Baltimore Heritage

The Evolution of Olmsted's Sudbrook Park (Virtual Talk)
2022-04-29 13:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York) | Virtual, MD, United States
On Friday April 29, 2022, author Melanie Anson will give a Virtual History on the evolution of Sudbrook Park, a planned community in northwest Baltimore designed in 1889 by Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr.. Olmsted, often seen as America’s first landscape architect, conceived this “suburban village” with curved roads and open green spaces, traits that set the community apart from its contemporaries. Portions of Sudbrook Park are registered on the National Register of Historic Places and listed as a Baltimore County Historic District.

About the Presenter:
Melanie Anson is the author of the scholarly work “Olmsted’s Sudbrook: The Making of a Community.” She will be joined by landscape architect, Deane Rundell, FASLA, President Sudbrook Park Community Organization. They will be giving a close-to-sold-out tour of the neighborhood on Sunday April 24 for the Friends of Maryland’s Olmsted Parks & Landscapes as part of the Olmsted 200 celebration of the Bicentennial of Frederick Law Olmsted Sr’s birth.

About This Event:
This program is hosted on Zoom. Upon registering you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact omiles@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage present the Virtual Histories Series: 30 minute live virtual tours and presentations focusing on Baltimore architecture, preservation and history. Hosted every Friday at 1:00 pm EST.
Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support BAF and Baltimore Heritage. Your support helps us make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this.

Coming to America: Baltimore’s Immigration History (Virtual Talk)
2022-05-13 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
Did you know that Baltimore served as America’s third largest port of entry during the Great Wave of Immigration of 1830 to 1914. In 1868, the B&O Railroad partnered with the North German Lloyd Company of Bremen, Germany, to build and operate a pier for immigrant ships in Locust Point, where 1.2 million immigrants first set foot on American soil. They included people from all over Europe, including Germans, Irish, Lithuanians, Czechs, Poles and Italians, who established their neighborhoods, as well as churches, synagogues, schools, cultural and philanthropic institutions, which eased the transition from their old country to life in America, and added to the rich diversity of our city. Join Nicholas Fessenden from Baltimore Immigration Museum to learn more about our immigrant past and today’s efforts to document and celebrate our diverse roots.

About Our Presenter
Dr. Nicholas Fessenden is the historian/treasurer and co-founder of the Baltimore Immigration Museum. He taught history at Friends School from 1972 to 2010 and also taught as an adjunct at Towson University, Maryland Institute of Art, and Community College of Baltimore County.

About This Event
This program is hosted on Zoom. Upon registering you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact omiles@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage present the Virtual Histories Series: 30 minute live virtual tours and presentations focusing on Baltimore architecture, preservation and history. Hosted every Friday at 1:00 pm EST.
Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support BAF and Baltimore Heritage. Your support helps us make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this.

The Olmsted Firm's Evolving Relationship with the Roland Park Company (Virtual Talk)
2022-06-03 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
On Friday June 3, 2022, author Ann G. Giroux will give a Virtual History on “The Olmsted Firm’s Evolving Relationship with the Roland Park Company” starting at 1:00pm. The Roland Park Company, headed by Edward H. Bouton, collaborated with the Olmsted firm on numerous projects both in and out of Baltimore’s historic Roland Park Company District. This professional relationship, which spanned several decades, produced dramatically different landscape treatments, reflecting Bouton’s growing experience, confidence and stature, evolving trends in suburban residential design, and financial considerations. This program will show through pictures and plans how the Olmsteds adapted their planning principles to meet Bouton’s requirements for the communities of Roland Park (1890s), Guilford (1910s) and Homeland (1920s).

About Our Presenter
Formerly a consultant for historic projects in the State of Maryland, author Ann G. Giroux now spends her time researching and writing about The Roland Park Company District in, northern Baltimore City . She is an avid historic home and garden enthusiast who alternates between digging in her Guilford garden and digging through dusty archival records. Ann has served as a member of the Guilford Association Board of Managers, of the Guilford Architectural Review Committee, and of the Friends of Maryland’s Olmsted Parks and Landscapes’ Board of Directors.

About This Event
This program is hosted on Zoom. Upon registering you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact omiles@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage present the Virtual Histories Series: 30 minute live virtual tours and presentations focusing on Baltimore architecture, preservation and history. Hosted every Friday at 1:00 pm EST.
Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support BAF and Baltimore Heritage. Your support helps us make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this.

