Baltimore Heritage

Join us and Luke McCusker of the Irish Railroad Workers Museum as we explore Henry McShane, his bell foundry and the churches where they were installed. His work was vital in the proclamation of religious freedom throughout America's cities and towns. By McShane’s death, his foundry had 1,000 employees. He and his workers had made and shipped over 200,000 bells, supplying 75% of the bells found in America’s churches. Ships and civic memorials also purchased bells from the firm. McShane is also credited with naming Dundalk, having established a factory there and naming it after Dundalk, Ireland where his father was born.

Along with its famous, architecturally distinguished churches, Baltimore retains many lesser-known but architecturally and socially interesting church buildings. Some are modest, simple structures, some are grander, and probably all of them have been ignored when we think about Baltimore's architectural heritage. If we stop to look at them, however, we see the evidence of Baltimore's spatial and population growth in the years before the Civil War. They tell a tale of geographic and social mobility, changing tastes, and even theological change. You can see all this, if you know what you're looking at.