John O’Donnell initiated trade between Canton, China and Baltimore in 1785, operating his own merchant sailing vessels. While the Baltimore-China trade was short-lived, it involved many of our early Founding Fathers. On February 24, join John Danz to learn how the trade propelled Baltimore’s development as a major East Coast port.

Through her Virtual Histories webinar Being Literate, Being Free, Dr. Joanne Martin will highlight historical personalities for whom literacy was the key to a future of freedom and hope for a people who were coming to understand that “If you would keep a people enslaved, refuse to teach them to read”.

Have you ever noticed the fading signs painted on buildings all around Baltimore and wondered what they used to say or why they were on a certain building? They are called ghost signs and photographer Lashelle Bynum has been meticulously researching and documenting them over the last few decades. She has photographed nearly 300 ghost signs in Baltimore to date. Please join us to hear Lashelle talk about her quest to discover and uncover the history of Baltimore's ghost signs.

On April 28, join historian and author Ev Paull as he discusses his book, Stop the Road, an up-close-and-personal account of Baltimore's epic 40-year battle over expressway plans. Meet the unsung heroes, a ragtag band of neighborhood activists, preservationists, and environmentalists who saved Baltimore from its own leadership, thereby protecting Baltimore's historic waterfront communities of Federal Hill, Fell's Point, and Canton. But that glorious and unlikely win must be tempered with the equally compelling but inglorious story behind the disastrous Highway to Nowhere. This is Baltimore unmasked and laid threadbare for the most momentous decisions since the building of the B&O Railroad.