Reviving the Royal Theater (Virtual Talk)
2022-06-24 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
Rescheduled from June 17!
About this event
In honor of the 100th anniversary of the Royal Theater, we arev hosting a talk on the theater and the work being done to revive this historic community through the insights of three guest speakers.
Amy Davis will present vintage images of the Royal Theater and few of the other opulent movie palaces in its day looking through a social, cultural and architectural prism to understand Baltimore’s history. The Royal Theater, located at 1329 Pennsylvania Avenue in Baltimore, first opened in February 1922 as the black-owned Douglass Theatre before changing its name in 1925 to The Royal. It became the most famous theater along West Baltimore City’s Pennsylvania Avenue, one of a circuit of five such theaters for black entertainment in big cities, which hosted some of the world’s greatest musical acts and entertainers, before it was demolished in 1971.
James Hamlin, president and founder of The Royal Theater & Community Heritage Corporation, will share some of what is being done to preserve, promote, and recreate the greatness of the African American Historic West Baltimore Community and Historic Pennsylvania Avenue. In his words: “2-1-2-1-7 on Pennsylvania Avenue and the surrounding community were the epicenters of the African-American [life] in Baltimore. This is a community where Cab Calloway walked. This is where Billie Holiday landed. This is where Thurgood Marshall grew up. This is where every entertainer that you can think of has walked up and down The Avenue and entertained at The Royal Theatre.”
Kathleen Sherrill, AIA will highlight her work along the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor, Maryland’s only designated Black Arts and Entertainment District. She firmly believes that architects should challenge themselves to play a key role in improving and supporting Baltimore’s underserved neighborhoods, guiding communities to invest in themselves and the next generation through ownership.
About the Presenters:
Amy Davis, an award-winning photojournalist for the Baltimore Sun, spent nine years researching and photographing Baltimore’s movie theaters for her book Flickering Treasures: Rediscovering Baltimore’s Forgotten Movie Theaters. Her fine art training from The Cooper Union informs her documentary approach. The book includes rare photos, combined with Davis’s evocative color photography and poignant reminiscences, bring a century of movie-going to life. Her photographic work is in the collection of the Hudson River Museum (Yonkers, NY), and has been exhibited at The Brooklyn Museum, The Jewish Museum of Maryland, and at Baltimore area galleries. Amy lives in Baltimore near the 1939 Senator Theater, which helped inspire her book.
James W. Hamlin is the Owner and Operator of “The Avenue Bakery” on Pennsylvania Avenue, celebrating its10th anniversary this past August in offering distinctive homemade rolls, pastries and beverages promoting and advocating for other black owned businesses to come back to our historic community to make it once again an economic center of our community. He is president and founder of The Royal Theater & Community Heritage Corporation, a 501©3 non-profit that focuses on this Historic West Baltimore African American Community and the creation of economic development to provide jobs for its youth.
Kathleen Sherrill, AIA, NOMA, NCARB, LEED AP, founded her firm of SP Arch Inc. in 2005 with former partner Mahendra Parekh (who retired in 2008), and offers a broad array of planning, architectural design, and landscape architecture services. In 2011, Kathleen was awarded both Top 100 Minority Business Enterprises in the Mid-Atlantic Region and outstanding alumni by the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University (MSU). The first (and only) African American to serve as president of AIA Baltimore and of AIA Maryland, she helped establish the local chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) in 2017 and served as its first president. www.spa-corp.com
About this Presentation:
This program is hosted on Zoom. Upon registering you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact Molly Ricks (ricks@baltimoreheritage.org). If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage present the Virtual Histories Series: 30 minute live presentations and virtual tours focusing on Baltimore architecture, preservation and history, hosted twice a month on Fridays at 1:00 pm EST.
Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support BAF and Baltimore Heritage. Your support helps us make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this. This special program is hosted in partnership with the Maryland Center for History and Culture, who are currently hosting the exhibit “Flickering Treasures” through September 2023.

