast, which dates from 1885, to chat with a market vendor and try some traditional Baltimore coddies. We’ll start at Lexington Market and we’ll end up back there to sample one of Baltimore’s favorite fried chicken spots. Bring your appetite!

 

May 18, 2024: Baltimore’s Parks: 

In 1827, William Patterson donated land in East Baltimore for what would become our city’s first public park: Patterson Park. Seventy-five years later, the City commissioned the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm to create a plan for a municipal park system, which eventually led to the creation of a first-class network of parks that covers thousands of acres. Family estates that at one time ringed Baltimore City, including homes of the Carrolls, Rogers, Winans and other families, were converted into promenades, nature walks, ballfields, and swimming pools. On May 18, we’ll meet at the renovated Druid Hill Park Superintendent’s House and travel between some other well known parks in the western part of our city including Leakin Park and Carroll Park, stopping by some gems that are less appreciated like Lafayette Square and Leon Day Park. Join us as we learn how our city’s parks were designed and used, and how they have shaped the city we know today.

This project has been financed in part with funds from the Charles A. and Lois H. Miller Foundation and State funds from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority, an instrumentality of the State of Maryland. However, project contents or opinions do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority.

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