From the 1760s to the 1820s, convicts, indentured servants, and enslaved peoples worked and died producing and forging iron at the Ridgely family's Northampton Iron Furnace outside of Baltimore. The iron was crucial to the growth of the British Empire, the American Revolution, and the building of the town of Baltimore. By using and controlling people who were marginalized in society, the Ridgely family was able to exploit their labor and lives to generate considerable wealth and political power. Archaeologist Adam Fracchia will present the findings of his archaeological work at the furnace and discuss the structure of labor relations and the experience of workers at the furnace.

The center of Boston, with skyscrapers and row houses, looks like Baltimore. But 99% of Boston’s neighborhoods look really different. To find out why, Charlie Duff, former BAF President and author of The North Atlantic Cities, shows how the building cultures of the two cities came to be what they are – and how two “Men with a Mission” succeeded, and failed, to change the way the people of their cultures built houses.

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”.