Historic Amusement Parks of Baltimore (Virtual Talk)
2022-07-08 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
On Friday, July 8th, the Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage are hosting a Zoom presentation on the Historic Amusement Parks of Baltimore as part of their Virtual Histories Lunchtime Series. Beginning at 1pm, guest presenter John Coleman will share the rich history of the bygone amusement parks and beach resorts from the 1870s and stretching into the late 20th century that Baltimoreans eagerly traveled to reach by boat, streetcar, train, or automobile.
Viewers will recognize such popular amusement parks as Gwynn Oak, Carlin’s, and Tolchester Beach, but also learn of Riverview Park (as shown in image above from the Baltimore Sun archives). Billed as “The Coney Island of the South,” Riverview Park featured one of the region’s first roller coasters, a roller rink and live entertainment. A couple of fires in 1909 and 1915 may have contributed to its demise and it was brought to auction in 1929 to be razed for the Western Electric Co. Cable Factory complex at Point Breeze (between Canton and Dundalk). Be prepared to delight in the stories and historic images of this popular summertime pastime from days of yore.

About Our Presenter
John P. Coleman is author of Historic Amusement Parks of Baltimore: An Illustrated History and is a member of the National Amusement Park Historical Association. He received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Management from the University of Baltimore and currently is a senior software engineer with CSG International.

About This Event

This program is hosted on Zoom. Upon registering you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact mstella@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage present the Virtual Histories Series: 30 minute live virtual tours and presentations focusing on Baltimore architecture, preservation and history. Hosted every Friday at 1:00 pm EST.
Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support BAF and Baltimore Heritage. Your support helps us make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this.

Western Electric Company's Point Breeze Plant & the Olmsted Vision (Virtual Talk)
2022-07-22 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
The Western Electric Company was founded in 1869 and served for more than 100 years as the manufacturing and supply unit of the Bell System. Its business and manufacturing activity skyrocketed from increased telephone use at the beginning of the 1900s. The company selected Baltimore as the site of a new cable and wire manufacturing plant due to its proximity to water and rail transportation. The company purchased land along the Patapsco River Neck from the Canton Company and the River View Amusement Park, with grand plans to develop the site into a large manufacturing campus. To complete a comprehensive plan for the new site at Point Breeze, the company hired the Olmsted Brothers firm. Between 1928 and 1931, the Olmsted Brothers prepared at least 263 drawings, including a comprehensive master plan and detailed landscape plans. Three experts will share their knowledge of this unique collection of buildings and site that was the industrial community to 6,000 workers in its heyday.

About the Presenters
Tom Liebel, FAIA, LEED Fellow is a Vice-President with Moseley Architects, and has been involved in integrating sustainable design principles into a variety of ground-breaking, award-winning adaptive use and historic preservation projects over the past twenty five years. He wrote the book Industrial Baltimore by Arcadia Publishing in 2006 and continues to explore the relationship between sustainability, preservation and urban design, with a particular emphasis in the use of urban adaptive use projects to promote neighborhood revitalization and civic engagement. Tom served for a decade as chair of Baltimore City’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, and currently serves on the Maryland Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
Alison J. Ross, M.S. is an architectural historian with extensive documentation and fieldwork experience compiling reports geared towards educating both primary stakeholders and communities at large. She prepared the Maryland Historical Trust Determination of Eligibility form for the Western Electric Company, Point Breeze Plant Historic District while at Navarro & Wright Consulting Engineers, Inc. She has a Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science degree from Drexel University and is currently with Skelly and Loy, Inc., a Terracon Company.
Jillian Storms, AIA, serves on the Board of Directors of the Friends of Maryland’s Olmsted Parks & Landscapes as well as on their Archives Committee, and has been instrumental in developing investigative research opportunities into the 136 Olmsted projects in Maryland. She also serves on the Executive Board of the Baltimore Architecture Foundation and co-chairs its research committee, the Dead Architects’ Society. She received the Foundation’s Roger Redden Award and Preservation Maryland’s George T. Harrison Volunteer Award in recognition of her extensive architectural research and public programming.

About this Series
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage host this Virtual Histories Series of 30 minute live presentations and virtual tours, focusing on architecture, preservation and history of the Baltimore region twice a month on Fridays at 1:00 pm EST. Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support these organizations to help make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this.
Upon registering, you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact Margaret Stella Melikian at mstella@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
This special program is hosted in partnership with the Friends of Maryland’s Olmsted Parks & Landscapes (FMOPL) as part of their Olmsted 200 programming, a nationwide celebration of the firm’s work and influence, on the Bicentennial Anniversary of Frederick Law Olmsted’s birth.

Women in Maryland Architecture, 1920-1970 (Virtual Talk)
2022-08-05 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
This presentation will highlight the research and documentation undertaken by EHT Traceries during the preparation of the National Register Multiple Property Documentation Form Women in Maryland Architecture, 1920-1970. Educational and professional opportunities for women architects were limited throughout much of the twentieth century, yet pioneering women contributed significantly to the built environment of Maryland. The struggle of women designers to obtain higher education and parity with men forms part of the broader social history of women’s efforts to achieve greater equality within American society. The Multiple Property Documentation Form, prepared through the Historic Preservation Non-Capital Grant program awarded to BAF by the Maryland Historical Trust, examines the careers of women designers including architects, landscape architects, and artists in Maryland who were active between 1920-1970 and situates their stories within this broader national context. The achievements of pioneers such as Gertrude Sawyer, Chloethiel Woodard Smith, and Helen Ross Staley helped pave the way for a twenty-first-century architectural profession where women architects are appreciated and celebrated for their contributions.
The presentation will examine the early history of women’s involvement in the architectural field, the educational opportunities available, and the challenges they faced in establishing their careers. It will also explore the work of women designers active in Maryland during the 1920-1970 period, representing a wide spectrum of building types, landscapes, and public art. In order to place these resources in context, the presentation will consider the aesthetic, cultural, and economic themes that shaped architecture and development in Maryland during the twentieth century, providing both opportunities and obstacles to women design professionals.

About the presenter
John Gentry is Senior Architectural Historian at EHT Traceries, Inc., a historic preservation consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from DePaul University and a Masters in Historic Preservation from the University of Maryland, College Park. As an architectural historian and cultural resource management professional, John is experienced in researching, documenting, and assessing historic buildings and landscapes. He has successfully listed individual properties and districts in the National Register of Historic Places and local landmark registries in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and several other U.S. states. In addition, he has completed numerous compliance-driven survey and documentation projects for government agencies, architects, and developers. John is a member of the Latrobe Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians and the D.C. Preservation League.

About this event
Image Credit from Cambridge Yacht Club: 1939, Cambridge Yacht Club
This program is hosted on Zoom. Upon registering you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact mstella@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage present the Virtual Histories Series: 30 minute live virtual tours and presentations focusing on Baltimore architecture, preservation and history. Hosted every Friday at 1:00 pm EST.
Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support BAF and Baltimore Heritage. Your support helps us make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this.

The Life and Work of Architect Poldi Hirsch (Virtual Talk)
2022-08-19 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
This presentation will examine the life and work of Harford County architect Poldi Hirsch, AIA, looking at her career as a female architect in Maryland during the 1960s, her design philosophy and influences, and her principal works. Born in Germany in 1926, Poldi Hirsch was one of several European-born or trained architects who practiced in Maryland during the postwar period. Educated in Israel and Switzerland, Hirsch immigrated to the U.S. with her husband and children in 1953, eventually settling in Havre de Grace, where she established an architectural practice. Hirsch focused on residential design, including multi-family apartment buildings and single-family dwellings, and her work in Havre de Grace reflects West Coast and European approaches to modernism tempered with an awareness of the social dimension of residential design. The biography of Poldi Hirsch, who struggled to establish her career in Havre de Grace despite her talent and European architectural training, is a testament to the perseverance of women architects, and illustrates the progress made by women for greater gender equality during the twentieth century.
The presentation will focus particularly on the Hirsch Family Residence in Havre de Grace, which was designed by Poldi Hirsch and constructed in 1969-1970. The Hirsch Residence is one of the significant modernist residences designed by Poldi Hirsch in Havre de Grace during the 1960s that embodies the core tenets of the Modern Movement. Hirsch, and her physician husband, Gunther Hirsch, sought to provide a healthier living environment for families through a merger of public health and design, and her residential designs feature ample natural daylighting, spatial organization attuned to the needs of working families, and a merger of the indoor and outdoor experience. The Hirsch Residence displays all of these characteristics, and its sleek modernist lines, exterior of California Redwood and locally quarried stone, and non-traditional fenestration stand apart from other houses in Havre de Grace constructed during the same period. This presentation will highlight the research and documentation undertaken by EHT Traceries during the preparation of a National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Hirsch Residence. The documentation, prepared through the Historic Preservation Non-Capital Grant program awarded to BAF by the Maryland Historical Trust, builds upon the Multiple Property Documentation Form Women in Maryland Architecture, 1920-1970, presented in Session 1.

About the presenter
John Gentry is Senior Architectural Historian at EHT Traceries, Inc., a historic preservation consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from DePaul University and a Masters in Historic Preservation from the University of Maryland, College Park. As an architectural historian and cultural resource management professional, John is experienced in researching, documenting, and assessing historic buildings and landscapes. He has successfully listed individual properties and districts in the National Register of Historic Places and local landmark registries in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and several other U.S. states. In addition, he has completed numerous compliance-driven survey and documentation projects for government agencies, architects, and developers. John is a member of the Latrobe Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians and the D.C. Preservation League.

About this event
This program is hosted on Zoom. Upon registering you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact mstella@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage present the Virtual Histories Series: 30 minute live virtual tours and presentations focusing on Baltimore architecture, preservation and history. Hosted every Friday at 1:00 pm EST.
Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support BAF and Baltimore Heritage. Your support helps us make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this.

The Evolution of the Hopkins Retrospective (Virtual Talk)
2022-09-09 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
Public historian and archivist Allison Seyler will detail the evolution of the Hopkins Retrospective Program at Johns Hopkins University. This initiative, created by President Ronald J. Daniels in 2013 was intended to draw lessons from past experiences to look forward to the university’s collective future. It was also an attempt to bring together historians and archivists from the institution’s different repositories to work on collaborative projects and efforts, ones that might illuminate marginalized or underrepresented groups throughout the university and health system’s histories. Over the last 9 years, the program has grown and includes many different components: historical research, oral history interviews, student fellowships, online exhibitions, public programming, and archival processing. Allison will discuss different aspects of this work, elaborate on current projects underway, and talk about the work ahead.

About the presenter
Allison Seyler is an archivist and public historian with roots in and a commitment to Baltimore City. She currently serves as the Hopkins Retrospective Program Manager at Johns Hopkins University. Her research as a graduate student at UMBC, archivist on the Legacy of Slavery team at the Maryland State Archives, and now asks how historians can illuminate ordinary peoples’ experiences using archival records. Taking it a step further, she investigates how we make these stories relevant and accessible to public audiences, while directly confronting issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion in the field. Allison served on the board of the Baltimore City Historical Society from 2018 to 2022 and volunteers for the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter.

About this event
This program is hosted on Zoom. Upon registering you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact mstella@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage present the Virtual Histories Series: 30 minute live virtual tours and presentations focusing on Baltimore architecture, preservation and history. Hosted every Friday at 1:00 pm EST.
Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support BAF and Baltimore Heritage. Your support helps us make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this.

Idlewylde: A Community on the City Line (Virtual Talk)
2022-10-07 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
Idlewylde, a community of more than 700 homes situated on the Chinquapin Run and Herring Run-B watershed, is the oldest of the suburban neighborhoods of South Towson. The community has a mix of housing styles characteristic of the development of suburban neighborhoods during the time of its growth, ranging from 1920s bungalows and small Cape Cods to brick Colonials and Mid-Century Modern designs. Its development differed greatly from that of its younger neighbors, Anneslie and Stoneleigh, chiefly owing to the development of The Alameda as an arterial road terminating in Idlewylde and to the northward extension of Baltimore City in 1918 to Idlewylde’s southern border.
The Idlewylde neighborhood partially occupies land that was once Beulah, the estate of Joshua Regester (1816-1906), a Baltimore brassfounder whose bells graced Baltimore City Hall and other buildings of note. Beulah once extended north to Stevenson’s Woods (now the Country Club of Maryland golf course), south almost to today’s City-County line, west to the Birckhead estate (“Anneslie”) and the Brown estate (“Stoneleigh”) and east to the Herring Run tributary. The family’s farmstead and summer home, built in 1853, is the oldest building standing in south Towson. It and the Idlewylde United Methodist Church from 1917, the oldest house of worship in the area, are listed on the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties.
This special program is hosted in partnership with the Friends of Maryland’s Olmsted Parks & Landscapes as part of their Olmsted 200 programming, a nationwide celebration of the firm’s work and influence, on the Bicentennial Anniversary of Frederick Law Olmsted’s birth. In 1928 the developer contacted the Olmsted Brothers, the renowned landscape architects responsible for designing the City neighborhoods of Roland Park and Homeland, to commission a street layout for the undeveloped northern section contoured by the ravines of Herring Run, but the project was nipped in the bud by the stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression. However, Idlewylde turns out to have an unexpected connection to Frederick Law Olmsted.
Come learn of this as well as celebrate the heritage of this unique community as shared by two Idlewylde community members who will be available to answer participants’ questions after the presentation.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:
Paul Romney is a longtime resident of the Idlewylde Community and serves as the newsletter editor and secretary of the Community Association. He is a professional historian specializing in the history of Canada.
Bryan Fisher, AIA, NCARB, is a registered architect and a historic preservation specialist. He has contributed significantly to numerous important architectural projects including work for the U.S. Capitol, the National Archives, the Smithsonian Institution, dozens of National Park Service sites throughout the U.S., the GSA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, NAVFAC, Washington College, and the Maryland Historical Society. In his spare time he enjoys sailing, exploring Idlewylde, and working on his Mid-Century Modern home.

ABOUT THIS SERIES:
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation and Baltimore Heritage, Inc. have been hosting this Friday Virtual Histories Series of live lunchtime presentations and virtual tours since the start of the pandemic as a way to share an understanding of architecture, preservation, and history of the Baltimore region with the public. Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support these organizations to help make up for lost tour and program revenue from the pandemic and create more virtual programs like this.
Upon registering you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact mhudson@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
Hope you can join us!

The Evolution of Windy Gates Estate and its Olmsted Gardens (Virtual Talk)
2022-10-21 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
The Windy Gates country estate of the Jenkins family from 1882 to 1981 was the centerpiece of a much larger property that in its heyday, lolled down the rolling hills stretching along Lake Avenue from Roland Avenue to Falls Road. On the heels of their work on the Roland Park neighborhood to the south, the Olmsted Brothers were employed from 1902 through 1906, to do extensive landscaping design for the property, producing a detailed plan for the estate and specifications for approximately 150 different planting beds.
When the heirs wished to sell the unique 20-acre property forty years ago, they offered a unique contest awarded to the developer presenting the most inspired and pleasing plan. Based on designs prepared by Peterson and Brickbauer Architects, the Azola Company was selected to redevelop the site into the Devon Hill Residential Community. They saved much of the historic landscaping, converted the historic Queen Anne-style country house and its carriage house and barns into condominium units and residential homes, and added additional residential buildings in keeping with the scale and historic character of the site.
This presentation by Thom Rinker will draw on the extensive material, vintage drawings, and photographs found in the records of the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Archives of American Gardens, the Jenkins family archives, and the surveying firm of S.J. Martenet & Company. He will share unique insights into this Baltimore County treasure that still retains a quiet serenity and gentility over the landscape.
This special program is hosted in partnership with the Maryland Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects in celebration of their 50th anniversary and the Friends of Maryland’s Olmsted Parks & Landscapes (FMOPL) as part of their Olmsted 200 programming, a nationwide celebration of the firm’s work and influence, on the Bicentennial Anniversary of Frederick Law Olmsted’s birth.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER:
Thom Rinker and his wife lived in Devon Hill for over 15 years and is the author of a recently released three-volume book set entitled Devon Hill: The Pleasure of Living in an Historic Landscape. The books present a detailed narrative of the evolution of the landscape and architectural history of the property as it has evolved over its 175 years. Volume I covers the 100-year period the Jenkins family and its decients owned Windy Gates, Volume II covers the subsequent period after 1983 when the Devon Hill community has maintained and enhanced the property, and Volume III contains a review of the correspondence, field notes, and landscape plans in the Olmsted Brothers’ project files.

ABOUT THIS SERIES:
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation and Baltimore Heritage, Inc. have been hosting this Friday Virtual Histories Series of live lunchtime presentations and virtual tours since the start of the pandemic as a way to share an understanding of architecture, preservation, and history of the Baltimore region with the public. Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support these organizations to help make up for lost tour and program revenue from the pandemic and create more virtual programs like this.
Upon registering you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact mhudson@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
Hope you can join us!

No Ball Playing: Baltimore Kids Playing in Streets and Hanging on Corners (Virtual Talk)
2022-11-04 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
Before the early 1900s, families in Baltimore never had to tell a kid to “watch out for cars”. However, as the number of cars in the city grew during the early 20th century, playing in the street became increasingly dangerous and even illegal. Criminalizing children at play has a long history in Baltimore from complaints in the Sun about young “baseball maniacs” breaking windows in the 1870s to a 1898 police order designed to “disperse” children from gathering on newly “smoothly paved streets to play.” In 1910, the Children’s Playground Association of Baltimore formed a “Guild of Play” to host supervised street play at locations around the city and started working to keep children safe through building more playgrounds. Despite their efforts and others, more than one in three East Baltimore youth surveyed in 2017 said they didn’t have or didn’t know of any safe place to play in their neighborhood.
Join planner and historian Eli Pousson for a lunch-time talk on the history of street play and the policing of children in public space from the 19th century through the present-day.

About the speaker
Eli Pousson is a local historian, former Baltimore Heritage staff member, Bikemore board member, and INSPIRE Planner for the Baltimore City Department of Planning (since June 2022). Eli is also a parent of three busy kids that give him plenty of opportunities to visit playgrounds, play in the street, and shout “watch out for cars”.
Please see your email confirmation for instructions on how to get the Zoom Link for this program. If you have any questions, please email mhudson@aiabalt.com.

Frederick Douglass, the Canton Company, and Canton History
2022-11-18 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
What started out as a volunteer effort to clean up trash on Canton’s waterfront led Dr. Raymond Bahr on a path of research that has brought to light where Frederick Douglass escaped from his enslavement, how the Canton Company shaped Baltimore, and the national impact that Canton’s industries had on the growth of America. Join Dr. Bahr as he shares his research and findings on this under-told part of our history

About this event

Please see your email confirmation for instructions on how to get the Zoom Link for this program. If you have any questions, please email mhudson@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage present the Virtual Histories Series: 30 minute live virtual tours and presentations focusing on Baltimore architecture, preservation and history. Hosted every Friday at 1:00 pm EST.
Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support BAF and Baltimore Heritage. Your support helps us make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this.

Examining Forced Labor at the Northampton Iron Furnace through Archaeology (Virtual Talk)
2022-12-16 13:00 - 13:30 | Baltimore, MD, United States
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.
Please see your email confirmation for instructions on how to get the Zoom Link for this program. If you have any questions, please email mhudson@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
The Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage present the Virtual Histories Series: 30 minute live virtual tours and presentations focusing on Baltimore architecture, preservation and history. Hosted every Friday at 1:00 pm EST.
Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support BAF and Baltimore Heritage. Your support helps us make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this.

Baltimore & Boston: Frame Suburbs and Rowhomes (Virtual Talk)
2023-02-10 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
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.

About the Presenter:
Charles Duff is a planner, teacher, developer, and historian. Since 1987, Mr. Duff has been President of Jubilee Baltimore, a non-profit group that has planned some of Baltimore’s most successful neighborhoods and built or rebuilt more than 300 buildings. A graduate of Gilman, Amherst, and Harvard, he has been President of the Baltimore Architecture Foundation. His book The North Atlantic Cities was published in the UK in 2019.
Upon registering, you will receive an email confirmation to request a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact Meghan Hudson (mhudson@aiabalt.com). If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.

Baltimore's Early Trade with China (Virtual Talk)
2023-02-24 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
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.
About the Speaker:
John Danz, Jr., is a native of Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in European history. John has lectured widely on the subject of America’s early trade with China based on more than three years of research. His focus has been on Maryland’s experiences in the China trade from the viewpoint of both the decorative arts and economics. Mr. Danz served as Vice President of Towson University’s Asian Arts & Culture Center for more than fifteen years and currently serves as Vice President of the State of Maryland’s Sister States program for Anhui Province, China.

Upon registering, you will receive an email confirmation to request a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact Meghan Hudson (mhudson@aiabalt.com). If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.

Being Literate, Being Free (Virtual Talk)
2023-03-10 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
Despite the harshness and cruelty that slavery inflicted on people of color, whether they were enslaved or free, these people derived creative methods to learn to read and write as an essential first step toward freedom.
Frederick Douglass said that it was through reading that he first heard “the silver trump of freedom.” Thus, it was literacy, the ability to read, write, and understand information, that showed Douglass and countless other blacks the pathway from slavery to freedom.
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”.

Meet the Speaker
Drs. Elmer and Joanne Martin founded The National Great Blacks In Wax Museum in Baltimore, over thirty years ago.
The Museum is the nation’s first wax museum concentrating on black history, life and culture. It is a national attraction and has been featured on major television networks (CNN, NBC,BET, etc.); magazines (Jet, Essence, Black Enterprise, etc.); and newspapers (The Washington Post, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, etc.).
Dr. Joanne Martin received a BA from Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, Florida; MA degrees from Atlanta University, Atlanta Georgia and Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Ohio: and her PhD from Howard University, Washington, DC.
A noted historian, educator and researcher, she performs most of the Museum’s curatorial duties and has laid the groundwork for both architectural and exhibition design for the expanded Museum. Her principal role is to ensure the intellectual integrity of all interpretive materials and approaches, particularly relating to exhibition concepts, storyline, and texts. She also provides guidance and direction to the Museum Educator in identifying curriculum-appropriate educational programming for k-12 students and alignment with U.S. and State of Maryland curriculum standards.
Upon registering, you should recieve an email confirmation with a link to request the Zoom link. If you have any questions, please contact Meghan Hudson at mhudson@aiabalt.com at least one hour before the start of the event.

Ghost Signs of Baltimore
2023-03-24 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
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.
Meet the Speaker
Lifelong Baltimorean Lashelle Bynum is a photographer and researcher of her city’s ghost signs and Black history. She is also a board member of Baltimore Heritage and has contributed as a guest in several of the organization’s Five Minute Histories videos.
Upon registering, you will receive an email confirmation to request a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact Meghan Hudson (mhudson@aiabalt.com). If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.

Baltimore's Road Wars (Virtual Talk)
2023-04-28 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
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.

Meet the Speaker
Northwest Baltimore resident E. Evans Paull spent 45 years as a city planner working in Baltimore and nationally on urban redevelopment issues. He began his career in the Baltimore City Department of Planning as a generalist planner before specializing in the redevelopment of brownfields. After starting and managing Baltimore’s Brownfields Initiative, he tackled these same issues at a national level, working first for Northeast-Midwest Institute before becoming director of the National Brownfields Coalition and finally running his consulting business, Redevelopment Economics. Although now retired, many of his published articles and papers still appear on the Redevelopment Economics website.

Upon registering, you will receive an email confirmation to request a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact Meghan Hudson (mhudson@aiabalt.com). If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.

LGBT Activism in Charles Village (Virtual Talk)
2023-05-12 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
Charles Village, adjacent to Johns Hopkins University and long the home of civically and politically active residents, was also the home of many of the earliest LGBT activists during the 1970s and 1980s. On Friday May 12 at 1:00 p.m. join Baltimore Heritage volunteer Richard Oloizia on a virtual tour through Charles Village to learn about early efforts in Baltimore to build a more open LGBT community.

Meet the Speaker
Richard Oloizia is a historian, a former Enoch Pratt Free Library employee, and an LGBT leader in Baltimore. He has lead LGBT heritage walking tours for Baltimore Heritage for over a decade.

Upon registering, you will receive an email confirmation to request a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact Meghan Hudson (mhudson@aiabalt.com). If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.

Coming to Baltimore: Immigrants Old and New (Virtual Talk)
2023-07-14 13:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, MD, United States
It is a little known fact of our history that Baltimore served as America’s third largest port of entry during the Great Wave of Immigration from 1830 to 1924, when 1.5 million immigrants first set foot on American soil in our city. They included people from all over Europe, including Germans, Irish, Jews, Poles, Lithuanians, Czechs and Italians, who established neighborhoods, as well as churches, schools, cultural and philanthropic societies, which eased the transition from their old country. Ethnic savings and loans extended mortgages to their compatriots, enabling them to purchase modest rowhouses, with percentages of homeownership as high as 75% for some groups. In the 1920s, Congress passed restrictive immigration laws, prompting the Great Migration. Thousands of people from the rural South and Appalachians, both Black and white, journeyed to Baltimore to find work in Baltimore’s industries. In 1965, Congress liberalized our immigration laws, and immigrants from Latin America and Asia settled in our country and in our region. The Baltimore Immigration Museum, located in a building which was an immigrant boarding house in Locust Point, celebrates the rich diversity of those who made the lengthy journey to our region.
Meet the Speaker
Nicholas Fessenden earned a B.A. in History at Yale, and an M.A. and Ph.D in 1972 from Columbia University, also in History. He taught History in the Upper School at Friends School of Baltimore (1972 – 2010), as well as History at Maryland Institute of Art (1981 – 2000) as an adjunct. Since retirement in 2010, he has taught at CCBC/Owings Mills and at the Osher Institute at Towson University. He serves on the board of the Baltimore Immigration Memorial, which opened a museum in Locust Point two years ago, chronicling Baltimore’s immigration history. We at the museum have welcomed visitors from the public at large, as well as from schools, colleges, universities, retirement communities and genealogical societies.

Upon registering, you will receive an email confirmation to request a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact Meghan Hudson (mhudson@aiabalt.com). If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.
